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Karen Zaccor
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Tenure
Present officeholder
Karen Zaccor is a member of the Chicago Public Schools school board in Illinois, representing District 4a.
Zaccor ran for election to the Chicago Public Schools school board to represent District 4b in Illinois. She lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Zaccor completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Karen Zaccor was born in Berkeley, California. She earned a high school diploma from Avon High School, a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1978, and a graduate degree from the Columbia College Chicago in 1998. Her career experience includes working as a retired teacher. Zaccor has served as a member of Northside Action for Justice and the 46th Ward IPO.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Chicago Public Schools, Illinois, elections (2024)
General election
General election for Chicago Public Schools school board District 4b
The following candidates ran in the general election for Chicago Public Schools school board District 4b on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Ellen Rosenfeld (Nonpartisan)  | 41.6 | 49,351 |
| Karen Zaccor (Nonpartisan) | 30.2 | 35,825 | ||
 | Kimberly Brown (Nonpartisan) | 9.4 | 11,128 | |
 | Thomas Day (Nonpartisan) | 7.7 | 9,126 | |
 | Carmen Gioiosa (Nonpartisan) | 7.1 | 8,414 | |
| Andrew Davis (Nonpartisan) | 4.0 | 4,719 | ||
| Total votes: 118,563 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Zaccor in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Karen Zaccor completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Zaccor's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I have lived in Uptown for 46 years and raised my daughter, who attended Chicago Public Schools, here. I have always been active in the education justice movement. In the 1980s, I was part of Parent Equalizers of Chicago, parents from hundreds of schools around the city who united to get rid of the racist and substandard Chicago Mastery Learning Reading program that was forced on neighborhood schools but not magnet schools. I was the first LSC chair at Stockton School, working with my LSC to expand opportunities for bilingual students and instituting full day kindergarten among other positive changes. I also spearheaded the successful campaign to remove lead from Stockton School. As a member of Northside Action for Justice I was part of city-wide efforts against privatization and the decade-long fight for the elected school board. I worked as a teacher for the last 28 years, striving to make my curriculum engaging and relevant while helping my students build the skills they need for success and giving them opportunities to have a voice in their learning and to work on authentic projects.
- Adequate and equitable funding: We fought for the elected school board in order to ensure that every child has a well-resourced, well-rounded, high-quality public school in their neighborhood that they can walk to and to have a board that is accessible to families and takes their input seriously. To achieve equity, first we need the funding that Chicago is owed to fully fund its schools.
- Models of Equity: We also need models of what equity can and should look like and one such model is Sustainable Community Schools. Sustainable Community Schools are community hubs with challenging and culturally relevant curriculum supported by teacher professional development, extensive after school and into the evening programming in arts, sports, etc. for students, their families, and the community, a commitment to building restorative culture, and a clear leadership role for parents and students.
- Safe, Clean, and Green Schools: Students need to feel valued and welcomed at school. It’s hard to feel like you matter if your building is crumbling, the HVAC doesn’t work, the walls are dull and uninspiring, etc. and if you don’t feel like you matter it’s hard to put your full effort into learning. We are not renovating all the schools, obviously, but we can ensure they are clean and we can take steps to make sure toxins like mold, lead, and asbestos are removed. We can paint and decorate the walls and make sure the HVAC is working. To the extent we are renovating, it should be in the context of addressing energy efficiency and involving the school community in sustainable practices.
I have worked with others in my community and around the city for decades on preserving and increasing low-cost housing and on education issues including improving curriculum, increasing equity in CPS, and a stronger voice for students and parents.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire
Elected officials need to be transparent and accountable, and that doesn’t mean just sending out a newsletter and holding office hours. They need to go out into the community they represent and listen to what their constituents have to say. That means showing up at community events, block club meetings, religious organizations, anywhere their presence would be welcome. I am committed to doing that for my constituents as a member of the elected school board. It’s also important to be principled, to stand by the values one professed as a candidate once in office. I am committed to that as well.
I'm very hard working and dedicated, I'm detail oriented and I believe in working collectively to solve problems.
