Ebony DeBerry (District 2)

Section 1 - Basic Information & General Questions

Candidate's Name  Ebony DeBerry

District 2

Campaign link  ebony4education.org

Are you a current or recent CPS parent, grandparent, or guardian/caregiver? CPS parent

Are you a CPS graduate? Yes

Have you ever served on a Local School Council (LSC)? Yes

Have you ever served on a Parent Advisory Committee (PAC)?  No

Have you ever served on a Bilingual Advisory Committee (BAC)? No

Have you ever served on a Community Action Council (CAC)? No

Have you ever worked in a CPS school?  Yes

How long have you lived in the district you are running to represent? My whole life- 47 years

Describe your CPS experience. 

I am a graduate of CPS, a former Gale teacher, a former Gale LSC member, the current president of Gale Grows Kids, and an education organizer with ONE Northside. As an education organizer, I’ve grown parent mentor programs from one school to eight. In these schools I work with principals, teachers and parents, mostly women of color, to provide voluntary service in classrooms where additional support is needed.

Why are you running for the Board of Education? 

I believe decision making in relationship with others is the precedent that needs to be set after our first elections for this board, and I believe I am the candidate that can do just that. My work and life experience have revolved around the betterment of students and families in my community, and elevating their voices and setting priorities with them. This feels like a natural next step. I believe that those most affected by the issues are the experts, and I fully intend on using the relationships I have cultivated to prioritize the concerns of my community.

What is the most pressing challenge our district is facing? 

CPS is a tale of two cities: some schools are high-performing and others are barely functioning. We must improve the equity in our system. Neighborhood schools, especially in black and brown neighborhoods, have some of the lowest achievement and our students deserve better. Too many students are not currently prepared, and the achievement gap in this city is striking. 

In the conversations that I have had, parents want to make sure that their schools are well resourced, with access to counselors, arts programming, and accessible early childhood education. This is why I’m a supporter of our new funding model as well as our sustainable community schools- these guaranteed positions and neighborhood resources will improve the education of our students and the quality of life for our neighbors.

Section 2 - Board Responsibilities & Commitments

How will you interact with CPS students and families in your district to ensure that the voices of the most impacted are heard and understood?

I believe in quarterly meetings with constituents and a monthly newsletter to keep the community engaged and apprised of the work that we do in the board. I would also like to make sure I visit each school in the district regularly to ensure I remain in communication with the parents, teachers, and administrators there.

What specific actions will you take to address and repair the historical harms within Chicago Public Schools, and how will you ensure that students, parents, and educators are actively engaged in the healing and trust-building process?

This requires fully funded, well resourced schools that offer social workers and counselors, the arts, and other programming that would benefit parents as well as students. Building this amount of trust takes time, and it’s going to have to involve a coalition of parents, teachers, and administrators. There has been a lot of distrust and mistrust in this district, and we should be partnering with the community organizations that are trusted in each neighborhood. There is no one-size-fits-all solution: every school is going to need something different.

What is your understanding of the Board’s relationship with Local School Councils? How will you collaborate  with LSCs in your district?

I don’t know if there has been any relationship between the board and LSCs. I served on my local LSC and had no interaction with any board member, and that must change. Our board’s members must be engaged in their communities and have relationships with the LSCs, BACs, and PACs at each school.

List the Board committees you intend to join and describe any new Board committees you will propose.

I would like to join a committee that focuses on early childhood education, as well as the budget and finance committees. We should also have a committee dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

How will you prioritize your time to ensure you give your role on the Board of Education the attention it deserves?

I have spoken with previous and current board members who have described their time commitments, and I believe that I would have no issue making the time for the work of the board. I have a flexible job and a recently-turned-adult child, so I believe I have the time for this work.

Section 3 - Budget & Facilities

What are your thoughts on the current proposed district budget for SY24-25? As a board member, where would you look to increase funding and where would you make budget cuts?

I am very concerned about this fiscal year’s budget. We have to fight for progressive revenue at the state level, and I’ve been doing that work for a decade while bringing parents into the fold. We cannot be making cuts in the classroom. Our children cannot be the first to suffer any longer. We have a bad deal in terms of pension funding, as we are the only district in the state that is responsible for a separate fund for teachers. We should consider our options in terms of private contracts that the district has, and what roles and services can be done in-house in terms of cutting the budget.

Funding for CPS is in a particularly precarious situation due to state shortages to Evidence-Based Funding (EBF), the end of pandemic funding, and more. What would you prioritize when facing these overwhelming budget realities?

We reaped the benefits with the extra funding we received in recent years- achievement rose due to the programming that was begun. We know what works, and we have to prioritize our fight for progressive revenue, and make cuts that don’t directly affect student achievement.

What experience do you have with complicated budgets?

I serve on the board of Grow Your Own Teachers, where we approve multi-million budget budget regularly. I also served on Gale’s LSC, and voted to approve those budgets as well. In my current role, I oversee a budget for the Parent Mentors program in eight schools.

What will you do to ensure equitable and transparent funding for neighborhood schools?

I believe that this is about co-creating goals with the community, finding out from them what to prioritize, working with the board to figure out how to implement those goals, and keeping my community apprised at least quarterly.

Many parents have expressed an urgent need for capital improvements in their schools. What steps will you take to ensure that schools have functioning facilities, particularly bathrooms and water fountains?

I think that there are going to be large state and federal investments in environmental improvements, and CPS needs to look into ways to receive thse dollars. Our schools are aging, they do not heat or cool well, and the water in too many of these schools is contaminated. Our district would be an excellent candidate for the green new dollars that are being offered.

