Elecciones de la Junta de Educación de Chicago 2026: La carrera en el Distrito 4b

Chicago's 2026 School Board Election: District 4b Race Highlights

In the upcoming Chicago School Board election, Ellen Rosenfeld is running unopposed for the District 4b seat, which she secured in 2024 with a comfortable victory against five other candidates in a highly competitive race. Rosenfeld, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher and former community engagement specialist, is distancing herself from the significant spending by groups promoting her candidacy and the opposition from the teachers' union-backed candidate.

Since leaving her position at CPS' Family and Community Engagement department, Rosenfeld has dedicated her time to serving on the School Board. As part of a seven-member elected block, she has opposed appointed members and their allied elected members in the School Board, which form the majority. Rosenfeld argues that the current School Board has been overly political and too susceptible to external pressures.

However, she believes the newly formed Board, entirely composed of elected members, could spearhead an academic resurgence, addressing issues such as reading proficiency and chronic absenteeism.

The District 4b encompasses 18 schools, including several high-performing neighborhood schools, magnet schools, and a selective secondary magnet school, Lane Tech College Prep. Families in this area tend to choose their neighborhood schools more often than those in other districts, especially at the elementary level. While some schools in the district attract a diverse student population, Rosenfeld's district is predominantly white and higher-income compared to the overall CPS student body.

Rosenfeld has built relationships with school staff, the district, families, and students by holding regular public office hours and visiting around 60 schools, including some outside her district. She defends her voting record, including two related to the budget: one supporting a spending plan for 2025-26 without high-cost loans, and another opposing the current year's budget due to its reliance on state funds that have not yet been sent to CPS to avoid layoffs.

In the past, Rosenfeld sparked controversy with the School Board by voting against incorporating five Acero charter schools into the district, arguing that the district should not rescue struggling private-run public schools due to its own financial and enrollment challenges. Since then, some charter and contract school operators have cited her vote to argue that CPS could also rescue its schools.

Rosenfeld could face the teachers' union again over school closures, which she firmly opposes. She maintains that the School Board must address a decade-long enrollment decline, a trend projected to accelerate due to a sharp drop in birth rates. Rosenfeld stresses that the School Board should not ignore schools with severely underutilized capacity, where students receive a lower quality educational experience.

The district must learn from the "terrible" mass school closures of 2013 and start with genuine community engagement, potentially through a representative task force, to prevent further waste and dysfunction.