Same CEO, new board staff and leadership for Chicago Public Schools

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday introduced her picks for the Chicago Public Schools board. Behind her are (from left) Sendhil Revuluri, Luisiana Meléndez, Elizabeth Todd-Breland, Miguel del Valle, Dwayne Truss, Amy Rome and Lucino Sotelo.

Lightfoot also said CPS CEO Janice Jackson will stay on ‘for the long term.’

Former city clerk and mayoral candidate Miguel del Valle was officially named Monday by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to lead the Chicago Board of Education.

“It’s not a tough assignment. It’s a great assignment,” del Valle said Monday.

“I want everybody to be vocal,” he added. “I’m a believer in wrap-around services and neighborhood schools.”

Del Valle’s appointment was first reported last week by the Chicago Sun-Times.

He said Monday the mayor does not want a rubber-stamp board, and Lightfoot echoed that sentiment.

“A mayor has to have skin in the game, of course. But it’s going to be a collaborative relationship, not a dictatorship,” Lightfoot said.

“The first thing we’re gonna do is, the majority of the work the school board does is gonna have to be in the public. The days where everything was done in executive session and then they come out and take a vote, that’s over,” Lightfoot said.

“Every single one of the member we’re proposing understands that transparency is the cornerstone of legitimacy. You can’t have legitimacy when you do everything in secret.”

The new mayor also named the rest of the board that oversees the Chicago Public Schools. And she announced CEO Janice Jackson would stay on “for the long term.”

“There’s not a question you can ask that she can’t answer — with data points” to back it up, Lightfoot said at the news conference announcing the new board, held at Lionel Hampton Fine & Performing Arts School, 3434 W. 77th St.

As is tradition, school board members resigned at their first meeting after Lightfoot was sworn in.

Here’s the rest of the board:

• Sendhil Revuluri, board vice president, is a Chicago native and and former parent member of the Local School Council of Suder Montessori Magnet Elementary School. He also worked in the CPS Office of High School Teaching and Learning. He is managing director of strategic investment at PEAK6 Capital Management, a Chicago options trading firm.
• Dwayne Truss, a CPS grad and state tax auditor who recently ran unsuccessfully for alderman of the 29th Ward. He served on several Local School Councils and is a former board member of Raise Your Hand Illinois.
• Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a history professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago Public Schools parent and member of the Local School Council at a Kenwood CPS school. Todd-Breland also is the author of “A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s,” published in 2018.
• Lucino Sotelo, a Chicago Public Schools graduate and parent of two CPS students. He is now chief marketing officer for KemperSports Management and previously served as an executive board member for City Year Chicago.
• Luisiana Melendez, a professor at the Erikson Institute early childhood teacher training center. A recent Erikson report highlighted gaps in early education.
• Amy Rome, a former teacher and principal of National Teachers Academy. CPS officials last year had backed off a controversial plan to convert the academy to a high school. Rome is now president of the Leading Educators’ teacher development program.

New Chicago Public Schools board president Miguel del Valle speaks Monday after his appointment was announced by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Lightfoot said she wants the board to “ask tough questions and represent the community, and bring to the school board all of their collective experiences. They have a richness of experiences.”

Finally, she said, they must “make sure we’re focused on creating a nurturing classroom for our students.”

Del Valle ticked off a laundry list of things the board must tackle: strengthening neighborhood schools while continuing to support selective enrollment and charter schools.

He also mentioned lowering CPS’ chronic truancy rate and expanding technical and vocational education, and diverse learning and early childhood programs, among other things.

“If you ask how would I rank those, to me, they’re all equally important.”

This board was appointed, but Lightfoot also supports switching to an elected school board, and addressed that issue Monday as well.

“The marching orders that I have given my team are to focus on, what’s the pathway for parents to get there. This is not something that’s going to happen overnight. But we are looking forward to working with folks to come up with a proposal that does give a real pathway for those parents who are on the LSCs ... to really have their seat at the table.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot chats with a student at Lionel Hampton Fine & Performing Arts School, 3434 W. 77th St., where she announced her new Chicago Board of Education.