District 3b neighborhoods: Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Belmont Cragin, West Town, Hermosa
Incumbent Carlos Rivas Jr. and Jason Dónes remained neck and neck Thursday evening in their contest for a school board seat representing a district on the Near Northwest Side, according to Chicago Board of Election data.
All the precincts in the school board district were finally counted by Thursday evening and Rivas, a former-teacher-turned city communications director, trailed Jason Dónes by 180 votes. Until Thursday afternoon, four precincts had remained untabulated. With those additional precincts, Dónes' lead grew by 53 votes.
“We’re in the lead — we’re not chasing, but it is sight,” Dónes said Thursday midday as he took a break from work, which he described as a good distraction. “But call me in 30 minutes, and I might be down. Call again and I might be up … It’s a scary few days. Everyone is lighting a candle.”
Election officials have until Nov. 17 to finish counting mail-in ballots and provisional ballots. Final official results are to be released on Nov. 24.
It's a rematch for two men who both grew up in Humboldt Park, graduated from selective-enrollment Chicago public high schools, and became teachers through Teach for America. In 2024 Rivas Jr. won with 54% of the vote.
Both candidates identify as progressives. Rivas has taken a more fiscally conservative approach to the school budget than his opponent.
Bolstered by about $600,000 from groups that oppose the Chicago Teachers Union, Rivas also had support from the Service Employees International Union, which represents thousands of CPS school support staff and has split politically with the teachers union in recent years. Also behind him were charter school advocates, some Northwest Side officials and the the Common Ground Collective, a political action committee that opposes the CTU, is heavily funded by billionaire Michael Sacks and says it aims to engage voters around “effective progressive policies.”
Jason Dónes was backed by the CTU and several Northwest Side elected officials.
A few days before the election, Rivas responded to the release of records that showed he was suspended from his job at a charter school in 2018 after he became intoxicated at a work event and engaged in “unwanted touching” of a co-worker.
Rivas said the incident happened at a difficult time in his life when he was caring for his dying mother and that he took responsibility for what happened and got help through an employee assistance program.
“I believe in accountability, growth and second chances,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times in a statement. Rivas worked as a teacher, college counselor and external affairs manager at the school. He is now the public affairs director for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Schools in District 3b are struggling with teacher and counselor shortages, higher property taxes, and low enrollment amid rapid gentrification. The district includes a mix of 32 schools serving mostly Latino students. The schools are generally strong, with about 60% achieving the state’s second highest rating last year. But 6% have the lowest of the five ratings.
Rivas and Dónes both care about protecting immigrant students from federal immigration agents, supporting more affordable housing, and securing more resources and community partnerships for CPS families. Rivas says he wants less interference from the mayor on the board and to move away from using loans that will increase CPS’ budget deficit.
Dónes, a CPS parent, was looking to increase budget transparency, push for creative solutions within the existing budget framework, and said on our questionnaire that he wouldn’t accept contributions from corporations or “private interest groups funded by billionaires and millionaires.”
Rivas’ outside support was about five times greater than Dónes’. As of Monday, more than half of the $502,000 backing Rivas came from the political arm of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools while another $123,000 came from the anti-CTU Common Ground Collective. All of Dónes’ outside support comes from the CTU, totaling about $22,000.
Contributing: Ariel Parrella-Aureli of Block Club Chicago and Kate Grossman
