Jessica Biggs wins race to lead Chicago's first fully elected school board

“Families are tired of chaos and uncertainty,” Jessica Biggs said after declaring victory Tuesday night. Chicago voters have handed Biggs a decisive win in the race to lead the city’s first fully elected school board, defeating the Chicago Teachers Union’s former political director Hilario Dominguez and appearing to strip the union of the majority it held on the outgoing 21-member board, WTTW News reported.

While unofficial results still leave a handful of district races too close to call, the outline of the new board is already visible: beginning in January, all 21 seats will be filled by elected representatives rather than the current hybrid of 10 elected and 11 mayoral appointees that first convened at the Chicago Public Schools Loop headquarters on Jan. 15, 2025. That new board will inherit a district facing a massive budget shortfall, shrinking student enrollment, an expiring moratorium on school closures, and the urgent task of securing funding from Springfield.

Jessica Biggs declares victory for Chicago School Board President

Biggs Takes the Presidency Over the Union’s Candidate

With more than 48% of the vote, Biggs—a current board member and former Chicago Public Schools teacher and principal—finished well ahead of Dominguez, who took about 30%, and Victor Henderson, who drew roughly 18%, CBS News reported. Dominguez conceded late Tuesday night, while Henderson said he would not concede until the Chicago Board of Elections certifies the results.

Biggs will replace Sean Harden, the mayoral appointee handpicked by Mayor Brandon Johnson—a former teacher and union organizer swept into office in 2023 with CTU support—who opted not to run for reelection. In her victory speech, Biggs promised a return to stability: “They want schools they can trust, teachers who are supported, and leaders who put kids first. Starting in January, this new, fully elected board will answer to the people of Chicago. And I will never forget who I work for.”

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The Chicago Teachers Union, which had backed a majority of the board’s 21 members heading into Tuesday’s election, criticized Biggs as the selected candidate of billionaire Michael Sacks, who contributed approximately $1 million to her campaign. Chalkbeat Chicago reported that total spending in the historic races soared past $10 million, with anti-CTU organizations greatly outspending the union. “They threw millions at a special education teacher and union organizer, and he never stopped telling the truth about what our students need,” the union said in a statement Wednesday. “The issues he ran for won’t end with this election.”

CTU Vice President Jackson Potter acknowledged the loss but noted that most voters did not back Biggs: “First of all, 52 percent of voters did not vote for president-elect Biggs.”

Jessica Biggs declares victory in Chicago school board president race

Three CTU-Backed Incumbents Lose Their Seats

Beyond the presidency, the union suffered defeats in the district races. Three CTU-endorsed incumbents—Ed Bannon of District 1A, Aaron “Jitu” Brown of District 5A, and Anusha Thotakura of District 6A—appear to have lost their seats, while union-backed Jason Dónes held a slim lead over incumbent Carlos A. Rivas Jr. in District 3B as of Wednesday morning, WTTW News reported. Bannon and Thotakura were both appointed to their seats by Johnson, while Brown had run unopposed in his 2024 election.

As it currently stands, the other 20 board members appear narrowly split between candidates supported by the CTU and those who are not—a 10-10 deadlock among the district seats, CBS News reported—that will force the new president to build coalitions across factions. Biggs herself was backed by SEIU Local 73, which represents around 15,000 CPS school support employees. Once longtime allies, SEIU has been embroiled in a bitter fight with the CTU over which labor organization some CPS employees, including tutors and recess monitors, should belong to. After backing Johnson during his successful 2023 mayoral run, SEIU recently endorsed Alexi Giannoulias as he seeks to unseat Johnson in February’s election.

Jessica Biggs wins race to lead Chicago's first fully elected school board — Photo: cbsnews.com

“She’ll have to build, I think, bridges across folks with different perspectives, different political persuasions, to get things done for Chicago students,” said Hal Woods, chief of policy at Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit CPS parent group.

Board Faces Funding Uncertainty

The incoming board will confront immediate fiscal pressure. The current board’s approved 2026-27 Chicago Public Schools budget depends on $150 million in state funding that Illinois lawmakers have not yet approved or even proposed, CBS News reported.

“It is very likely that, coming back in January, CPS will potentially not have the revenue that it budgeted for and will have to make some difficult decisions about whether or not it tries to borrow, potentially, to seek those funds, or will have to make cuts midyear,” Woods said.

Another flashpoint is the district’s moratorium on school closures, which ends after the current academic year. Dominguez and the CTU have staunchly opposed closing any schools, while Biggs has expressed an openness to doing so if residents are in favor. Potter said the union would resist such moves: “If the narrative is going to be, ‘Let’s close and cut schools midyear,’ that will undermine the district’s progress and harm students. We’re going to have a fight.” Asked if that fight could mean a teachers strike, Potter said, “we’re not talking about that,” adding, “You know, we hope none of that is ever necessary.”

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Still, Potter left the door open to cooperation with Biggs on funding: “If she’s willing to work with us around fully funding and fully staffing our schools, and making Springfield and the governor pay their own evidence-based funding formula as is required by law, then I think we can get on the same page.” The CTU added that its members “will be in the room to protect our neighborhood schools.”

Biggs will serve a four-year term as president. Half of the incoming board will serve two-year terms and the other half four-year terms, with those two-year seats converting to four-year terms after their next election so that half of the board is up for reelection every two years. When the fully elected board convenes in January, it will mark the first time in Chicago history that every seat on the school board answers directly to the city’s voters.