By: Ashmar Mandou

Over 300 parents and organizers convened at the Kehrein Center for the Arts on Wednesday for a “The Parents Strike Back,” train-the-trainer engagement to boost involvement around Chicago’s first school board elections.

“Previously we didn’t have a choice to elect the decision makers who would affect my child’s education. That felt very controlling, not being able to vote,” said Jazmin Cerda, Parent Organizer at Brighton Park Neighborhood Council and CPS mom. “These school board elections make me excited to be part of the flight for the change we want to see in our schools.”

The Parent Mentor program is volunteer based that for over 25 years has been training parents in the Logan Square area, mainly Latina and Black mothers, to help fill persistent equity gaps by volunteering in classrooms for two hours/day for at least 100 hours. Upon completing the initial leadership and tutoring training, Parent Mentors are assigned a classroom, where they work with students one-on-one or in small groups for two hours per day, four days per week.

Currently 1 in 3 neighborhood elementary schools in CPS are part of the Parent Mentor Program, where community organizations and schools team up to recruit a cohort of parents who volunteer daily in classrooms. Recently, The Parents Strike Back celebrated the launch of the Parent Engagement Institute Chicago Coalition (PEICC), a citywide coalition of community organizations who partner with their local neighborhood schools for the Parent Mentor Program.  “We are a voting bloc that needs to be respected,” said Cecile DeMello, Executive Director of Teamwork Englewood and CPS mom. 
The mission of the Parent Engagement Institute Chicago Coalition is to ensure that communities across Chicago are “actively engaged in Chicago’s first school board elections. PEICC is a coalition of Parent Mentor community organizations representing Chicago’s largest network of neighborhood school parents.

“Board decisions like school closures are tied to violence, disinvestment, and displacement. Sometimes we lose hope and give up,” said Bridgett White, PEICC Organizer. “I hope this puts a spark in us that the needs in our schools can be addressed when we organize and come together and have wraparound services families need for their children to enjoy school and have the quality education they deserve.”

Parents attending The Parents Strike Back training session walked away with stacks of bilingual postcards to use as tools to engage their communities. The postcards displayed information about school board elections and included a survey where parents can voice their education priorities.  Survey results will inform future candidate town halls.  “If we get this right, we can transform Chicago,” said Cerda. “Education affects every aspect of our city, starting with safety, starting with inequality.” 

White added, “This is not just about the elected school board — but what is happening in our community, period.  This is not just about this election cycle – it’s just as much about what happens after this election cycle.”