The race for Chicago’s first fully elected school board will field 51 candidates vying for 21 seats, featuring a broad slate of incumbents, political newcomers and parents.
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The weeklong window to submit nomination papers ended Tuesday, with final-day signature submissions from more than two dozen candidates.
Chicago Teachers Union political director Hilario Domínguez was among Tuesday’s filers, joining four other contenders seeking the at-large board president role. He smiled as he carried a cardboard box with nearly 9,000 signatures, accompanied by his wife and his 1-year-old son, Benito.
“It’s a historic moment,” Domínguez said after filing. “I stand on the shoulders of moms, organizers who have been fighting years for this moment, so I take it very seriously.”
Sitting board members Jessica Biggs and Jennifer Custer, former board appointee Sendhil Revuluri and business attorney Victor Henderson filed to run for president last week.
The Chicago Board of Education is undergoing a two-year transition toward a fully elected body, with 10 elected members and 11 appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. This year — with all 21 seats on the ballot — November’s election is poised to be one of the largest school board races in the country.
Still, the 51-candidate field is relatively small compared with the last election cycle. In 2024, 47 candidates filed to run for half as many seats.
Outside of the board president race, all districts have between one to three candidates. All incumbent board members have filed to run.
Appointed incumbent Angel Vélez, who represents District 9A on the South Side, was first in line to file Tuesday morning. He said it had been a challenge to gather signatures while juggling personal and professional responsibilities, in addition to his work on the board.
“My wife can attest to this, I go to sleep at 1, 2 a.m. almost every day, because you have to read hundreds of pages, you have to ensure that the policies that you pass make sense for the communities that you represent,” Vélez said.
Candidate Brenda Lee Anderson, a teaching and research faculty member at Northwestern University, noted that a key challenge has been persuading those without children in Chicago Public Schools that the school board is worth their attention. Anderson herself isn’t a parent, but said that she is running because of the importance of effective local government.
“It’s not about just having children, it’s about our commitment to making sure that when we put our dollars into great schools, we also see the return, because this is the next generation,” said Anderson, who is seeking to represent District 6A on the Near North Side.
Top of mind for many board hopefuls were CPS budget cuts and the district’s looming $732 million deficit. For the Rev. Michael Neal, it largely crystallized his run. Neal, the senior pastor at the Glorious Light Church in the Kenwood neighborhood, is seeking the seat for District 6B, which stretches from the Loop to Englewood.
“Oftentimes, there are decisions made for the community without the community’s input, and so me being established in the community, I can make sure that the community voice is heard,” Neal said.
Still, a spot on the ballot is not guaranteed. Prospective candidates will likely face objections, a ballot process where the legitimacy of signatures is formally challenged. Objections must be filed within a week, and the Chicago Electoral Board will meet in early June to hear and rule upon those challenges.
The often convoluted petition process is often regarded as a blood sport in Illinois. During the 2024 school board elections, more than half of board candidates faced objections, and more than a dozen
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ultimately dropped out.This story has been updated to correct Brenda Lee Anderson’s title.