The Road to Chicago's Elected School Board: How We Got to 2026
PEI Chicago Coalition 2024 candidate forum for elected school board
Until recently, Chicago was the only city in Illinois where families had no vote over who ran their public schools. That ends this November.
Since at least 2006, community groups pushed for a school board that Chicagoans could actually elect. Two non-binding ballot referenda, in 2012 and 2015, showed close to 90% of voters wanted the same right every other Illinois district already had.
It took 15 years of advocacy by many different organizations, institutions and coalitions, to become law. In March 2024, Governor Pritzker legislation by the Illinois General Assembly creating a fully elected Chicago school board (building on enabling legislation passed three years earlier). The plan phased in the change: a hybrid board first, then a fully elected board down the road.
2024 was the first step. That November, Chicago voters elected 10 school board members for the first time in the city's history. The mayor appointed the other members to fill out a 21-seat hybrid board.
This November, we finish the job. All 21 seats are on the ballot in November 2026, split across 20 districts plus a citywide board president seat. This is Chicago's first fully elected school board, full stop.
This is exactly why the Parent Engagement Institute Chicago Coalition (PEICC) exists. We are a coalition of Parent Mentor community organizations representing Chicago's largest network of neighborhood school parents. Our mission is clear: to ensure that every community is actively engaged and represented in Chicago's school board elections.
We built our 8 Pillars for the Chicago Elected School Board around what parents told us matters: equitable funding, real parent leadership, disability justice, whole-child learning, and safety that doesn't rely only on police. This election is our chance to put people in office who will act on them.
Get informed. Get registered. Get out and vote. Our schools, our future.
Thank you to: Chalkbeat, Illinois Families for Public Schools, WTTW, CBS-TV, and Chicago Public Media for links to your articles and news coverage highlighted in this post!
