4 WAYS THAT CPS CAN ENSURE A FAIR LSC ELECTION
By Evelyn Field, Emory Legal Fellow
The Local School Council (LSC) elections for Chicago Public Schools are just around the corner. These hyperlocal elections are to be held November 18 for elementary schools and November 19 for high schools. The COVID-19 global health pandemic presents unprecedented challenges for the district, and the Illinois legislature has already allowed CPS to push LSC elections back six months to ensure that voting can be done safely.
LSC elections help parents and local community members voice how their schools are run. LSC powers include the ability to select the principal, approve the school’s budget, oversee the school’s improvement plan, and to vote on whether to assign police officers (also known as School Resource Officers) to work at the school. LSCs are composed primarily of elected local representatives, including 6 parent members and 2 community members elected by parents and community residents for every school.
With the LSCs 4 All Coalition, we signed a letter on October 15 urging CPS to publicly release necessary information about how it plans to uphold its duty to hold free and equal LSC elections during the pandemic – including measures for equitable access to parent and community voting whether in-person, mail-in ballot or by other means. On October 21, the district released information about a new mail-in ballot option for parents, guardians, and staff.
However, the information CPS has released raises still more questions about how CPS will ensure the fairness of this year’s LSC election process. Today, we and the LSCs 4 ALL Coalition sent CPS a follow-up letter raising questions and offering suggestions about how CPS can adopt a more realistic timeline for mail-in ballots, assure the security of dropped off mail-in ballots, give eligible voters a way to request mail-in ballots, and distribute necessary candidate information, as follows:
Adopt a Realistic Timeline for Mail-In Ballots: The district has implemented a mail-in ballot system for parents and guardians that could give less than two weeks for ballots to be mailed to voters and returned by mail. Given current USPS delays, this means many voters could receive their ballots with less than a week before election day – too late to realistically mail them in and be counted. We have requested that this deadline be changed to count ballots that are postmarked by election day, a policy that is consistent with other elections in the state of Illinois.
Give Clear Instructions & Assurances for Dropping Off Mail-In Ballots: Given that many parents and staff may receive their mail-in ballots less than a week before LSC election dates, it is critically important that CPS offer clear instructions about how these voters can securely drop off their ballots. We have urged CPS to promptly distribute clear instructions about dates, times, and locations for dropping off mail-in ballots. We have also encouraged CPS to create a drop-off procedure that guarantees the security of these ballots, such as recycling unused City ballot drop boxes.
Offer Eligible Voters a Way to Request a Mail-In Ballot): Current CPS procedure excludes many eligible voters from the mail-in ballot option. Mail-in ballots will be sent to parents and guardians based on their current address in Aspen. This means that community members are excluded from the mail-in option, as well as many parents and guardians who are homeless or “doubled up” and don’t have an up-to-date or valid mailing address in the Aspen system – which disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx families who are the most likely to experience homelessness or housing instability during the pandemic . CPS can solve this problem by providing a mechanism for all eligible voters to obtain a mail-in ballot with appropriate documentation before the election date.
Provide Meaningful Opportunities to Distribute of Candidate Information: CPS has a statutory duty to publicize information about candidates to voters, and the current remote learning situation only heightens the importance of disseminating this information as broadly as possible. Most recently, CPS has given candidates only 48 hours’ notice to provide their flyers to principals for distribution. Consequently, we have urged CPS, at a minimum, to extend to the candidate flyer deadline to offer candidates a meaningful opportunity to provide the information that CPS is legally obligated to publicize.
For more on CPS mail-in ballot procedure, see: https://www.cps.edu/press-releases/chicago-public-schools-announces-updates-to-2020-lsc-elections/
For more on the LSC Election procedure, generally, see:
https://www.cps.edu/about/local-school-councils/lsc-elections/