The board’s purpose is to improve educational outcomes, but that is not synonymous with higher test scores. The educational outcomes the board values should be holistic and focus on students reaching their full potential, being equipped with the skills and mindsets necessary for them to have a fulfilling future. Our students should be nurtured into being lifelong learners, capable of analyzing information, solving problems, working in collaboration with others, and believing in their capacity to build a better world. As a member of the board, it will be my responsibility to work with the community to make sure we’re achieving that purpose while centering the specific needs of our community. That will mean going out into the community to talk about the board’s work and what we’re doing, as well as to listen to what people need and how things are working for them. All the other responsibilities of the board–hiring and evaluating the CEO, establishing goals and approving policies, approving budgets and plans–are in service of improving educational outcomes.
I was 7 years old when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember the principal rushing into our classroom and announcing that the president had been shot.
My first real job (not a summer job or part time job) was working as a lab tech at Northwestern Medical School for a doctor who was doing research on gestational diabetes. I had the job for one year.
A school board member’s primary job is to see that every child is able to attend a well-resourced high quality school and is provided what they need to have a fulfilling future.
The students whose education we are working to ensure meets their needs and their families and community
The best way to ensure everyone in schools and in their surrounding community is supported is through the Sustainable Community Schools model. SCSs serve as hubs for their community, are open for extended hours, and they welcome families from the school and the surrounding community to take advantage of the variety of programs they offer, and which were chosen by those families. They invest in improving classroom learning through high quality professional development and a focus on challenging, engaging, and culturally relevant curriculum. Most importantly, they nurture the whole child through the inclusion of additional programming.
Currently, 20 CPS schools are SCSs, including Uplift High, where I retired from teaching earlier this year. I was involved in the development and implementation of that model there, and have seen first hand how this model works for everyone involved.
Currently, 20 CPS schools are SCSs, including Uplift High, where I retired from teaching earlier this year. I was involved in the development and implementation of that model there, and have seen first hand how this model works for everyone involved.
I will build relationships by meeting those groups and individuals where they are, going to schools, community groups, religious institutions, etc. to hear from students, parents, staff and community members about their ideas, needs, and concerns and to share with them the Board’s work. As a member of Northside Action for Justice, I have been doing outreach to families for decades, including door to door work and organizing forums on education topics, so I have a lot of experience in this area. I will be holding regular (monthly) briefings for LSCs and periodically attending LSC meetings. LSCs are a group I will target because they represent elected leadership in their school community. I will also target students. Too often we don’t include students or we include them in token ways, but we need their input to determine what is working for them and what isn’t. Young people are full of great ideas.
Good teaching is teaching that enables students to develop their knowledge and skills through exploring questions and topics that they participate in choosing. It engages students by being authentic and allowing students to work on projects that make impactful change. It incorporates what are sometimes called “21st century skills” in communication, collaboration, problem solving, appreciation of diversity, etc. It helps students learn to analyze information, understand whose interest it serves and what biases are present, and be able to evaluate the validity of sources whether that is a teacher or the internet.
Curriculum needs to be challenging, engaging and culturally relevant. Students need to have a real voice in what to study and what kinds of impactful actions they would like to take with the skills they have learned. I have been participating in a pilot of this type of curriculum development called Curriculum Circles.
I’d also like to see more curriculum around long term environmental stewardship and community engagement in our schools. Allowing our students to learn practices that will enable them to engage with and support their communities as lifelong learners while taking care of our environment is the best way to prepare them for fulfilling lives as adults. There is a lot of interest in CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs and a CTE program in green technology would offer CPS students a pathway into the next generation of jobs.
I’d also like to see more curriculum around long term environmental stewardship and community engagement in our schools. Allowing our students to learn practices that will enable them to engage with and support their communities as lifelong learners while taking care of our environment is the best way to prepare them for fulfilling lives as adults. There is a lot of interest in CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs and a CTE program in green technology would offer CPS students a pathway into the next generation of jobs.
Not enough money is being generated to support Chicago and 84% of the other school districts around the state, urban and rural. The current solutions of using the property tax in individual districts has only led to more inequity between wealthy and poorer districts.
We need to look immediately at holding the state accountable to follow the evidence based formula model that it purports to be using and send to Chicago the full amount that we are entitled to. That is $1.1 billion additional. We can do that by building a unified front, with the business community, the unions, the city elected officials, and parents joining the education community in Chicago and across the state to press our demand for the funds we are owed.