Bussing challenges have a long and fraught history in CPS. The last few years have been particularly difficult for special education students, as well as those who attend magnet and selective enrollment schools. Given CPS’s recently announced plans for the coming school year, How do you plan to address the ongoing school bussing challenges and ensure that all students have reliable, safe, and equitable transportation to and from school? 

Bussing hasn’t been good in years, and this isn’t a problem that can be solved overnight. A first step is ensuring that the job of a bus driver is given the dignity that it deserves. We need to pay our drivers a livable wage and ensure that we hire from our communities.

Section 4 - Educational Programs & Academic Success

How do you define a quality education?

Quality would mean that a child is receiving multiple areas for development and given many ways to express achievement. Students should be able to master the basics and think critically abount the information that they receive.

What is the role of the Board of Education in ensuring quality educational programs for all students regardless of their background, zip code, or school type?

The board should be setting metrics about what we expect each school to have, and check in on that progress with each school.

What are your views on the roles of neighborhood, selective enrollment, magnet, and charter schools within CPS? Please address each type of school in your answer.

I am an alumni of neighborhood schools that were high quality, had a diverse teaching force and a diverse student body, and I believe that every child should be able to walk to a high quality school. As a board member, my primary goal would be to ensure this. Selective enrollment and magnet schools are excellent, and my son attended both as well as his neighborhood school, but I believe that students that have to travel to school lose connection with community, so the system is not perfect. I know that parents believe that they are making the right choice when sending their children to a charter school, but I am concerned about how little regulation these schools have in comparison to our traditional schools, as well as the working conditions of the nonunionised staff. I agree wth the current board that we should take a stronger stance on holding these schools accountable to ensure that public dollars are being used most efficiently.

How should the Board approach charter oversight and accountability?

Whatever the board has the power to do: shorten contracts, withhold funding, and whatever is necessary to ensure that all of our students are held to the highest standards.

The initial recommendations of the Black Student Success Working Group were shared earlier this summer. Which of those recommendations will be most important to incorporate into the district’s strategic plan and why?

I think that wraparound services will be the most important policy to implement. These services were instrumental in the recovery of our achievement post-Covid, and these services must continue.

How will you work to ensure special education assessments and placements are more timely and equitable? 

We need to start in early childhood and assessing our children as early as possible so that we can mediate and address as soon as possible. If there were a mandate that every child were assessed by five, we would have better outcomes, but we must make sure that the district has the staffing capabilities when it comes to the special education support staff. Our recruitment for these roles must be aggressive.

What should the Board board do to guarantee students are receiving all of their required IEP minutes?

This is a big issue, and this is going to require additional staff. We should be comparing ourselves to other comparable school districts and see what is working for them, but we also have to be creative with the resources that we have.

In 2021, even before the recent influx of asylum seekers, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) put CPS on a corrective action plan because the district was out of compliance with bilingual education requirements. To date, CPS still fails to staff bilingual programs and certified bilingual teachers at all schools that need them. What steps would you advocate for the district to take to solve this problem?

The district needs to partner with local colleges and universities to help future teachers gain their bilingual education credentials. This would create a pipeline and steady supply for our district.

How would you advocate for the reinstatement of comprehensive art, music, and library programs to our schools? 

I think that this is about finding the revenue to hire these staff, and we would need to incentivise these positions to attract the workforce that we need.

Section 5 - School Culture

What do you believe is the role of the Board in fostering a culture of belonging for every CPS student?

Board members should work collaboratively with community to set some standards around this.

What are specific steps you will propose to increase in-school mental health support for our children? 

I believe we need to work more closely with community partners that are already doing the work. We need to connect with universities for soon to be grads and think creatively about how to get enough mental health services to our students.

What policies do you propose to help stop bullying in CPS schools?

We need to use more restorative measures in our schools and realize that hurt people hurt people. We must try to get to the bottom of why someone would inflict pain upon another and show them other ways to deal with that pain, and we must provide staff who can help heal some of that pain.

What specific steps will you take to address and reduce racial bias in our schools, both in terms of pedagogy, curriculum, and disciplinary practices?

School employees should definitely receive anti-racist training. We should be teaching the truest histories we can find and regularly talking about how recent events and situations all around us are results of oppression, racism, or bias. Our children need to be able to recognize this and also be willing to stand up for those who are on the margins of society.

Students who report sexual assault and violence in CPS schools often feel that their voices are not heard. What is your approach to ensuring meaningful accountability and what will you do to ensure that this type of violence stops?

The Board of Education must certainly listen to women and girls and anyone who has been assaulted physically sexually and otherwise. There should be thorough investigation, counseling, and accountability for perpetrators up to and not excluding expulsion, criminal charges, and firing.

How do you plan to ensure that LGBT+ students are protected and supported in CPS, both in anti-discrimination policy and inclusive curricula?

We really need to create a culture from a very early age that all life matters. It's not okay to ever oppress or put down anyone, and we need counseling services for students who feel vulnerable or alone or fearful. We need to teach true histories including the LGBTQ+ community and use inclusive language and be open to be called in when we are disrespectful or thoughtless.

Is there anything you would change about the recently adopted Whole School Safety plan? What can the Board do to ensure its implementation?

The plan includes restorative justice, de-escalation, wrap around supports and mentoring programs. These are all things that I'm very fond of; I believe they work well and I think it's a better investment than officers inside of our buildings.