As the November election approaches, the race is on for Chicago’s first elected school board.
Leading up to the election, Austin Weekly News will interview candidates from the school board’s 5th District, which covers Austin, Galewood, Garfield Park and Lawndale. These conversations will highlight candidates’ experience and their goals for CPS and its schools on the West Side.
What is an elected school board?
After about a decade of Chicagoans lobbying for an elected representative school board, come November, voters will choose 10 board members for the board.
The first election of its kind in Chicago follows legislation signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in 2021, which expanded the school board from seven members appointed by the mayor. In January, the new school board will have 21 members, just under half of which are elected by Chicago residents. Mayor Brandon Johnson will also appoint 10 members and a board president.
According to the Chicago Board of Education, the elected board will serve two-year terms and volunteer up to 30 hours a month, most of it spent at or preparing for board meetings. Meeting responsibilities include establishing district priorities, approving district policies, purchasing decisions, contracts and improvement plans.
“An elected school board will help students and their families have a strong voice in important decisions about the education system in Chicago,” Pritzker said in a statement.
The new school board will cover 10 districts, which are divided into two subdistricts. The mayor will appoint school board members in the subdistrict that the elected candidate doesn’t live in.
While the school board’s 5th District represents the 24th, 28th, 29th and 37th Wards, District 7 also covers parts of the 24th and 28th Ward. District 3 covers part of the 37th Ward, while District 1 covers part of the 29th Ward.
In the upcoming months, Austin Weekly News will profile candidates running in the 5th District: Aaron “Jitu” Brown, Michilla “Kyla” Blaise, Anthony Hargrove, Kernetha Jones and Jousef M. Shkoukani.
Anthony Hargrove, 41, decided to run for the 5th District school board about a year ago.
He lives in East Garfield Park and has worked in CPS for about 20 years, holding positions from volunteer to dean. He is currently the associate director of Breakthrough Beyond, a program for students that have stopped attending Chicago Public Schools.
“During the pandemic, approximately 40,000 kids dropped out of school,” said Hargrove, who is a third-generation educator and has four children who attended or are attending CPS.
At the start of the 2021 school year, CPS enrollment had declined by nearly 25,000 students since the start of the pandemic, Illinois Policy reported. And in the 2021 school year, 16,000 students stopped coming to school, according to WBEZ Chicago.
Breakthrough Beyond aims to re-engage these students to get them back in school, or to get their GED or into a trade program. It does this by giving resources, such as food and shelter, to students who have dropped out of CPS. Many of the program’s participants have their own kids, so Breakthrough Beyond provides child care. It also gives participants $250 weekly so they can pursue their education with fewer roadblocks.
“My belief is that we set low barriers for students and high expectations, and they will rise to the occasion,” Hargrove said. “That’s the reason I’m running.”
Hargrove, born and raised in Austin, started his career in education as a culinary instructor at Orr Academy High School, his alma mater. He then became dean at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood for about five years.
He was chief dean at John Marshall Metropolitan High School in East Garfield Park, where his mother went. There, he said he was in charge of training other deans, plus changing the culture of the school.
“We had a student shot on the steps, probably my first day,” Hargrove said. “We lost double-digit students that year.”
Hargrove helped navigate that heartbreak by bringing in community partners to help change staff and students’ outlook through restorative practices, plus “really believing in the kids and loving on the kids,” he said.
The following year, Hargrove said acts of violence at Marshall decreased by 60% and student attendance increased.
Hargrove then worked at Alcott Elementary School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood before becoming operations manager at Christian Fenger Academy High School in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. He transitioned to become dean at Jordan Community Elementary School, one of CPS’ most-northern schools. Finally, Hargrove served as compliance specialist for CPS’ north region, ensuring that area schools follow local, federal and state laws.
“I’ve seen the challenges and triumphs that students, teachers and administrators face every day,” Hargrove said. “I thought the board could use someone with the experience from the ground-level up.”
Goals for CPS and its West Side schools
As Hargrove has been campaigning for the 5th District school board, one of his hopes is that there will be more information for the community about the board’s role.
“The school board is responsible for basically one employee, and that’s the CEO,” Hargrove said. “They’re not in charge of the day-to-day operations of our schools.”
As for schools themselves, Hargrove said Chicagoans should create a new vision for education, “reimagining how we look at things, reimagining how we articulate our framework to kids about their future.”
This could look like preparing students for the workforce by facilitating access to trade unions or putting them on a track for an apprenticeship. Plus, Hargrove said, educators should be listening to the students to learn about what they want to do with their futures.
To gather student input, if elected, Hargrove will facilitate connections in a similar way to how he’s campaigning: visiting schools, plus hosting weekly and monthly town halls, both virtually and in-person.
“Once we get on these boards, once we become a part of these organizations or electives, we have to engage them the same way,” Hargrove said.
When asked about budget constraints and how West Side schools would receive equitable funding, Hargrove said there’s no easy answer.
CPS is experiencing a $500 million deficit. Though the Chicago Public School system has worked toward getting out of the red by restructuring its debt, plus cutting office staff and administrative costs, one can’t help but consider how that will affect CPS schools that are already underfunded and underpopulated.
CPS is on its way to addressing this inequity, as it has changed its budgeting model to allocate the same resources to all schools in the upcoming school year. CPS will give additional resources based on need, rather than on student enrollment, as it previously had.
Hargrove said a good place to start with addressing CPS’ budget would be to find places to cut back where there is overspending.
“You look at qualitative and quantitative data. We go in, we see what’s working, what’s not working,” Hargrove said. “What do we change without interrupting the quality of instruction for our students?”
More than 40 candidates are running for school board. Like many others, Hargrove’s nomination papers were challenged at the beginning of July. These challenges often center around technical issues of whether nominating signature requirements have been met. Those whose nominations have been challenged have convened with a hearing officer to go through their signatures.
Any candidate removed from the ballot can run for the school board in the November election as a write-in option.
Though Hargrove hopes it doesn’t come to that, he will pursue the write-in path if it means creating a better future for CPS students.
“I believe in our babies,” Hargrove said. “I believe they can accomplish anything. I believe that everything is possible for our kids.”