Chicago has another important election in April for local school councils, a force for parent empowerment

The primary election is over but there’s another race next month in Chicago on report card pick-up day.

Like many Chicago Public Schools parents, months ago I received a flier in my daughter’s bookbag about local school council elections. Our elementary school is in better shape than some others in the district. Enough parents and community members are running.

Not all volunteer LSC seats get filled — despite recruitment efforts, public engagement sessions and public service announcements. According to CPS, about 20% of seats are vacant. Officials predict for the upcoming 2024-26 term, 82% of the seats will be filled.

LSCs act as mini-school boards and are composed of parents, teachers and neighbors. They have the power to hire and fire principals, take actions to support academic progress, and approve budgets. The creation of LSCs goes back to the reform movement under the late Mayor Harold Washington. In 1989, the first LSC election was held; 17,256 people ran for seats and 6,000 were elected. LSCs received a lot of attention then for empowering parents and being a unique tool of democracy in the nation.

My father served on the very first LSC at Jane A. Neil Elementary two blocks away from our home in the Chatham neighborhood. He recently told me he ran because he wanted to improve education at the school and provide account ability. I was in seventh grade at the time at Morgan Park High School. That same year, the LSC fired the white principal. A melee ensued as students and police clashed. LSCs flexed their power throughout Chicago.

Long hours, but power to make schools better

Chinella Robinson is an LSC parent organizer for the advocacy group Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education. As an organizer, she encourages parents to run for LSC, is a sounding board for questions and will sit in on a meeting at a parent’s request if there are budget questions. She said it’s hard to get people to run. For starters, there’s the time commitment.

“I do think it is unfair that you are an elected official but not getting paid…to want parents to take time out of their day. But some of these LSC meetings can go two or three hours,” Robinson said. During the pandemic, LSC meetings pivoted to virtual. Now they are in person, which can limit participation and engagement among busy parents.

Robinson spent three years on the Walter Dyett High School for the Arts LSC — a school that, by the way, reopened due to a hunger strike and activism with nearby LSC members. She’s currently running for parent LSC positions at Kenwood Academy High School and Bret Harte Elementary School.

“The fact [is] that it takes all of us to make sure the school is running at its best, it takes the administration, parents and community. And making sure the kids get the world class education they deserve,” Robinson said.

Robinson emphasizes the power that LSCs hold over budgets and school improvement plans.

“Is there something in your school you’re not happy with? Old textbooks or not enough toilet paper?” she said. “LSCs can help create change to get the school what they need. I say your voice matters. I’ve come across parents who feel like they don’t matter and can’t make change.”

I asked Pauline Lipman, an education professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who has long studied LSCs, about the challenges in recruiting people to run for election. She pointed to the demobilization of parents and communities.

“The disinvestment of neighborhood schools and the establishment of choice and markets in education has really disconnected people from their neighborhood schools,” Lipman said.

Selective enrollment schools are emphasized in the district and they draw students from outside neighborhood boundaries. Charter schools don’t have LSCs. So t-he attachment to neighborhood schools has waned, she said.

Lipman also said accountability policies in the late 1990s disempowered some LSCs. Schools on probation were given a strict set of parameters about what LSCs could and could not do. Currently, 62 schools are on probation, and 30 of the LSCs do not have final approval on the improvement plans and budget, according to CPS. And 13 of those schools do not have full authority in selecting the principal.

“When we have engaged communities connected with neighborhood schools about real issues, then people can engage at the level of policy,” Lipman said.

And that, she said, can lead to addressing equity and racial justice in our city’s public schools.

Let’s hope the voter turnout is better than Tuesday’s primary.

Natalie Y. Moore is the Race, Class and Communities Editor at WBEZ. She writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com