Isaiah White is a CPS educator who is deeply committed to the wellbeing of Chicago’s communities. He started his career in education as an English teacher in a rural elementary school outside Madrid. Upon returning, he has focused primarily on working with Chicago’s recently arrived refugee students, some of the most underserved members of our community.

When Isaiah’s not teaching, he manages campaigns for Chicago’s next generation of elected leaders, most recently Jessica Biggs’ race for school board. The candidates he chooses to work with are kind, empathetic, authentic individuals who strive to build transparent, decent, and good government.

Isaiah has deep first-hand experiences with the successes and failures of government. As a former foster youth, he relied on Medicaid, SNAP, and Social Security Survivors Benefits. He firmly believes in the necessity of a universal social safety net, and he believes that the people who rely on these services and, critically, the taxpayers who fund them, deserve programs that are efficient and generous stewards of public dollars. Isaiah endeavors to build a county government that makes our tax-dollars go further while delivering robust programs and customer-focused services.

When Isaiah arrived in Chicago, he enrolled in CountyCare and experienced the breadth and generosity of the program while also witnessing its waste and maladministration. When he had to call through forty doctors from the provider directory, he discovered that a third of them were dead numbers, a fourth had never taken Medicaid, and the rest weren’t accepting new patients. Inefficiencies like these force people into higher cost emergency care for conditions better managed in a doctor’s office. County government is full of such failures that hurt the taxpayer and beneficiary alike. Isaiah will leverage his personal experience as a recipient of many of the programs that the Country offers to preserve their generosity while reforming their administration to lower unit costs and enhance their quality of service.

Today Isaiah lives in River North with his spouse, Alex, and their kitten, Ford. He volunteers with the River North Residents’ Association as their chair of family activities, organizing seasonal events that help make River North a great place for kids to grow. When he’s not teaching, campaigning, or volunteering, he bikes and does ceramics at the Park District. He also absolutely loves to nap.