Andrew Chenohara is a CPS kindergarten teacher, school delegate, and District Organizer. He has taught kindergarten and first-grade on the South Side over the past six years, both at Burke Elementary in Washington Park and Gillespie Elementary in West Chesterfield. Andrew began as a delegate and strike captain during the 2019 Strike, and subsequently served and organized the PPC, Contract Action Team, and Safety Committee at his school. He is an active member of the Leadership Collective of Teachers for Social Justice (TSJ). Andrew graduated with a BA in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, an MAT from the University of Chicago, and is currently a PhD student in UIC’s Department of Educational Policy Studies. His research interests focus on austerity urbanism & municipal debt, racial capitalism, neoliberal education policy, and critical childhood studies.

As a potential Area Vice President for the South Side, Andrew’s vision of organizing is based on recognizing the unique histories, conditions, and strengths that South Side teachers and school communities bring to the CTU and to the ongoing struggles for racial, economic, and educational justice. Many teachers – especially veteran Black educators – have spent their careers serving and building deep relationships with communities on the South Side of our city, making it a center of deep institutional and pedagogical knowledge and site for organizing. Despite racist disinvestment and state abandonment – experienced through school closures and consolidations, the push-out of veteran Black teachers, and the disproportionate impact of student-based budgeting on working conditions and schools, the South Side remains. As an AVP, Andrew’s vision is to strengthen multiracial and intergenerational solidarities across school buildings, address on-the-ground working/learning conditions, and amplify experiences and voices from our diverse communities on the Executive Board.

Andrew lives with his partner and two cats in Hyde Park. His partner, Julie, is a CPS special education teacher at Piccolo Elementary in Humboldt Park.