The four candidates for Chicago school board president spent their first televised town hall mapping out competing priorities for Chicago Public Schools, a mostly polite, policy-focused affair that offered few surprises for voters already familiar with the race.
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Current board member Jessica Biggs, former Chicago Teachers Union organizer Hilario Dominguez, trial attorney Victor Henderson and former board appointee Sendhil Revuluri are all vying for the top seat of CPS’ governing body in the November election.
The town hall, hosted by WTTW and moderated by “Chicago Tonight” anchor Brandis Friedman, gave candidates the chance to weigh in on a broad set of issues facing CPS before a live studio audience. Some attendees posed their own questions to the board hopefuls.
“Me and my peers are impacted by every decision that the school board makes … Why should I trust that you will act in my best interest and my peers’ best interest?” asked Vaughn Webster, a 17-year-old senior at Ogden International High School in West Town.
Dominguez, a former political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, pointed to his own experience as a CPS high school student when he staged a walkout to protest budget cuts. “I expect you all to walk out and protest if you think you have to, and meet me at the door, and hold me accountable,” he said.
Henderson also chimed in. “You can’t be a spectator in democracy, you have to be an active participant,” he said.
The board president will play a major role in shaping CPS policy, in part by deciding what goes up for vote. Those votes can range from routine contracts to the district’s billion-dollar budget — and even school closures. The position is the only seat on the board representing the entire city. Incumbent Sean Harden, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, is not running for reelection.
On the campaign trail, Biggs has leaned on her community ties as a former CPS principal; Dominguez has echoed the progressive politics of CTU leadership; Henderson has sought to bill himself as an independent outsider; and Revuluri has spoken to his past experience as board vice president.
Biggs is endorsed by SEIU, which represents support staff in CPS, while Dominguez is backed by CTU. Those endorsements carry significant weight because of the resources and boots-on-the-ground organizing of the district’s two largest labor unions.
Much of the town hall focused on the district’s beleaguered finances. Only Dominguez has come out in support of the district’s $10.11 billion budget, which banks on $150 million in unconfirmed state funding to avert layoffs. CTU-aligned members who voted in favor argued the move is a pressure tactic to force Springfield to act and ease cuts to schools.
But critics — including Biggs, Henderson and Revuluri — argue the move left CPS vulnerable to midyear cuts if the money doesn’t materialize. “I’m really proud to have stood against both the amendment and the amended budget because we simply cannot move forward and operate on money that does not exist,” Biggs said.
Personal records come under scrutiny
The town hall grew more pointed when candidates were pressed on their personal histories. Henderson addressed a 2011 divorce filing, first reported by NBC 5 Chicago last month, in which his ex-wife accused him of physically abusing one of their sons. A judge ordered him not to engage in corporal punishment.
“I love my children. I embraced them … And when it was necessary for me to have guardrails because my kids weren’t doing the things that they should have done, then I did that with love,” Henderson said.
He went on: “Those allegations were probably pulled by somebody on this stage to kind of rip me down and to try to drag me through the mud.”
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Revuluri and Dominguez, meanwhile, traded barbs over a state finance complaint filed by Revuluri’s campaign. The complaint alleged that Dominguez’s most recent campaign finance filings “cannot be accurate” because he had not yet reported any spending or contributions. Dominguez noted that the complaint has since been withdrawn.
“Our campaign has been fully in compliance from the beginning … Sendhil’s camp pulled that complaint and withdrew it, because it was baseless, and it was just a way to garner attention,” Dominguez said.
But Revuluri fired back, arguing the complaint was withdrawn only because his campaign learned the Illinois State Board of Elections would not address it until late October.
“Honestly, we have better things to do,” Revuluri said. “So, we appreciate that belatedly the campaign and a very experienced political operative decided to comply with rules.”
Dominguez countered that “the desperation is loud.”
Biggs, too, was pressed on her record as a principal at Burke Elementary in Washington Park, where she was abruptly fired in 2018 and placed on the do-not-hire list for allegedly altering attendance data. She has argued that her termination was politically motivated after she protested changes to her school’s custodial contracts.
Her do-not-hire designation was removed last year by an outside counsel after she was elected to the board. “There were allegations around minor, bureaucratic issues, and I have always said that this was unjust,” Biggs said.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle candidates will face in November is turning out voters in a down-ballot race. Several of their campaigns have released internal polls, but there’s no clear frontrunner. The only consensus is that the vast majority of voters remain undecided.
As he left the studio, retired police officer Josue Ortiz, 63, said he was still split between multiple candidates. “I kind of want to hear more about taxes. That was a question floating around in my family conversations,” said the Logan Square resident.
CPS parent Brenda Rivera, whose 16-year-old attends Lincoln Park High School, had picked a candidate prior to the event, but left the building feeling torn. “It’s like you learn something, and then you change,” she said. “But it’s democracy, and parents have to be involved if we want a better future.”