Elections for Chicago's School Councils Draw 7,200 Candidates

By Alan Richard

More than 7,200 people have applied to run for the roughly 5,700 seats on the local school councils that govern Chicago's public schools, after the deadline was extended two weeks because fewer than 4,000 candidates initially entered the race.

The councils, created in 1988 by the Illinois legislature as part of a broad overhaul of education in the nation's third-largest school district, have the power to hire and fire their schools' principals and the authority to use a portion of the schools' budgets on what they believe is important. Each council consists of six parents, two teachers, two community members, and, in high schools, one student.

Interest in the elections, held every four years, has remained steady for the past few years, but never has drawn the kind of interest the original campaign did, when nearly 17,000 people ran...