Chicagoans will vote for the city’s first elected school board in November. So, in the coming months, Austin Weekly News will interview candidates in the 5th District — which covers ground from Fulton Market to Galewood, including Austin, Garfield Park and Lawndale — to learn more about who they are and their goals for Chicago Public Schools, especially those 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.
One of these candidates, Michilla “Kyla” Blaise, 52, lives in Garfield Park. She’s a fourth generation West Sider and chief of staff for Cook County Commissioner Frank J. Aguilar.
Blaise started thinking about running for the 5th District school board in spring. She said she was inspired by years of behind-the-scenes work at her jobs, her 13- and 15-year-old daughters — who will both attend Kenwood Academy High School in Hyde Park in the upcoming school year — and, most recently, the potential that comes with the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, who is an educator from the West Side.
“If there’s any time that we can maybe soak this traditionally divested community with resources, with money, with opportunity, this is it,” Blaise said.
She said she plans to advocate for just that, if elected to the school board. She brings with her decades of relevant experience.
Blaise has worked for Ald. Helen Shiller of the 46th Ward, served as an executive director at Judicial Accountability PAC and, for 12 years, ran political consulting firm Blaise and Associates.
As Shiller’s staff member, Blaise experienced the city and county budgeting processes. She said that background knowledge should come in handy when dealing with CPS’ $9.9 billion budget that was passed in July.
At her political consulting firm, Blaise coordinated campaigns and dealt with constituent issues, so she said she has good working relationships with some aldermen, state representatives and senators. She also honed her collaboration skills, a necessary component for a school board member to connect institutions and people around the city, she said. Collaboration is also a potential pathway to offer more programs to CPS students.
“I know for a fact that the county mostly works with suburban folks. But some of the programs they have, I think are really intriguing,” Blaise said – like those out of its public health department, which is one of the largest in the United States.
Blaise’s views on CPS and West Side schools
Blaise said she can point to several things that she thinks are working well in CPS. For one, its sustainable community schools, or hubs that serve as resource centers for the community after the school day is done.
“CPS is doing some of that now, realizing with the sustainable school model that bringing in some nonprofits and offering wraparound services is key,” Blaise said.
Another aspect about CPS that inspires Blaise is its work with curriculum development, specifically student-led curriculum so that children have a chance to learn what they’re interested in.
As a Grassroots Curriculum Task Force board member for two years, Blaise said she learned more about the educational system and what is taught in schools. She said the way that curriculum is learned has changed from when she was in school, when the model was to read a textbook, do homework, then take a test.
“We don’t have to do as much memorization as we used to. We have the whole entire world in our phones,” Blaise said. “I think it opens up a lot of opportunities to have better conversations about learning and about critical thought and about how one approaches questions, or life in general.”
But Blaise said she also sees where CPS can grow, for example, by improving special education services.
“It’s really hard for me to find a SpEd [special education] family that is happy with how their kid is being approached,” Blaise said. “I really do think people are trying hard to figure it out, but we haven’t and we need to think about it.”
Blaise recounted the story of one 5th District constituent, who told her about a time that she sat in with a young mother who was getting her child tested for special needs. The mother was alone in a room of a dozen experts talking at her, telling her what she needs to do next.
“My friend noticed that she was completely overwhelmed and cleared the room,” Blaise said. “And the woman just broke down.”
“If that’s the way they’re starting off this journey to get their kid what they want, it leads me to think that we have to think things through a little more and make sure that we are providing people with the best options for them.”
Considering the West Side, where she lives, Blaise mentions Rep. La Shawn Ford’s proposal for the construction of a new high school in Austin.
“I know there’s the need for a school that the kids can really be proud of,” Blaise said. “Anything’s feasible.”
“I don’t see it as dark as some do,” she added about the state of the West Side’s educational institutions. “I do think that there’s some empty buildings that we need to get rid of or transform or make relevant again,” she said of underpopulated schools on the West Side.
In order to ensure that schools on the West Side are receiving equitable funding compared to other schools, Blaise said the community needs bell ringers who call attention to the area and ask for resources and money.
She also stresses the need for visiting schools to get information from administration and families. Communicating effectively and continually with families, students and schools is what the elected school board is all about, Blaise said.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to load up that board with lots of people who care a lot about kids and families,” she said.