Andre Smith, a finance manager and founder of a violence prevention nonprofit, is running for the 6th District school board seat to promote equal opportunity education and overhaul Chicago Public Schools’ annual budget.
“Every child in Chicago deserves the same opportunities. Every parent deserves their children to have the best education that we as board members can provide for them,” Smith said.
The great-grandson of Caroline Williams, a West Virginia teacher who won a landmark civil rights case 1898 that mandated equal pay for teachers regardless of race, Smith said he believes this familial legacy of advocating for educational equality makes him a strong candidate for the seat.
“She stood up to make sure that colored school teachers had equal rights and equal pay,” Smith said. “Here we are in 2024, when Chicago is having, for the first time in history, an elected school board, and we’re making history again as her great-grandson is running.”
He also said his varied leadership experience sets him apart in the race. Smith has been a vice chair of the Washington Park Resident Advisory Council, is the founder of the group Chicago Against Violence, and has been a beat facilitator for the Chicago Police Department’s Beat 311.
“My opponents, they have no history of doing those things,” Smith claimed. “They have no history of being on the ground level, they have no history of fighting for the people.”
In the 6th District, which stretches from Old Town and Streeterville to Washington Park, Englewood and parts of Hyde Park, Smith is running against Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal and community organizer, and Anusha Thotakura, a former teacher and leader of a progressive political organization.
Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Smith and his competitors is funding: Smith is the only candidate in the 6th District who has taken donations from the political funds of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS). Smith has received about $6,000 from the organization so far out of nearly $3 million that two of that organization’s political arms have amassed to back candidates in Chicago’s first-ever school board races.
The District 6 race is for one of 10 elected seats on the new 21-member Chicago Board of Education, with the remaining spots to be appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Each of the 10 seats represents a district in the city mapped out by the Illinois General Assembly this past spring.
In all, Smith has raised about $24,600 since January – though some of this may be used for his ongoing and concurrent run for the Illinois House of Representatives –, compared to Thotakura’s $32,700 and Biggs’ $6,700, according to campaign filings.
“The donation from (INCS) is just like a donation from anyone else, like the (Chicago Teachers Union) or any other business or any other person – there are no strings attached and there are no obligations,” Smith said. “They like what I believe in, that parents need to have a choice in their children’s education and they figure that I’m the best candidate.”
If elected, Smith said his first order of business would be to conduct an independent audit of CPS’ budget to “investigate” its $400 million budget deficit this year and to reallocate money to “better-fit community needs.”
This summer, CPS announced it was laying off almost 700 support staff and implementing a hiring freeze on 200 positions, in a move to help close that deficit. This year’s $9.9 billion budget was passed in July.
“We keep creating ideas, raising taxes, putting the burden on the taxpayers and the parents, that’s unfair,” Smith said. “People deserve board members that are really going to be careful about spending their money and spending their money on the right ideas and what’s working.”
Smith would also like to conduct a listening tour with principals, teachers, parents and students throughout the 6th District to get a sense of its educational needs.
“I want to sit down with the principal and know what’s working and what’s not working. What are the issues that you’re faced with? Is it more funding? If it’s more funding, funding for what?” Smith said. “When I’m on the school board, I know what I’m fighting with, because I’m equipped with my district.”
Smith was most recently a finance manager at Kingdom Chevrolet, but he’s taking a leave of absence to focus on his campaign. He grew up in Bronzeville’s Robert Taylor Homes and attended DuSable High School. Throughout his adult life he’s worked in a variety of industries and roles, among them welding and railroad construction, as well as a barber and minister.
An advocate for improving public safety on the South Side, Smith said he regularly collaborates with local police, community organizations and residents in his role with Chicago Against Violence in an effort to bolster resources for ex-offenders and youth.
A big part of the organization is youth mentorship, through a mix of group programs and one-on-one meetings, which aims to “combat the rise in violent crimes and vehicular carjackings,” reads a description on his campaign flier. (Smith does not have a live campaign site as of press time.) He thinks this experience would be useful in developing safety plans to prevent wt violence at CPS.
“Our schools should be equipped to teach, educate and get our children the best education that they can ever get, not have to worry about any type of violence happening outside of the school, in the school or around the school,” Smith said.
Smith has been vying for local office for some time: he unsuccessfully ran for 20th Ward alderman in 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2022; for a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 2016; and for Cook County’s Board of Commissioners in 2022.
He attributed his failure in previous campaigns to a lack of funding and resources to facilitate outreach, but is feeling confident about his chances going into the Nov. 5 election.
“I want the Chicago education system to be the best in the world. So we got to have the best
teachers that are being paid with a great salary and benefits, ” Smith said. “We want people from other cities to want to come to Chicago to be taught, but before we do any of that, you’ve got to know where your money’s at.”