may have heard there's an election coming up for Chicago school board members.

But how exactly does it all work?

>> Never fear our W T Tw News explains series.

Has you covered?

Here's our Matt Masterson to help sort out all the details for this November's election.

>> For decades, Chicago has been the only city in Illinois with its board of Education handpicked by its much to the chagrin of education advocates long for to be an elected body.

This fall.

Those advocates finally get there, which it's off to the races.

In the November general election for the first time ever.

All 21 seats on the board and be up for ending a reign of mayoral control that dates back to 1995 and to Richard The board already underwent one radical shift in 2024.

Tripling in size from 7 members to 20 10 of those members were elected by city residents and the other 11, a majority were still picked by the mayor.

The board approved Chicago Public schools punch it in policies sets the annual academic calendar.

It hires and evaluates the school district Now that power will be fully with the people so hollow the next round of elections play Illinois lawmakers divided Chicago into 20 separate voting districts.

One representative from each will be elected by voters in that district to serve on the school Lucky number.

21 is reserved for board.

President will be elected by all Chicago voters and represent the whole city much like the mayor.

2026 marks the one and only time all 21 up for election.

>> That's because 10 seats will be 4 year terms and the other 10 will serve terms.

Those terms will been rotating future elections.

So just kept the board will be up for election once.

And where there are elections, especially in Chicago.

There's also spent a lot of it.

It rocked the found.

The group spent 13 million dollars from the 2024 luncheons.

And that was with just 10 seats up for grabs as that number jumps to 21 this year, expect campaign spending to go up up what the races begin.

>> And we'll be hosting a town hall with all 4 of the candidates running for Chicago school board.

President.

That's tomorrow at 05:30PM, right here on W T Tw and streaming online.

And here now to give us a preview of tomorrow's with some background on who's running and a look at what's at stake is our own Matt Masterson payment.

Could see you person not just points So Matt, what exactly are the responsibilities of this board?

President president has a lot of power over crafting how the board actually operates.

They get to decide what's voted on it.

Each monthly meeting they are tasked with setting the board agenda.

>> And crucially, they have the discretion to add items to that agenda as they see fit for the board to vote on now.

They also need to operate how board manages itself when they are in discussions and debate on this when this was fully appointed board when they're only 7 members, there was not much debate members are typically very like-minded in votes, often sailed through.

Now this this is a partially elected There's a lot more debate as you can imagine.

And the board president has to manage that.

He has to make sure people get their discussions and get their points in before things are voted on as this moves to a fully elected body next year.

Obviously, this is going to only spur even more debate going forward and fill us in on the candidates running and the backgrounds of these folks.

Yeah.

So there's 4 candidates are going right now.

Jessica Biggs, who is a former CPS teacher and principal.

She's the only current board member who's running Domingo's, who served as the political director for the Chicago Teachers Union.

Sandhill Regulary an export member who was an appointee of Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

He previously served as the board's vice president and Victor Henderson trial attorney who also serves on the board of the Urban Prep Academies, Charter Schools.

Now absent from that list is Jennifer Custer, another current board member who was running and since dropped out and Shaun Hart in the current board president who has opted not to run for reelection, there's quite a range of folks running for There's also an interesting battle going on right now when it comes to union endorsements in the race to listen on that, yes, the 2 of largest unions representing Chicago public schools, workers, the sea to you and the SEIU, local 73 have picked a different candidates in this race.

The seat he was backing its former political director, Larry Dominguez.

While SEIU is backing Jessica, Big Snow.

These 2 unions have long been a ride allied and they often work together.

There has been a bit of a rift between them dating back to the sea to use the last round of bargaining in 2024.

And that rift has steadily grown over the last couple years.

They found each other come more combative over workers rights and who representing which specific workers the state's again, back to this 2024 issue between them.

I now they find themselves on opposite sides backing different candidates.

And president presidential race.

So as we mentioned tomorrow, is our formal be hearing directly from all 4 of those candidates?

Remind us some of the big issues facing the district right now.

What might we hear some of these candidates tackle yet?

The CPS funding is obviously the biggest one.

current board has approved a budget that has 150 million dollars in spending or in funding from the state that has not yet accounted for.

How is this board going to make sure those dollars come through the next board president is going to have a say in making sure that those funds are accounted for one way or another.

The on funding.

It's he's going that the next president he or she is going to be tasked operating a fully elected board that's never happened before.

They're also going to be tasked with ensuring that Chicago public school students in education continues moving in the right direction.

And they have a lot of say over the policies that are going decide those directions.

a lot of moving parts.

quite a bit.

All right.

Matt Masterson, thank you very much expect.

And again, that form with the candidates for Chicago Board of Education president is tomorrow evening.