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This story was reported and published in collaboration with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.
With just three weeks until Election Day, the three candidates vying to become the first elected Chicago School Board president sharpened the choices for voters by offering up distinct views on a range of topics, from school ratings to potential school closings to dealing with the school district’s struggling finances, at a forum Wednesday sponsored by WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Chalkbeat Chicago.
And in a surprising show of unity, two of the candidates, Hilario Dominguez and Victor Henderson, accused their opponent Jessica Biggs of resurfacing controversies to harm both their campaigns. She denies the charge.
Here are four takeaways from the forum, which included questions from an audience of students from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep High School, a Chicago public school in Roseland.
Blame game on campaign controversies
Each candidate has baggage their opponents have called disqualifying, but on Wednesday, Henderson and Dominguez blamed Biggs for controversies that have followed their campaigns.
Dominguez, former deputy political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, has been in the spotlight after the CPS inspector general reopened an investigation into whether he behaved inappropriately with a 17-year-old in 2017 while working as a community organizer before becoming a teacher. Dominguez denies the allegations and has called them politically motivated.
After the forum taping, WBEZ confirmed that CPS’ inspector general closed the investigation. In a letter to Dominguez, the inspector general’s office said it determined that there is “no actionable finding of sexual misconduct.”
Meanwhile, Henderson, a defense attorney, has faced questions about corporal punishment after divorce papers came to light in which his ex-wife accused him of hitting his son. Henderson denies ever abusing his children.
Henderson accused Biggs’ campaign of surfacing the controversies.
“Information has come to me that Jessica Biggs is the person who’s trying to drag both me and Hilario through the mud,” Henderson said.
Biggs, a former CPS principal, denied the charge and said her opponents were trying to deflect difficult questions.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that men who have allegations around sexual harassment, around spousal abuse, domestic violence would choose to blame me for their infractions,” Biggs said. “It’s really disappointing that people can’t just take accountability for their actions.”
Biggs, who was fired from her position as a principal, has faced her own questions about being taken off the district’s “Do Not Hire” list. That came after she won a school board seat two years ago. Biggs has said her firing was unjust.
Different approaches on school closures
A moratorium on school closures expires at the end of this school year, and candidates diverge on how the district should handle schools with few students. Enrollment this year has dropped by 11,500 students to its lowest number in more than two decades.
Dominguez, a former special education teacher, is the only candidate who has committed not to close any schools and wants to extend the moratorium. He contends that closures disproportionately harm Black and brown students, and pointed to research showing that violence increased in areas around shuttered schools.
He favors repurposing space in underutilized schools for mental health clinics, food pantries, and other services. “I understand that there may be red tape and difficulties and obstacles in figuring out how to build these partnerships,” Dominguez said. “But those are the things that we work on as a school board president.”
In the candidate questionnaire, Henderson said he supports school closings as an “extraordinary last resort.” And on Wednesday, he said it doesn’t “necessarily make sense” to keep “all” the buildings open. He said the district can’t be afraid to discuss the matter when the moratorium expires. “That’s why CPS is in such dire shape, because they’ve avoided hard conversations,” he said. “You have to sit with the community, you have to figure it out.”
Biggs was a principal when there were mass closures in 2013 and said the impact was “exceptionally harmful” and long-lasting. She did not rule out closing schools but said the community needs to be involved in the decision-making process.
She said previous closures were made top-down and that if the district considers shutting down or consolidating schools, it needs to first develop a plan alongside the community on what to do with empty buildings.
“Anything that we’re building has to come from an express interest from people who are going to be using those spaces,” said Biggs, who now runs a program that brings healthcare and social services to Chicago public schools.
What’s the plan to fill CPS’ budget gaps?
On the campaign trail and in their platforms, Biggs and Henderson respectively stress financial stability and financial responsibility, whereas Dominguez is tightly focused on boosting CPS’ budget by bringing home more revenue from the state.
On Wednesday, all three were asked how they would handle a potentially looming budget crisis.
The current board approved a budget in July that counts on hundreds of millions from the state and city that aren’t guaranteed. If that money doesn’t come through this fall, that could mean a midyear budget freeze or potential layoffs. That would be at the top of the new president’s agenda when they take office in January.
Biggs voted against the measure that assumed CPS would get more state money, a decision she said she was “really proud of” during Wednesday’s forum. She cited her past experience as a CPS principal who faced layoffs and furloughs from the district as the reason why she wanted to take “a clear stance against assuming revenue that is not available to us.”
Henderson largely aligned with Biggs’ stance, saying CPS can’t “create a budget based on money that hasn’t arrived.” He also railed against raising property taxes each year to maximum, which CPS consistently does and Biggs has approved as a current board member. Dominguez said he supports the annual increase, and Biggs said she does not. Henderson said voters shouldn’t “pay another dime” without auditing CPS’ expenditures.
Dominguez differentiated himself from his opponents the most by praising the board’s choice to halt staff layoffs. He also mentioned his ongoing conversations with Springfield lawmakers about pledging additional money to CPS. He insisted that there are a variety of ways to generate more state revenue for schools, including millions from Meta’s recent multistate settlement on youth social media addiction and increasing taxes on the wealthiest Illinoisans.
Biggs and Dominguez both emphasized the need to continue fighting for more resources, with the latter referencing the city as another avenue to get extra funds. Henderson was the only candidate to mention funding cuts, which he specified he would “rather cut contracts than teachers.”
Money from special interests raises questions about influence over candidates
One major issue kept resurfacing throughout the forum: the role of outside money in the school board presidential race, specifically how it might influence a candidate once elected.
Henderson frequently referenced his largely self-funded campaign to establish himself as a candidate above the fray of special interest groups. He cast his opponents in a much different light: He accused them of being beholden to a “secret agenda.”
In Biggs’ case, Henderson referenced sizable campaign donations from Michael Sacks, a Democratic billionaire who previously advised former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And for Dominguez, his financial backing by the Chicago Teachers Union, which is almost exclusively financing his campaign, came under fire from Henderson as a potential conflict of interest in deciding future collective bargaining contracts — another responsibility of the board.
“I don’t want anybody pulling my strings like a puppet and telling me what to do,” Henderson said during the forum. “I don’t want any billionaires pulling my strings. I don’t want any powerful unions like the CTU or SEIU pulling my strings.”
Dominguez didn’t shy away from CTU’s support, saying “folks should be proud of having the support of those educators.” Dominguez also took a jab at Henderson, alleging that he had “wore that suit” when he asked for the union’s support earlier in the election cycle.
Taking a less combative approach, Biggs said the various donors to her campaign, which include Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council — a union for CPS support staff — prove her ability to organize a “diverse coalition.”
Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org. Emmanuel Camarillo is an education reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times. Contact Emmanuel at ecamarillo@suntimes.com.