Restorative justice practices need to become a way of life in our schools, implemented at every level, and that requires a change in mindset since few of us were trained or live our lives that way. Making this happen requires investment because our schools will need restorative justice coordinators, training and ongoing coaching for teachers, peace rooms, training for students and implementation of peer conferencing programs, and training for parents. A peaceful classroom environment that students are involved in helping to maintain is tied to truly transformative and liberatory education.
Increased mental health support requires trained staff to provide that support, which means sufficient counselors, social workers, and nurses in every school. Schools have Behavioral Health Teams that analyze needs for specific students and determine what types of supports to offer. These might include grief support groups or supports for students dealing with chronic illness, for example. Again, schools need to have sufficient staff to provide these interventions. My high school students had a great deal of interest in mental health and had ideas themselves, including incorporating mental health breaks into class and offering seminars on mental issues for students and parents. In some schools, students are trained as peer counselors and offer support to each other. Teachers need to incorporate social and emotional learning activities into their daily routines as an integral part of class. We can’t think of this as an add-on or luxury: if students are distracted by problems that are weighing on them they cannot give their full attention to learning.
I’ve already discussed my support for a move to a Sustainable Community School model in other answers. As part of that, I would like to see greater emphasis on building school-wide restorative culture in a manner that involves students as leaders and provides ongoing training and coaching for all members of the school community by a restorative justice coordinator or individual with those skills.
I have the honor of being endorsed by:
The People’s 32nd
46th Ward Alderperson Angela Clay
44th Ward Neighbors
46th Ward Committeeman Sean Tenner
48th Ward Neighbors for Justice
Chicago Teachers Union
Northside Action for Justice
The 46th Ward IPO
ONE People’s Campaign
Citizen Action Illinois
Our Revolution
Hoan Huynh
Our Schools Action
Cook County College Teachers Union
Asian American Midwest Progressives
JCUA Votes
Our Schools Chicago
Girl, I Guess
Sunrise Movement
United Working Families
Northside DFA
CDSA
The ideal learning environment for students is one with modern, clean, green buildings where students can feel safe and valued. The students have a say in the curriculum they are taught, and their engagement and ownership of their learning process is central to the environment and experience. Restorative justice practices and the training, infrastructure, and staff support needed to properly and fully implement those govern the whole environment.
It’s important to go to the parents and meet them where they are. Too often I’ve seen CPS issue surveys to parents who don’t have the time or capacity to respond, or who can’t engage with the language the survey is available in. We must ensure that outreach efforts are done in the languages spoken by the parents we’re reaching out to. I will also make sure to be available in times and places that are convenient for the parents. That means being present at the schools, attending LSC meetings, going to community and religious events, and being present to listen and also to share about the work the board is doing. By doing this consistently and respectfully, I will build the relationships needed to ensure the board meets the needs of our CPS families.
We need to recruit more faculty, staff, and administrators that look like our students. Part of that is having a school system that respects and values its faculty, staff, and administration, as well as its students, which is key to building a workplace culture that people want to join and remain in. The Grow Your Own program is a way to recruit people from the community and give them the support and mentoring they need to become teachers. The We Care program run by CTU provides additional support for beginning teachers. We need to work with the people working in our schools to ensure they have the resources they need, from making sure the buildings they work in are clean and green, to them having the professional development and supplies they need to do their jobs. But we also need to make sure that they aren’t dealing with a situation where understaffing of other roles limits their capacity to do their job. By fully funding and equipping our schools, we’ll be able to recruit the talent we need to fill our faculty, staff, and administration roles.
A budget is a moral document and when CPS presents a budget to the public, it should come with an explanation of the values and principles that led to the choices they made. It should be clear where the feedback and engagement from the students, families, faculty, and communities influenced and shaped the budget, and where compromises had to be made to balance competing priorities. It should be understood that we took care of the most vulnerable first. Everyone should understand how their schools are funded and where that funding comes from. When we have shortages because the state and federal governments are not meeting their obligations to us, our communities should know that, and they should also know what we did to push for corrections to that.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Chicago Public Schools school board District 4b |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 8, 2024
