Coalition for Authentic Community Engagement

September 2024

Dear Appointed Members of the Chicago Board of Education,

We, the Coalition for Authentic Community Engagement, are cautiously optimistic about the district’s recent release of its Success 2029: Together We Rise strategic plan. However, our optimism is tempered by the process leading up to it, which has significantly contradicted the values the Board professes within the document.

In its plan, the CPS Board resolutely declares that “For every major decision, we will engage stakeholders by centering CPS’ spectrum of inclusive partnerships, prioritizing the voices of those most impacted by structural inequity, to design and implement a more equitable school district and learning environment.”

This statement overlooks the fact that you have just done the opposite. To be fair, CPS Boards have historically taken action without direct input from communities—just as you have done here. However, it is disrespectful to call the development of this plan inclusive when you have pre-established the direction and are only asking communities to weigh in on the implementation of your ideas.

The engagement that you have promoted was neither centered on the critical strategic questions nor inclusive of the full range of CPS stakeholders. It is disingenuous to communities to include unrelated outreach—such as back-to-school events, targeted policy engagements, or board meetings—as evidence of engagement in your strategic planning, merely to inflate the total number of stakeholders “engaged.”

Simply put, saying a thing does not make it real. This engagement effort lacked the scale and open-endedness of an inclusive, authentic, and anti-racist process. Instead of genuinely involving families in shaping the district’s future, the Board has imposed its beliefs on the school system without taking any time to understand what CPS parents and caregivers envision for their children’s education. You have dictated the plan’s elements without considering families’ priorities, and now are looking to engage communities in a limited fashion only to discuss how to implement those predetermined decisions.

Your approach contradicts the very principles that many of you have publicly upheld and have reaffirmed in this plan. With the upcoming transition to an elected representative board just four months away, it is baffling why this Board is rushing through a plan that will guide CPS for the next five years. This timing raises serious questions about the Board’s commitment to genuine community engagement, echoing the old-guard politics of Chicago’s past.

We recognize elements of the proposed plan may resonate with our communities. Therefore, we will take this plan directly to our stakeholders—representing hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans—to determine what they support and what they reject. Our coalition, comprising more than 30 organizations from every corner of Chicago, and representing the vast majority of families who choose CPS, will not endorse any plan until it has been fully vetted and approved by our communities.

In short, we will do the upfront work you promised to do. We will share our findings with this Board, but more importantly, with members of the incoming elected school board. We believe this will empower the new board to make decisions that truly reflect the will of the people of Chicago.

We invite this Board to join us in this effort—to listen and learn from the authentic feedback of Chicago families as we vet your plan with the people you should have engaged from the start.

On behalf of the Coalition for Authentic Community Engagement,
Dr. Byron T Brazier, Chairman, Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community
Grace Chan McKibben, Executive Director of Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community
Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago

Read the Coalition’s Letters

Available in English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese

• Download our Feb. 2024 Letter
• Download our Sept. 2024 Letter
• Download our Nov. 2024 Letter