Chris Van Nostrand

At a glance

Stated priorities

No platform or priorities published as of Tue Oct 6, 2026.

Record

Facts from public records, campaign filings and published news reports, each checked against its primary source. Same categories and the same review for every candidate. Listed, not evaluated. Last reviewed Tue Oct 6, 2026.

Campaign finance

• Oct 2026As of Oct. 6, 2026, the Illinois State Board of Elections listed no political committee for him.[5]

Public office

• Apr 2025He finished fifth of 13 candidates for four District 65 board seats in the April 1, 2025 election.[6]
• Feb 2026After the board did not fill Omar Salem's vacant seat within 60 days, April D. Jordan, executive director of the North Cook Intermediate Service Center, appointed him on Feb. 2, 2026, saying the "most unbiased and democratic approach … was to rely on the 2025 school board election results and pair that information with those who formally applied"; he was sworn in Feb. 9, 2026.[7][8]
• Mar 2026On March 23, 2026 he and Maria Opdycke voted against a $528,279.25 purchase of 1,231 iPads, which passed 5–2.[9][10]
• Apr 2026On April 13, 2026 he and Maria Opdycke, who the RoundTable reported said in the board president's informal poll that they did not want any counselor cuts, cast the two votes against the resolution authorizing a reduction in force of teachers, which passed 5–2 and eliminated two of nine middle-school counselor positions; the same night he voted for the separate resolutions on non-renewal of non-tenured teachers and on educational support personnel, each passed 7–0.[11][12]
• May 2026On May 18, 2026 the board elected him vice president 4–3 over Mya Wilkins, with Nichole Pinkard, Pat Anderson, Maria Opdycke and Van Nostrand voting for him and Andrew Wymer, Wilkins and Sergio Hernandez voting for Wilkins.[13][14]
• Jun 2026On June 22, 2026 he voted for the mutual separation agreement with Superintendent Angel Turner; the approved minutes record the vote as 6–0, and the RoundTable and The Daily Northwestern report it as 5–1 with Andrew Wymer voting no.[15][16][17]
• Jun 2026On June 22, 2026 he seconded the appointment of Eric Witherspoon as interim superintendent and moved to name CFO Eric Miller school treasurer; both motions passed.[17]
• Aug 2026The board's 2026–2027 committee assignments, posted with the Aug. 31, 2026 meeting agenda, name him chair of the Policy Committee.[18]
• Sep 2026The Evanston RoundTable and The Daily Northwestern reported that the District 65 board unanimously approved the fiscal 2027 budget, with a $5.1 million operating deficit, at its Sept. 28, 2026 meeting, where he also spoke on the district's achievement report; the district's budget memo says the deficit "includes a one-time $3.625 million Foster School closeout expenditure."[19][20][21]
• Aug 2026The Evanston RoundTable reported that at the District 65 board's Aug. 17, 2026 special meeting, where the board voted 6–1 to select Alma Advisory Group to lead its superintendent search with Mya Wilkins the lone no vote, he said "a lot of due diligence" had taken place behind the scenes; the board approved an $80,000 contract with the firm on Aug. 31, 2026.[22][23]

Property and taxes

• 2009–2017He owned a condominium at 826 Judson Ave., Evanston, from September 2009 to June 2017.[24][25]
• 2021–2025He bought 2622 Noyes St., Evanston, by warranty deed in May 2021 for $690,000, and by quitclaim deed signed Dec. 31, 2024 and recorded March 19, 2025 conveyed it to himself and a co-trustee as trustees of a trust.[26][27]

Legal and regulatory

• Jun 2024The City of Evanston's June 25, 2024 bills list includes a $1,200 Entrepreneurship Support Grant to Strength Wise LLC, the company named in the terms of service of Strength Wise Barbell, the business he describes himself as founding and that the RoundTable reported on Aug. 31, 2026 he owns, one of four such grants on that list totaling $7,600.[28][29][30][31]

Statements and conduct

• 2025–2026In a March 2025 FOIA Gras candidate questionnaire he wrote, "I'm opposed to a residency requirement. We need to keep the application funnel as wide as possible to attract candidates, which includes the autonomy to decide where they live," and his 2027 campaign site says, "I'm strongly in favor of requiring our next superintendent to live in D65. But I'm also keeping an open mind depending on our candidate pipeline and the specifics of our finalists."[32][33][34]
• Dec 2025As one of four finalists for the vacant board seat, he wrote in a statement to the RoundTable that he favored "a complete proposal for saving $16 m[illion] with a line item breakdown" along with closing Kingsley Elementary and the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, and the RoundTable reported he said closures should be approached "with profound empathy."[35]
• Feb 2026At the Feb. 23, 2026 board meeting he asked how the district's approach to special education would change if it did not receive federal special-education grants, and on March 9 he apologized for "any distress (he) may have caused parents," said "I stand fully behind our D65 students receiving special education services, whom we have a moral and legal obligation to support," and, according to the minutes, said his questions were meant to understand why student outcomes had worsened as spending increased.[36][37]
• Oct 2026His campaign site says he "Grew revenue 52% from $48m to $62m for public university while managing $2m marketing budget"; an increase from $48 million to $62 million is 29.2%, and the site does not explain the difference.[38]