We partnered with Chalkbeat Chicago to provide actionable information on voting and running for local school councils.
DataMade partnered with Chalkbeat Chicago, a nonprofit news organization focused on public education in Chicago, to compile and answer common questions about participating in Local School Council Elections.
Chicago Public Schools hold elections every two years for their Local School Councils - public bodies consisting of parents, community members, teachers, and the principal of the school. LSC’s have been around in Chicago since 1988 and are responsible for selecting the school’s principal and approving the school’s annual budget and continuous improvement work plan.
In 2020 with LSC elections happening in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with recent scrutiny around the presence of School Resource Officers, DataMade and Chalkbeat saw a need for clear and actionable information for people to get more involved in the governance of their schools through LSCs.
In this collaboration, Chalkbeat researched and compiled the content and design for the site. DataMade built the address search tool.
This project was a finalist in the 2020 National Awards for Education Reporting.
Chicago’s Local School Council elections are here. Where and how to vote.
DataMade built an address lookup tool to find out what Local School Councils you can vote in.