Two additional Board of Election races were called Friday morning, rounding out the unofficial results of the city’s historic vote to elect ten members to the 21-person body that will begin overseeing Chicago’s public school system in January.
Retired school psychologist Therese Boyle was declared the winner in District 9 on the far South Side and, in neighboring District 10 representing lakefront neighborhoods from Bronzeville to the East Side, Che “Rhymefest” Smith maintained his lead over attorney Karin Norington-Reaves.
The election had become a heated contest between Chicago Teachers Union-backed candidates and those aligned with pro-charter school groups. But CTU won just four out of 10 races, including one that was uncontested, and school choice proponents’ favored candidates won three.
Boyle and Smith are among three candidates who rose victorious with independent agendas — not aligned with either dominant interest group. But under state law that allows Mayor Brandon Johnson to appoint 11 school board members after the election, his future picks for the board could align with the CTU, which buoyed him to power and include the six appointees he named last month.
With the winners of seven districts determined within hours after polls closed Tuesday, and District 1 candidate Jennifer Custer declaring victory in the final race on the Northwest Side yet to be called, the slate of elected members appears to be settled. Michelle Pierre, who’s trailing Custer by around 3,000 votes, said that while she’s waiting to see the final tally after mail-in votes are counted, she doesn’t expect the outcome of the race to change.
Some candidates, however, questioned the fairness of the school board election. Norington-Reaves in District 10, who lost to Smith by 2,235 votes — out of over 73,000 people who cast ballots in that district split between four candidates — said she will be pursuing legal action. Multiple voters contacted her on election day to express frustration that they had been given the wrong ballot and she filed multiple complaints to the Chicago Board of Elections, she said.
The 10 districts drawn by state lawmakers for the city’s first school board election in decades were large and diverse, stretching across multiple wards.
“This is the direct product of … poor training for the election judges,” said Norington-Reaves. “This isn’t about sour grapes. We want to have fair, transparent elections.”
A spokesperson for the Chicago elections board did not immediately respond to comment Friday morning.
Mayoral appointments may alter the balance of power
The school board will be tasked with several important responsibilities such as setting the district’s vision and budget. But a public spat over the latter, which put CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s job on the line, drew increased attention to the election. Several weeks of tumult between Chicago Public Schools leaders and the mayor, a teacher and former CTU organizer, preceded Tuesday’s vote. Last month, the board resigned en masse.
Decisions the new Board is expected to make include a vote on CTU’s next contract, as well as a budget amendment to fund both the new collective bargaining agreement and a contentious pension payment — as CPS faces a projected deficit of around $500 million in each of the next five years.
The ten candidates chosen by voters will join an additional 11 appointees that Mayor Brandon Johnson must name by December 16, according to state law. Both they and the elected members will serve two-year terms through January 2027.
Johnson’s appointments will include a Board President, with voting rights to break ties, and each member, except the President, must hail from the opposite side of the district from their elected counterparts.
The six sitting Board members Johnson appointed last month appear to meet that stipulation, with the exception of current Vice President Mary Russell Gardner, who could still be retained if appointed President.
Three CTU-endorsed candidates who lost appear to be eligible as well, including District 6 candidate Anusha Thotakura — defeated by former CPS principal Jessica Biggs. Like the two winners called Friday, Biggs won the district, which encompasses the Near North and Near South sides, with neither the union endorsement nor the support of school choice proponents who frequently oppose its agenda.
The election became a referendum on public education in Chicago, said Constance Mixon, director of the urban studies program at Elmhurst University. But with the mayor still appointing a majority of members, she worried about the board being representative of the public it is supposed to serve. She said CTU “has strength in numbers.”
“There’s been so much turnover, particularly in the CEO position at CPS. I think a lot of voters are just looking for some sort of stability,” Mixon said.
Friday morning, Smith expressed gratitude to everyone who ran in District 10 for making him a better candidate. He said he wasn’t concerned about how many candidates on the full 21-member board would be CTU-backed or separate in ideology from the powerful teachers union.
“I don’t know what we’re going to be facing until I can look at the data in front of me,” Smith said. “I always thought it was a bit irresponsible for candidates to comment on things that we don’t have the information on.”
Having officially secured a coveted seat on the city’s school board, Biggs said she’s excited to sit down with fellow board members and understand exactly where their “interests and motivations” lie following the hotly contested race.
Boyle, the District 9 winner, is a CTU member who did not seek the union’s endorsement, after opposing its current leadership in a prior union election, on a slate that decisively lost.
While Boyle expects dissent from the union to be scarce on the incoming Board, she thinks her win reflects “a perfect storm” of voters’ alarm over Johnson’s quarrel with CPS leaders that began in the summer, and displeasure with the property tax hike he proposed since.
Beginning in 2026, voters will elect all 21 board members. The results of this year’s election represent the start of a new era of “direct accountability to the voters,” said University of Texas at Austin Associate Professor Rachel White, who researches public school governance.
“The ones that will be now sitting at the table, will be ones that answer to the people,” she said of the incoming members.
As the balance of power in the meanwhile remains to be seen, Boyle said she’s preparing to devote everything to the role, come what may.
“I would put my whole self into it,” she said, estimating that she worked in 40 schools in her district before retiring. “I’m invested in it.”
The Tribune’s Ikram Mohamed contributed.
