Northside’s LSC: An Introduction

Northside’s Local School Council (LSC) is an essential part of our community. Serving as a democratic council for the Northside community, the LSC plays an important role in major school decisions and events. 

LSCs perform all administrative functions such as those of a school board, including budgeting, school improvement, and principal evaluations. High school LSCs, such as the one that helps run Northside, are made up of elected representatives and the principal of each school respectively. 

Who is a part of the LSC?

The total number of elected individuals is determined by the overall size of the school and the number of staff it has. 

Northside’s LSC board consists of 14 elected members, in addition to the school principal, Dr. Stuber. The elected members include:

• Two teacher representatives 
  • Ms. Martha Mulligan
  • Ms. Veronica Hetler
• One non-teacher staff representative
  • Mr. Charles Sell
• Three student representatives
  • Claire Dawson (Senior)
  • Kushala Anantharaman (Sophomore)
  • Alejandra Hernandez Cornejo (Sophomore)
• Six parent representatives
  • Ms. Amy Hennessy
  • Mr. Carl Breving
  • Ms. Sharon Waller
  • Ms. Maria Cecilia Bocanegra
  • Ms. Christine Lee
  • Ms. Mary Renouard
• Two community representatives
  • Mr. Conor Hart
  • (Open)

Parent, community, and staff representatives serve two-year terms, while student representatives can only serve a one-year term. Each representative brings a unique perspective, providing insight into issues troubling the school community and possible school improvement initiatives. 

Information about the current LSC board can be found under the LSC tab on the school website.

What does the LSC do? 

Northside’s LSC is heavily involved in the school’s budgeting process and financial planning. All major financial decisions that the principal proposes must be approved by the LSC before the money is available for action. 

Along with budgetary issues, the LSC is focused on school improvement. Each board member is given an opportunity to share school updates, celebrations, and concerns they may have. These mini-reports help to inform the list of issues the LSC chooses to address at their meetings, influencing the actions that will be taken to change the school community. 

LSC Representative Profiles

Claire Dawson – Student Representative

• What is your role in the LSC? What are your responsibilities in this position?
  • I’m one of three student representatives on the LSC. My job is to report from the student perspective during the student comment section of LSC meetings. We report on academics, sports, clubs, and various student affairs. We also advocate for student concerns that we think are important to elevate to the LSC.
• What issues are important to you as a Northside student? How do you address these issues at LSC meetings? 
  • The issues that are important to me are student mental health, availability of resources, infrastructure, etc., as the only senior student representative. I also care about representing the senior perspective regarding teacher understanding of the pressures of college application season, senior activities, prom, and graduation. My main job as a student representative is to bring about concerns seniors have and inform parents/teachers/administration about the students’ stressors and mental capacity at that current moment.

• What impact do you hope to leave on the LSC and Northside? What is your main goal concerning the LSC? 
  • I hope to be a fair and accurate representation of the student body and celebrate students’ successes. I want to bring attention to the issues we care about and I want to make long lasting changes in terms of infrastructure, particularly regarding the northside student parking lot. I also hope to be a figure students feel comfortable going to with the concerns they want brought to LSC. Overall, I want to be an enthusiastic and accurate portrayal of Northside students in the legislative body of LSC.

Mrs. Veronica Hetler – Teacher Representative

• What is your role in the LSC? What are your responsibilities in this position? 
  • My job is to represent the teachers for the LSC, and inform the board of their activities and celebrations alongside my colleague Mrs. Mulligan. For example, I may share awards that teachers have received. If teachers are doing outreach or specific projects in the community, either with their classes or with their clubs, my responsibility is to make sure that the LSC is aware of all of those things going on because they’re not necessarily going to be evident in the school. These things can also include areas of concern or areas for betterment. 
• What issues do you focus on as an LSC board member and how do you address these issues at meetings?
  • One of the things we focus on is communicating with the “decision makers” if there are areas where it seems like resources are needed. So, whether that is monetary resources or time resources, I think that the LSC needs to know where those areas of need might be. So, for me, that comes from what I’m hearing from other faculty members. Funding is obviously a huge issue and one that the LSC is mainly focused on. Since we’re a public school, a bulk of our funding comes directly from the district. That funding model changed a little bit over the summer. We are moving away from student-based budgeting to a new positions-based model. Due to this change, funding has been harder to come by for both larger and smaller-scale needs. 

• What impact do you hope to leave on the LSC and Northside? What is your main goal concerning the LSC?
  • I care about the well-being of our full community, and I want it not to be a one-sided perspective that I’m bringing into the conversation. I want to preserve all the things that are good about Northside. Much of what I try to do with the LSC has to do with our resources, and I believe that our greatest resource is all the people that we have here. So whether we’re talking about our students or our teachers, they’re actually the resources that we can’t necessarily put a number or a monetary value on. I want to preserve and help them the most.

Mrs. Mary Renouard – Parent Representative 

• What is your role in the LSC? What are your responsibilities in this position?
  • I am currently in my 3rd year serving on Northside College Prep High School’s Local School Council (LSC) as a Parent Representative. Specifically, in my role as one of the six parents elected to serve on the LSC, I aim to represent the voice of the extended Northside parent community to the best of my ability, bringing forth issues, concerns, input, and perspectives shared with me by the greater parent community while performing our LSC duties. 
• What issues are important to you as a Northside parent? How do you address these issues at LSC meetings? 
  •  My primary areas of focus are quality of overall education experience, student engagement and enrichment, safety and security, staff development and engagement, and fiscal responsibility and effectiveness. As an LSC, we discuss each of these in the context of continuous school improvement, community engagement, administrative effectiveness/areas to improve responsiveness, and student/family/staff issues and concerns.
• What impact do you hope to leave on the LSC and Northside? What is your main goal concerning the LSC? 
  • In addition to helping with overall LSC responsibilities of budget review and approval, principal evaluation, and CIWP monitoring, I personally hope to help further community engagement through ongoing suggestions for improvement. Northside is such a special place – everyone deserves the chance to hear all about the amazing things being done here, day in and day out – through the tireless efforts and collaborative engagement of NCP’s administration, teachers, staff, students, and families!

How can students get involved with the LSC? 

There are many ways for students to get involved with the LSC. The most straightforward way to participate is to attend an LSC meeting. Occurring once a month on the second floor of the library, Northside LSC meetings are open to anyone in the school community interested in attending. The meeting schedule for 2024-2025 is listed below: 

October 15, 2024

November 19, 2024

December 17, 2024

January 28, 2025

February 18, 2025

March 18, 2025

April 15, 2025

May 20, 2025

Each meeting begins at 6:30 PM and lasts between two and three hours. The LSC-elected board primarily leads meetings, but at the beginning and end of each meeting, there are opportunities offered for public comments. Public comments are an important chance for members of the school community to bring forth issues, questions, and/or concerns for meeting discussion. They are an occasion for students to practice civic engagement and advocate for themselves and the school. 

Students can also choose to run for student representative. Student representatives represent the student community at Northside and have the power to bring student issues and concerns to the attention of the LSC. Being a student representative is a great way to help address community interests and make Northside a better place. 

Frequently Asked Questions:

• When are the elections?
  • February 2025, exact dates to come soon. 
• How can I run?
  • Candidates must fill out candidate nomination forms and attend a candidate forum to discuss their experiences and interest in the LSC in order to run for an open board position. All forms and applications can be found at LSC Elections | Chicago Public Schools. 
• Where can I find more information about the LSC? 
  • For more information on CPS LSC guidelines and general information, visit https://www.cps.edu/about/local-school-councils/. 
  • For more information on Northside’s LSC, visit the school website.