Chicago school board doesn’t fire CEO but does commit to no school closures until 2027

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Despite weeks of pressure from Mayor Brandon Johnson and the teachers union, the Chicago Board of Education did not remove Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez from his post during its Thursday meeting.

The school board did unanimously pass a resolution put forward by Martinez that said it will not close schools until 2027. That vote came at the end of what was an often tense public meeting that drew many supporters and opponents of Martinez.

In a statement issued earlier this week, the district said the board — which was appointed by Johnson — would not take action on Martinez’s contract. But the veracity of that statement came into question after Board President Jianan Shi said the board had not approved it.

On Thursday, Shi did not directly comment on the mayor’s request for Martinez to resign. He said the board “cannot and will not and won’t discuss confidential or personnel matters publicly.”

Before the board adopted the resolution, Shi also addressed r ecent claims from the Chicago Teachers Union about school closures that have helped fuel a push to fire Martinez. Shi said there was no plan to close schools, which drew applause.

The conflict between Johnson and Martinez reflects a fundamental rift over how the district should navigate a time when federal COVID relief dollars are running out and major deficits loom.

Tensions between the two surfaced this summer when Johnson criticized the district’s new budget. The CPS budget includes cuts to help eliminate a budget deficit but does not include a $175 million payment to a municipal pension fund that covers non-teaching staff and other city workers.

The latter was something Johnson — before he became mayor — had criticized his predecessor Lori Lightfoot about. But now, the refusal by CPS to pay for some pension costs has helped inflate the deficit in the city budget that Johnson now oversees.

Johnson pushed CPS to take out a short-term loan to cover the costs of the pension payment, as well as union contracts with the teachers and principals unions. But CPS and Martinez declined due to fears about debt.

These tensions have been exacerbated by contract negotiations that began this summer between the union — where Johnson was an organizer — and CPS. Johnson remains a staunch ally of the union, which has proposed 9% pay raises, more classroom staffing, additional support for students, and access to affordable housing for homeless students, among other things.

Last week, Johnson asked Martinez to resign, and Martinez declined. In an extraordinary public move, Martinez wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune saying that he wants to maintain stability for the district and described the talk of closures as an effort to undermine him .

Rather than discuss Martinez’s job status, Shi tried to draw attention Thursday to the district’s efforts to provide more resources to schools “farthest from opportunity.”

Claims about school closures are ‘misinformation’ says Martinez

On Thursday, Martinez did not address his future. But he reiterated that the district has no plans to close schools and again described the claims about closures as part of a “misinformation campaign.”

Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, stopped short of calling for Martinez’s resignation on Thursday. But he said during the meeting that schools would be better off if Martinez “could exert a fraction of the energy and chutzpah you’ve exercised to defend your job” toward ensuring schools had more funding.

The union recently said it had obtained a district analysis listing dozens of new school co-locations. But CPS said the analysis ultimately led the district to decide against closing schools.

Still, those reassurances have failed to quell all concerns. Jitu Brown, a longtime activist and school board candidate on the West Side who has been endorsed by the teachers union, led a press conference with a few community organizations before Thursday’s meeting during which they displayed what they said was the list of co-locations. Brown said they got them from a reliable source but declined to say who. (Neither the union nor the district has shared the list with Chalkbeat.)

Brown said the list reminds him of school closures under former Mayor Richard Daley.

“Every year that Mayor Daley and his appointed school board closed 15 schools, closed 8 schools, closed 10 schools, they always told us, ‘These are just ideas,’ so they must be out of their rabid mind if they believe that we don’t think this is serious,” Brown said.

The district has said it is considering a co-location at just one school: Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center on the city’s South Side.

At least a dozen people from the Velma Thomas community, including parents and teachers, sharply criticized the district and Martinez on Thursday for not taking swift action to buy the school’s building, which they said is up for sale. The church that owns the building offered it to CPS but said the district declined to purchase it, the McKinley Park News reported in May.

Martinez did not address that claim, but said “no decisions have been made” and won’t be until they engage the school community. A teacher interrupted, “You’re letting them sell the building!”

Separately, several people spoke both in favor and against Martinez. Natasha Dunn, a CPS parent who is part of Black Community Collaborative, said “despite his faults,” she credited CPS for launching a working group to explore how to better support Black students.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas, Ald. Silvana Tabares, and Ald. Nick Sposato all spoke in support of keeping Martinez. Sposato wore a “Vote For Pedro” T-shirt — a reference to the movie “Napoleon Dynamite.”

But Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez strongly criticized Martinez, in part because of the claims around closures.

“It is time the Board of Education holds CPS accountable,” he said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org .