3 things at stake in Chicago’s school board election

Chicago’s first fully elected school board will shape spending, union contracts and charter schools.

All 21 seats on the Chicago Public Schools board are up for grabs this November.

The election will mark the transition from a partly elected, partly appointed school board to one that’s fully elected.

A fully elected board will give Chicago voters more say over what happens in the district.

That means there is more at stake this election. The district’s spending, the Chicago Teachers Union’s radical agenda and the status of public charter schools in the city are all on the line.

What the election means for Chicagoans’ tax dollars

Chicago school board members approve the district’s annual budget.

They also can raise property taxes on Chicagoans, which they have done for more than a decade.

Over that same decade, the board has have approved higher budgets even as CPS enrollment has declined.

Since 2010, state and local spending on CPS has nearly doubled, while enrollment has fallen by about 65,000 students, or 17%.

CPS began the 2026-2027 budget process with a projected $732.5 million deficit as expenses continued to outpace revenues. The board ultimately approved a record $10.11 billion budget that assumes an additional $150 million in state funding.

Recurring deficits are not new. Major state and local policy changes helped close a nearly $1.2 billion shortfall in 2016, but structural budget pressures persisted.

Federal pandemic relief helped CPS eliminate projected deficits from 2022 through 2024. After spending its final $233 million in pandemic aid in 2025, CPS relied again on spending reductions, debt restructuring and additional revenues to balance its budget. Similar measures were used to close a $734 million deficit in 2026.

As spending and property taxes continue to climb, this election gives Chicagoans an opportunity to shape the direction of their school district and how taxpayer dollars are used.

What the election means for CTU’s radical agenda

A core responsibility for Chicago school board members is to approve contracts, including those with unions. CTU is campaigning for its favored school board candidates, funding some of those who could have authority to approve or reject its contract demands.

As of Sept. 1, CTU had spent almost $236,000 on eight candidates it has endorsed for the first fully elected Chicago school board, with most of it going to a former CTU staffer running for districtwide board president. CTU deputy political director Hilario Dominguez, a former CPS special education teacher, got $207,293, or about 87%, of the money the union spent on board races as of Sept. 1.

By securing its own candidates on the school board, union leadership can try to get their contract demands met and push its radical agenda on Chicago families.

That appeared to be CTU’s plans in 2024. The union had big expectations after spending $2.3 million to get its lobbyist Brandon Johnson into the mayor’s office. Its subsequent contract demands included 700-plus provisions. In the end 150 of those demands were met.

Its demands, both met and unmet, reveal CTU’s radical agenda. Those demands included but were not limited to:

• Sustainable community schools: The contract mandates the addition of 50 sustainable community schools, CTU’s favored schooling model, which has some of the worst outcomes and highest costs in the district.
• Secrets from parents: The signed contract mandates a provision allowing the district to hide students’ preferred gender identity from parents, saying the district must “respect students’ privacy, especially if parents or family members do not know how students identify or express their identity.” Teachers “will not be required to reveal a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity without the student’s permission” unless necessary for health or safety emergencies or as required by law.
• No limits on locker room, bathroom usage: The contract mandates, “All students and staff are permitted to use the bathroom or locker room that corresponds to their gender identity,” with no limits on when male teachers or students can use female locker rooms or bathrooms.
• Carbon neutrality by 2035: CTU wanted the district to establish a carbon-neutral schools pilot program at five schools and develop a plan to be a fully carbon-neutral district by 2035.
• All-electric bus fleet: CTU wanted the board to implement a 100%-electric bus fleet, driven by unionized employee bus drivers.
• Cash to asylum seekers: CTU wanted $2,000 for each newcomer student.
• Creating dormitories for unaccompanied youth: CTU wanted the board and union to identify schools with vacant, unused floors, to be converted into dormitories for unaccompanied youth.

Regardless of a person’s political stance, those are not provisions that belong in a union contract. Instead, they are evidence of a union trying to avoid the democratic process, where those issues should be debated and decided by officials accountable to the voters after public input.

What the election means for families choosing Chicago’s charter schools

The Chicago Board of Education authorizes for CPS charter schools, giving board members authority over charter contracts, oversight and renewal decisions.

Those decisions have significant consequences for Chicago’s charter schools and the families who choose them.

State law allows charter schools to be renewed for up to 10-year terms. In 2025, the Chicago school board voted to renew all 21 charter schools, but the renewals ranged from just two to four years, creating instability among Chicago’s charter schools.

Charter school restrictions are also included in the most recent contract with CTU, approved by the board in April 2025. The contract mandates a moratorium restricting the number of charter schools in the city and setting a ceiling on their enrollment.

The agreement also includes a new provision to requiring the Board of Education to create “reabsorption guidelines” for converting charter schools back into district-run schools. That means charters disappear and the families using them will be pushed back into traditional public schools they had already decided weren’t right for their families.

The stakes for charter schools are especially relevant this election: CTU is campaigning for school board candidates who will have significant authority over the district’s charter schools, after it negotiated a contract that restricts the growth of charter schools and undermines their operation. It isn’t likely those candidates differ with CTU on charter school issues.

Chicago voters will choose the entire school board Nov. 3. With decisions over district spending and property taxes, labor contracts and CTU’s radical agenda, and charter schools at stake, Chicagoans now have a direct say in who makes them.

Order a Chicago ballot here.