CPS School Board: The race in the South and Southwest Side's District 8

An influx of money from staunchly opposed groups could make the difference in the South and Southwest Side’s District 8 Chicago School Board race as a nonprofit consultant and former Chicago Public Schools band teacher compete for the seat.

Angel Gutierrez, the nonprofit consultant, faces Felix Ponce, a former band director at Back of the Yards College Prep. The largely Hispanic district includes West Lawn and Clearing, parts of McKinley Park, Bridgeport and Gage Park, plus most of Back of the Yards, Chicago Lawn, Ashburn and Garfield Ridge and half of the South Loop.

The two men are backed by ideologically opposed groups. The Chicago Teachers Union, which prioritizes neighborhood schools and a shift away from school choice, has endorsed Ponce and is financially supporting him. Gutierrez is backed financially by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which strongly supports school choice.

CTU and its affiliates has bankrolled nearly all of Ponce’s campaign. As of Thursday, he had raised more than $310,000 in cash contributions and “in-kind” contributions of goods or services from CTU’s political action committee or three affiliated PACs.

Gutierrez has raised about $101,000, including about $17,000 from INCS and INCS board members. But he’s also getting support from INCS’ super PAC and another group that is opposed to the CTU, Urban Center Action. Both groups can raise and spend unlimited dollars, but can’t coordinate with candidates. Combined, they have spent $213,000 to support Gutierrez, election records show.

Ponce and Gutierrez differ on many core issues, including school choice and police in schools (Gutierrez says yes to police if individual schools want it, Ponce says no). And Gutierrez supports keeping CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, while Ponce wants him to go. Martinez says the mayor asked him to resign, but he refused. The school board has the final say.

But they agree on saying no to a proposal the mayor floated this summer of taking out a high-interest loan to fill this year’s budget shortfall. They’re also both opposed to raising the property tax levy to the maximum for CPS each year.

Angel Gutierrez

Gutierrez, 52, was raised in Chicago and now lives in Garfield Ridge. He worked for more than 25 years in executive leadership nonprofits and now works as a nonprofit consultant. He says this would give him a leg up as a board member because he’s familiar with how to raise money.

Gutierrez sends his kids to Catholic school, and has relatives who attended Chicago Public Schools.

Gutierrez is a strong supporter of charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded, and he doesn’t support the board’s push to prioritize neighborhood schools over school choice.

“I want all CPS funded schools, from the neighborhood, selective enrollment to charter schools, to be successful because those students are our students and when they succeed, we all succeed,” he wrote in the Sun-Times/WBEZ/Chalkbeat candidate.

Still, he said the board’s new five-year strategic plan, which stresses neighborhood schools, is a “good beginning” but the “devil’s in the detail” and he’s not sure if the plan fully holds up financially.

“Every school’s unique, every district is unique and different and I think we need to make sure we keep that as part of our plan,” he said at a recent forum put on by the Southwest Collective.

If elected, he would push for 56% of property taxes to come back to the schools as intended, he said at the forum.

“We all know that’s not necessarily what goes to each school,” he said. “Let’s get that done.”

Felix Ponce

Ponce, 30, grew up in Blue Island and now lives in McKinley Park. After leaving CPS, Ponce became a music teacher at Richards High School in Oak Lawn. He also leads the marching and pep bands at Roosevelt University. He said his time in CPS will allow him to chip away at solving the district’s problems. Ponce plans to send his toddler to CPS.

Ponce takes a more neighborhood-focused approach than Gutierrez.

“I want to make sure students who live in a neighborhood don’t have to travel halfway across the city because their school doesn’t have a particular resource,” he said at the Southwest Collective forum. “Why are we forcing our students to fight over positions?”

Ponce supports keeping existing charter schools open, but wants more resources for neighborhood schools in order for school choice to work properly.

“Every school needs to be fully funded and I will support practices that ensure every school receives the funding that it needs,” Ponce wrote in the questionnaire. “Parents should have the freedom to send their child to whatever school they want to, but they need to have true choice.”

In terms of addressing CPS’ budget hole, he is opposed to decisions that would save a “quick buck,” but create more problems in the long run. He cited as an example the district’s privatization of custodial staff, which he said left schools less clean and led to frayed relationships.

To confront the budget shortfall, Ponce suggested working with state legislators and city council members and creating a stronger pipeline for CPS graduates to return to the district.