In the most organized candidate recruitment campaign since the first local school council elections 10 years ago, community organizations, business groups and churches have pitched in to help the School Board line up parent and community candidates and voters. On Feb. 28, a day before the registration deadline, the Chicago Public Schools gave candidates one more week to file, pushing the deadline to Mar. 7. At the time, only 2,713 parent and community candidates had filed to run for 4,512 seats. The LSC 2000 Campaign was seeking two candidates for every seat, or a total of 9,024 candidates 6,768 parents and 2,256 community members. High school councils have one student member.
Principals also serve on the councils.
Registration deadlines were extended for the two previous LSC elections. The School Board and education and civic groups kicked off this year s recruitment campaign in October with a breakfast meeting where Mayor Richard M. Daley called on business leaders to encourage employees to run for councils. The Co-op is coordinating the citywide effort to increase awareness, interest and participation in the LSC election. By its count, more than 70 neighborhood groups, businesses and other organizations have provided recruiters, trained recruiters or held recruitment meetings. The Chicago Public Schools wrote, printed and distributed training materials to interested foundations, corporations, communities and potential candidates.