Aldermen, lawmakers criticized Chicago Board of Education over selective enrollment in private briefings, newly obtained videos show

As the Chicago Board of Education looks to shift away from selective enrollment high schools, internal briefings obtained by NBC 5 Investigates show the Board’s effort to get lawmakers’ support for the plan — and the pushback they got in response.

The Board passed a resolution in December outlining “values and parameters” for Chicago Public Schools’ new five-year strategic plan it hopes to have in place before the next school year beginning in the fall of 2024. That resolution notes that the city is “still confronted with long-standing challenges and opportunity gaps" that it says are driven by "long-standing structural racism and socio-economic inequality."

"This is the foundation upon which our current school choice system was built — an under resourced system that has pitted schools against each other and has had the effect of sorting students based on performance outcomes and selective admissions criteria, which ultimately reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity," the resolution reads.

To address those issues, the resolution said the district’s new five-year plan will include goals to “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”

CPS has 11 selective enrollment high schools that are some of the highest ranked not just in the city, but nationwide. Admission to those schools — which include Northside College Prep, Whitney Young Magnet High School and Walter Payton College Preparatory, among others — is extremely competitive.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, NBC 5 Investigates obtained recordings of five internal briefings officials from CPS and the Chicago Board of Education held in late January with city aldermen, as well as state and federal lawmakers to discuss the framework for the new five-year plan. Aldermen criticized the way the resolution was written, saying it suggested selective enrollment in the district will come to an end.

“People are very proud of our selective enrollment schools in the city,” 39th Ward Ald. Samantha Nugent said in the first briefing. “It is something that people talk about all over the country, I mean, Michelle Obama writes about it in her book, how life changing it was for her.”

“I think it's okay to have some really good things and to be proud of it and work to find ways to make things better,” Nugent continued. “But I think as written, we - I'm guessing a lot of colleagues are going to tell you they're getting a lot of calls and it's creating quite a bit of problems, at least for me, it's causing a lot of stink in the ward.”

“Do you understand parents don’t have the confidence in the Chicago Public Schools in their neighborhoods? And they leave,” 31st Ward Ald. Felix Cardona said at a later briefing.

“That’s what we’re trying to address, sir,” Chicago Board of Education Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland replied.

“You’re taking away their choices. And that’s not right,” Cardona continued.

Todd-Breland said the resolution did not have any plans to close selective enrollment schools nor did it include any official action taken.

“Unfortunately your messaging has been completely, just terrible,” state Rep. Jaime Andrade said during another session. “Because I have a panic of all parents that that is the message that CPS is delivering, that selective enrollment schools will change, they will be closing as a selective enrollment school and they will be changing just to regular neighborhood schools.”

“I agree, there has been a lot lost in translation here and in messaging here on this topic in particular, because in fact we didn’t say anything about selective enrollment schools but this is the direction that people have taken,” Todd-Breland said.

“I just think the messaging has to be clear that those schools are not going anywhere, right?" Andrade later added. "Because all you’re going to do, if that is the plan, you’re actually going to create the most segregated CPS system ever."

State Sen. Javier Cervantes shared his experience as a parent whose daughter attends a CPS performing arts school.

“I have to travel 20, 25 minutes every day to pick her up, but that’s a choice as a parent — I wouldn’t want to take that choice away from parents,” he said.

Board of Education members repeatedly tried to alleviate elected officials’ concerns.

“What we can say is we’re not closing any of these schools, but we are evaluating all of these policies and practices,” Todd-Breland said. “We’re at the beginning of this process.”

Lawmakers also criticized the timing of the new five-year plan — scheduled to be put in place shortly before terms expire for the appointed members of the Board of Education, and the city's first elected school board members take office.