Cydney Wallace Appointed to District 8b

Plus, what federal chaos could mean for Chicago Public Schools.

Yesterday, Mayor Brandon Johnson named Cydney Wallace, a Black Jewish leader on police reform and mother of four from the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, as his appointee for Board of Education District 8b. A graduate of Bowen High School, Wallace later joined the Jewish social change organization Avodah as a Justice Fellow. In 2020, she was named one of the Jewish United Fund’s 36 Under 36 honorees.

She currently serves on the board of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA), a social justice organization founded during the Civil Rights Movement. According to JCUA, Wallace advocated strongly for the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), the civilian body created by City Council to advance police reform in Chicago. She also co-founded Kol Or, JCUA's Jews of Color caucus.

In 2023, Wallace joined about two dozen Black faith leaders from various religions on a trip to Israel and the West Bank organized by Rami Hashashaibi, executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. The Associated Press reported on the “Black Jerusalem” experience, which was cut short by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

All of Wallace’s children have attended CPS schools; her oldest graduated from the district last year. A press release from the mayor’s office described her as “a CPS parent, South Side native, dedicated wife and mother of four committed to uplifting her community. Her deep roots in Chicago fuel her passion for advocacy and equitable opportunities for families and students.”

Federal Ed Upheaval Affects Civil Rights Backstops, Data Tracking

The Trump administration's push to shrink the Department of Education, reorient school districts away from diversity, equity, and inclusion, and stop protecting students' civil rights has sparked dismay and confusion among educators across the country. Today's Board Rule focuses primarily on clear impacts that have already been felt, though we'll look at the recent Dear Colleague letter to school and university leaders, which Chicago Board of Education members are already examining.

Let's start with civil rights. Education Week reports that since President Trump took office, more than a dozen staffers from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights have been let go. At the same time, the remaining staff have been ordered to stop investigating alleged civil rights violations at schools and colleges. I took a look in the OCR database and found 18 active complaints against Chicago Public Schools. Half of them involved students with disabilities who were denied services or were not in classroom environments that guaranteed their right to a "free and appropriate public education." Most of the other complaints alleged racial harassment. Note: the database has not been updated since January 14, before Trump took office.

As former CPS CEO and former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told Education Week, when students and families file a complaint with OCR, it's because they have exhausted all recourse at the district and state levels. Duncan described OCR as "the court of last resort." It appears CPS families have already lost this federal backstop to push for redress when their efforts to get help from the district go nowhere.

At the same time, ProPublica reports that OCR has opened 20 new investigations not in response to complaints, but ordered by Trump. They include investigations of an all-gender restroom at a Denver public school and high school athletic programs in California and Minnesota that have said they will keep girls' sports open to transgender girls. The nominee to lead OCR is Kimberly Richey, who briefly served as acting head of the agency during the first Trump administration.

Cuts. Uncertainty continues over whether the entire Department of Education will be eliminated. The Trump administration appears to be seeking a smaller, more ideologically-focused department. Although the president can't eliminate an entire federal department without the support of Congress, Trump could have its work farmed out to other federal departments or try to kneecap it through budget cuts.

Here's what we already know: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken an ax to the Institute for Education Sciences, the arm of the department that manages data. Nearly $900 million in external contracts have been stopped. U.S. participation in international assessments of academic proficiency, like the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), has been canceled. The Hechinger Report's Jill Barshay has a must-read column on what all this means for evaluations of efforts to improve teaching and learning.

Chicago could be relatively well-insulated from the effects of this assault on national data and research thanks to its groundbreaking, longstanding partnership with the UChicago Consortium on School Research. As the search begins for a new district leader, board members may want to ensure candidates, especially external candidates, have a full commitment to maintaining the data-sharing partnership that allows researchers broad access to data that has informed much of the district's improvement work, most notably Freshman On-Track.

DEI. Yesterday, the Department of Education announced it was ending $600 million in grants for "divisive" teacher-training programs. "Many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race." It's possible recruiting programs under the umbrella of Teach Chicago are being affected. I hope to have more on this in a future newsletter.

Last Friday, the department released a Dear Colleague letter telling school and university leaders they have until March 1 to halt all programs using "race as a factor" in admissions, hiring, training, and more. Starting in March, the department will open investigations into schools and universities that don't comply, and they risk losing federal funding. Much of the discussion of the order has focused on the possible impacts in higher education admissions. However, because the letter also argues that "relying on non-racial information as a proxy for race, and making decisions based on that information, violates the law," I'm wondering whether Chicago's selective enrollment admissions policy could come under investigation. At this stage of the game, EducationWeek's recent article quoting expert lawyers advising districts to review the letter carefully with their counsel seems on point.

Next Week: We'll be digging into the details of the School Board Partners Fellowship that board members Carlos Rivas (3b) and Ellen Rosenfeld (4b) are starting. We'll also examine how elected board members are trying to shake up business as usual between district staff and the board. And of course, we'll give you a preview of the agenda coming before the board at next Thursday's meeting.