CPS School Board: The race in the South Side’s District 10

School board District 10 has the biggest celebrity in the race, but he is joined by other heavy-hitters — a Harvard education consultant, a workforce development expert and an activist pastor who went on a hunger strike to save a school.

District 10 starts at 26th Street and stretches along Lake Michigan to the city’s southern border. The candidates emphasize the insight they've gained from their experiences as professionals, but they also have personal reasons for running.

When Karin Norington-Reaves is on the campaign trail, she talks about running the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership and the need for more career and technical training in schools.

But her passion comes from advocating for her daughter, who is blind and wakes at 5:30 a.m. to travel from Chatham to a North Side school that can accommodate her. She calls the CPS special education system “Byzantine.”

“My daughter was born without eyes, but not without a brain,” Norington-Reaves said at a recent forum. “She deserves to be able to go to a top-notch school that's going to meet her where she is, address the accommodations she needs and watch her soar and thrive.”

Robert Jones, a pastor at Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Bronzeville, took part in a 34-day hunger strike to keep Dyett High School open in 2015. He’s also been involved in other fights for South Side institutions, including saving Mercy Hospital. He has four children who attended school in East St. Louis.

Norington-Reaves is supported by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and endorsed by Urban Center Action, an anti-CTU independent expenditure organization. Jones is endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and other progressive organizations.

The 10th District’s two independent candidates are Che “Rhymefest” Smith and Adam Parrott-Sheffer. Rosita Chotonda is running as a write-in.

Smith, a well-known rap artist and producer, has financed much of his campaign. He and his son went to Chicago public schools. Smith said his CPS mentors helped inspire him to become an artist.

“I stayed in the community and brought back what was given to me by my teachers,” said Smith, who lives in his great-grandmother’s bungalow in Chatham.

Adam Parrott-Sheffer lives in Hyde Park. He was a principal at a North Side elementary school in the early 2010s and confronted budget challenges. At a forum, he said he learned how to keep cuts from hurting kids. Now he works as an educational consultant. He has two sons in CPS.

School types and choice

Jones and Smith said they oppose publicly funded, privately managed charter schools as an option in our questionnaire. But at forums, they said they were OK with existing charters staying open. Jones said he sees the school ecosystem as a fabric, and that there are many parts of the fabric, including charters.

“I would support existing charters that treat students, teachers and staff respectfully and are meeting the needs of the students,” Jones wrote.

Smith said some charters will push out students who aren’t at a certain grade-point average or have behavioral issues, leaving neighborhood schools to grapple with these students. Also, he doesn’t like that money from charter school operators is pouring into this election.

“When we have charter school people who are flooding our political candidates with money bombs in our neighborhood to control policy, I find that to be problematic,” Smith said at a forum hosted by Chalkbeat.

Norington-Reaves, a recipient of charter school money, believes who runs a school is not as important as the quality of education it offers.

“We need a variety of schools to meet the variety of needs that our kids have,” she said. She pointed to unique charter schools, such as Betty Shabazz International Charter, which provides an Afrocentric education and “gives children an opportunity to learn about themselves and to come out of that school with a sense of self that flies in the face of what society generally teaches.”

Parrott-Sheffer also supports charter schools as an option. But he wants to see neighborhood schools become so appealing that parents are “knocking down doors” to get their children a seat. “It shouldn’t be to close existing schools, regardless of governance models, and to tell families that we know more about what is right for their child than they do,” he said.

Parrott-Sheffer and Norington-Reaves also said CPS should expand magnet and selective enrollment schools or at least create more specialty programs inside schools. Parrott-Sheffer said any student who wants the challenge and can handle it should have access to these programs.

CPS budget and leadership

Parrott-Sheffer publicly pledged in a LinkedIn post support for CPS CEO Pedro Martinez. This came as it became clear the mayor’s office wanted Martinez replaced. The CEO and the mayor remain in a standoff over how to address a budget shortfall.

Martinez recently said he wants the mayor to provide $462 million from special taxing districts called TIFs. The mayor has said he will provide as much as he can from TIFs, but that CPS may need to borrow — an idea Martinez has rejected as fiscally irresponsible.

On LinkedIn, Parrott-Sheffer wrote, “It is important we have an adult in the room who rejects pressure to take on high-interest loans that would ruin our city. We can’t sell out our future because we don’t have the courage to face hard truths now.”

Smith said he is not in a position to make a call on Martinez or the loan. Without knowing all the details, he said it would be irresponsible for him to have already decided.

Though Jones is endorsed by the CTU, which is aligned with Johnson, he said he needs to evaluate Martinez before making a decision and he opposes a loan. At a forum, he recommended an audit of CPS’ budget and said the board needs to “prepare to make tough decisions as it relates to expenditures. You can’t just print out money,” Jones said.

Norington-Reaves said she would not remove Martinez because the move to replace him is not based on his actual job performance. She also said that not enough attention is being paid to decreasing expenditures. “Where can we cut fat?” she asked at a candidate forum.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.