CPS Parents, Teachers Push For Elected School Boards
(CBS) -- The number of school closings in Chicago is leading some to say the city needs an elected school board.
WBBM's Cisco Cotto reports about three dozen students, parents, teachers and union representatives showed up outside McNair Elementary School Monday morning. They announced an effort to get a referendum on the February ballot demanding an elected school board.
Chicago Board of Education members have been appointed by the mayor for nearly two decades.
"The school board will consist of invested members of the community, educators, parents, community members that are actually affected by what's going on in school and who better to know how to educate your children than the people who are actually in the neighborhood?" said Erayna Jackson, who has a child at Kenwood High School.
Getting an elected school board would take a change in state law so the referendum would only let the mayor know how many people are in favor of the change.