Elana Jacobs

Elana Jacobs is a proven transformative educator with over 10 years in the public school system who builds communities that she participates in and finds ways to bring diverse voices to a single cause. Elana has led over 20 workshops in professional development leadership in the areas of STEM, special education, technology and career and technical education. As a teacher in some of the most high poverty/high violence neighborhoods in Chicago, Elana has built relationships and helped identify and close inequity gaps with students, parents, teachers and administrators. She has worked with her students to challenge them to think about their perseverance, creativity, social-emotional health, and implement a plan for their post-high school experiences. Elana works from an abundance model where the resources need to be redistributed and highlighted among community members. Because of her proven experience as a classroom teacher, she will do this for District 73.5.

Elana has a deep commitment to uniting diverse perspectives behind common causes. As a SEED participant (anti-racist training), she has learned how to understand and implement equity amongst a diverse community. Currently at her high school she is on the race and equity taskforce, which is taking the next step to detracking the whole school. As an ESL teacher in dual language school, Elana has helped promote linguistic diversity and bilingual education. Elana is a member of the Illinois LGBT Education Task Force that helps implement the law to teach LGBT history in k-12 schools. Because of her proven experience, Elana will amplify voices of students, teachers, parents that aren’t always heard.