If you ask most Chicago high school students what the Chicago School Board does, you’ll probably get one of two answers:
- “Something with budgets.”
- “Wait… we have a school board?”
Which is kind of the problem.
The Chicago Board of Education technically oversees Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest school district in the United States. The board makes decisions about policies, leadership, and spending that affect hundreds of thousands of students.
In theory, that means they’re shaping everything from classroom resources to after-school programs to the future of education in the city.
In reality? From a student’s perspective, it can sometimes feel like decisions about our lives are happening in a building somewhere downtown while we’re busy trying to pass chemistry.
Recently, the board made headlines again because Vice President Olga Bautista announced she is stepping down from the board.
Bautista, a longtime community organizer and environmental justice advocate, said she’s stepping away after receiving a sabbatical award that will allow her time for rest and reflection.
She had been appointed to the board in 2024 by Mayor Brandon Johnson, during a period of major turbulence when the previous board resigned amid conflicts about district funding and leadership.
So yeah… the Chicago school board has had a bit of drama.
Actually, “a bit” might be an understatement.
In the past few years, the board has dealt with leadership shakeups, fights over the district budget, and the firing of the district’s CEO.
Meanwhile, students are sitting in classrooms wondering things like:
Why are our after-school programs disappearing?
Why does the Wi-Fi barely work?
Why is the bathroom locked again?
None of these questions usually make it into a policy meeting agenda.
From the outside, school board meetings can look like a very serious game of political chess—lots of speeches, lots of votes, lots of complicated financial terms. But if you’re a teenager sitting in a classroom on the South Side or West Side, what matters is a lot simpler:
Do we have the resources we need to learn?
Do we have programs that help us figure out our future?
Do the people making decisions actually understand what school feels like today?
Because here’s the thing: teenagers are not mysterious creatures.
We want opportunities. We want creative programs. We want teachers who aren’t exhausted. We want spaces to learn skills that actually matter in the real world—technology, design, engineering, entrepreneurship.
And sometimes it feels like the board is debating the structure of the ship while students are just trying to make sure it’s actually going somewhere.
To be fair, school board members do care about education. Many of them come from community organizing, teaching, or public service backgrounds. Bautista herself has spent years advocating for community and environmental justice and even has children in the district.
But caring about schools and understanding the daily student experience are not always the same thing.
And that gap is where frustration grows.
The good news is that Chicago is moving toward a fully elected school board by 2027, which could give communities more direct influence over who represents them.
That’s a start.
But if the city really wants to improve the system, here’s a radical idea:
Give students a seat at the table.
Not symbolic student speakers who get two minutes at a microphone. Real student advisory councils with voting input on programs, technology, and school climate.
Because if the goal of the Chicago school board is to make decisions that work for students…
It might help to occasionally ask the students.