Signs on the windows of Sandra Cisneros Elementary School in Brighton Park last week read “Save our schools.”
Outside, parents and children spoke Spanish into megaphones and marched around the block in protest of news that seven of 15 schools in the Acero Charter network would close next year. It made Gio Avila, a 10-year-old Cisneros student, cry.
“I’ve been going to this school since I was little,” Gio said. “And I still have grades to go.”
Gio’s mother, Alma Castruita, said Cisneros has been a cornerstone of the community since it opened in 2010. For Castruita, a case manager for Rincon Family Services, the closures are an example of Chicago’s city leaders’ deprioritization of Latino students.
Immigrant and advocacy groups are concerned about further inequity for Latino communities.
The school board has long been appointed by the mayor, and this year it will go from 7 to 21 members, with 10 elected by Chicagoans. Though November’s local election ostensibly presents an opportunity for more community voices in decision-making about Chicago schools, advocates say it leaves out non-citizen parents who cannot vote.
“Many parents sacrificed to come to this country so that their children could have a better education,” said Sylvia Puente, president and chief executive officer of the Latino Policy Forum. “It is, in effect, disenfranchising a substantial number of the parents of children in our schools.”
Voting for school board
Chicago Public Schools demographics have shifted over the past decade as Black families left Chicago and new immigrants arrived.
Students of color make up the vast majority — 90% — of the district: with 47% identifying as Hispanic (up from 44% in 2010), 35% as Black (down from 43% in 2010), 11% as white and 4.5% as Asian American, according to CPS data.
Because the majority of white students in the city go to private schools, CPS’ demographics are not in line with Chicago as a whole, which is about one-third white. Experts who study education policy therefore worry about a disconnect between the make-up of the student body and representation on the school board, which will be chosen by voters in 10 districts that were decided by state lawmakers.
In total,19 of the 31 candidates running for school board in November — about 60% – are people of color.
Three of the 10 voting districts are majority Latino. All of the candidates running in those districts are Latino, but no Latino candidates are running in the two districts that don’t have a majority race or ethnicity.
“Is it possible for a Latino candidate to be elected in a predominantly white district? It’s probably uncommon,” said Jessica Cañas, chief of community engagement for the group Kids First Chicago. “People tend to vote for the person or the candidates that look like them — that share their identities.”
Candidates in the majority-Latino voting districts say one of their biggest concerns is a lack of information about the election among voters.
To be eligible to run, candidates needed to file 1,000 valid signatures of registered voters living in their district.
“Unfortunately, throughout the whole petitioning process, I came across a lot of individuals who were not aware at all that this (election) was going on,” said Eva Villalobos, a candidate running for school board in the largely Latino Southwest Side’s District 7.
Non-citizen, immigrant parents in Villalobos’ district are barred from both running and voting for school board. Those parents felt “deflated” — like no “one is listening,” Villalobos said.
The law that put Chicago’s Board of Education on a timeline to transition from being appointed to elected does create “a Non-Citizen Advisory Board.” But there has been no discussion about what this body is, who will be appointed, or what happens if it isn’t created, said Cañas.
Telpochcalli Community Education Project in Little Village has been trying to get out the word about the changing school board and voting. Parents say they walk around to distribute resources to the community. One of their goals is to inform undocumented parents about what they can do, even if they can’t vote.
“As a volunteer, I educate my children to vote on behalf of those who cannot do so,” said Elia Patricia Gutierrez, whose youngest son is in his last year of high school.
Jacqueline Gongora, the mother of four CPS students, said she helped District 7 candidate Yesenia Lopez gather signatures. For years, she said, there was no consideration of bringing Spanish voices into board meetings. She joined Lopez’s campaign to change that, but she said many people were hesitant or confused about the new board.
“People don’t trust that this is a different board,” Gongora said. “They think the board is the same as before.”
Maria Serrano, a CPS parent of two who lives in Little Village, has volunteered with the district for years, and is undocumented. She’s spent years helping with her elementary school’s bilingual committee and other political action groups, she said.
“And now that I can’t vote to choose who will represent my voice, it’s not fair, it really isn’t. No es justo, no lo es,” she said.
Board meeting strife
A large number of speakers in the public comment section of a board meeting last Thursday spoke about the recently announced closures of seven Acero schools. About 85% of students in the schools closing are Latino, according to CPS data.
Acero said in a statement to the Tribune that the schools are closing due to insufficient funding, a lack of enrollment and inadequate spaces to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the reasons the schools are closing matter less to parents and students than what their educational options will be next near, as they face daunting decisions and a wall of unknowns.
At Thursday’s board meeting, Stephanie Gomez, a parent at Esmeraldo Santiago Elementary in Ukrainian Village, called on the board and CPS Chief Executive Officer Martinez to halt closures.
“CPS is aware of how traumatic school closings can be,” Gomez said. “Your responsibility is the well-being of your students, including mine and the rest of the kids in the school.”
CPS CEO Martinez, sitting on a panel with the board of education members Thursday, responded that he was also unaware of the closings and had just learned about them in mid-October, saying the district is “now in discussions to understand what is happening and understand challenges.”
Martinez is a Mexican immigrant himself who grew up in Pilsen and graduated from Benito Juarez High School. He has publicly lauded the gains Latino students have made in reading and math proficiency across the district, and the percentage of high school Latino students earning college credit while still in high school.
In mid-September, CPS released its five-year strategic plan, which commits to increasing opportunities for Latino students and English learners by pushing for multilingualism and improving neighborhood schools.
But as federal pandemic funding runs out, the schools’ chief is facing a budget crisis of hundreds of millions of dollars. He’s recently been heavily criticized by Mayor Brandon Johnson for refusing to have CPS take out a high-interest loan that Martinez thinks would be fiscally irresponsible. Instead, he’s proposed that the city provide CPS with more funding from surplus funds generated by tax-increment financing.
Johnson, who was propelled to office with union support, has threatened to fire CEO Martinez over the financial strife. The entire school board resigned at the beginning of this month instead instead of voting to fire — or keep — the schools’ chief.
Announcing his new appointees for the school board at a press conference on Oct. 7, the mayor said, “The most legitimate existence of anyone in this country is the legitimate existence of a Black man.” He continued to advocate for Black students, parents and teachers as reporters questioned his plans for school funding. He made no mention of Latino students.
By calling for more school resources for Black students, the mayor was effectively advocating for Latino communities, said Rocio Garcia, senior organizing director for Grassroots Cooperative.
“In Chicago and historically, when Black communities are oppressed, guess who’s next? Latino communities,” she said. “So when we center young Black children, we’re also centering other marginalized children.”
Garcia comes from an immigrant family and lives on the South Side. She has a 3-and-a-half-year-old whom she hopes to enroll in public school. Ultimately, Garcia supports the mayor’s funding priorities because she believes he is going against the status quo of de-prioritizing students of color and their families in Chicago, she said.
“I want my child to be in a dual language program that is fully funded,” she said. “Because my child’s native tongue is Spanish. … so when I take her to Puerto Rico, and when I take her to Mexico, she’s able to communicate with her grandparents and with her family.”
At the rally outside Cisneros Elementary last Wednesday, many parents hadn’t heard about Johnson’s plans to oust Martinez, they told the Tribune. They said they were more worried about their kids having to learn in crowded classrooms, make new friends and adjust to new environments in their schools than a change in administrative leadership.
Claudia Diaz, who came to Chicago from Mexico 30 years ago and has two children at the school, said she found out about the closings on TV.
“We need help. We need help from our leaders at the state,” she said. “Many parents here are doing everything they can so people will hear us.”
Molly Morrow contributed.
