District 2b neighborhoods: Lincoln Square, Edgewater, Albany Park, Uptown, North Park
Debby Pope, a retired teacher backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, prevailed in the school board’s closely watched District 2b race, retaining the seat she was appointed to by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Pope easily defeated former special education teacher Kyna Lenhof, who was backed by groups critical of the CTU. As of early Wednesday, Pope had 63% of the vote with nearly 96% of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.
Pope attributed her win to her “decades of experience” as a teacher, parent and community member who has lived in her district for many years.
“I think that it’s my years of work that have paid off,” Pope said.
She said backing from the CTU also helped her, but noted that it wasn’t “anything like” the support that Lenhof received from political groups like the Common Ground Collective.
“It shows that the school board cannot be bought so easily,” Pope said.
District 2b is one of Chicago’s most culturally diverse areas and is home to 18 public schools. Students who attend schools in the district are 40% Hispanic, 30% white, nearly 15% Asian American and 9% Black, according to data compiled by Chalkbeat.
Though none of the schools in the district last year earned the state’s highest rating of “exemplary,” a high share, 79%, earned the state’s second-highest rating of “commendable,” data compiled by Chalkbeat shows.
And 62% of students in District 2b chose to attend their neighborhood school — the second-highest share in the city and well above CPS average of 46%.
Both candidates touted their experience working in classrooms and listed adequate classroom funding and resources among their main priorities. But their thoughts on how to secure that varied.
Pope said she supports increasing funding for schools by taxing the rich, while Lenhof said she wants to reduce the district’s reliance on high-interest loans.
Johnson appointed Pope to the board 2024 after the mass resignation of his first group of school board appointees amid tensions with former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.
She got the nod from the powerful teachers union, while Lenhof was endorsed by The Urban Center, a centrist political organization that supports charters and advocates for school choice across public and private schools. Lenhof was also endorsed by the Common Ground Collective, which is heavily funded by billionaire Michael Sacks and says it aims to engage voters around “effective progressive policies.”
Lenhof’s campaign was buoyed by contributions from Common Ground and the political arm of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, while much of Pope’s support came from the CTU and groups aligned with the union, including the Chicago Working Families PAC.
Earlier this summer, Common Ground released an ad attacking Pope for voting in favor of a CPS budget plan that assumed the district would receive $150 million more in state funding than projected. The day before the vote, Lenhof also released a statement criticizing Pope.
Contributing: Molly DeVore, Block Club Chicago