Chicago’s Board of Education to move meeting location due to water damage, upcoming renovations

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

The Chicago Board of Education won’t meet in its boardroom for the rest of the year due to flood damage and renovations to make space for the new elected school board, officials said Wednesday.

July’s full board meeting will be held at Jones College Prep in the South Loop. Monthly meetings in August, October, November and December will be held at a Chicago Public Schools administrative building known as the Colman office at 4655 S. Dearborn St., in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood on the South Side, according to a notice included as part of the board’s agenda for its monthly meeting next week. The September meeting will be held at Roberto Clemente Community Academy High School, from 5-10 p.m. No meeting locations for after December were included.

The new, 21-person board will be seated on Jan. 15, 2025.

The location shift comes after the board’s regular meeting room, which is on the ground level of CPS’s downtown headquarters at 42 W. Madison St., was damaged last month when a pipe burst at a nearby business, CPS officials said at the time. The damage made the room “unsuitable” for its June meeting.

Officials cited flood damage, as well as upcoming renovations to accommodate the new, larger board, as the reasons its meetings must be moved for the rest of the year. The district has so far declined to share details about what renovations for the new board will look like or how much they will cost, saying officials are still finalizing the plan. CPS did not immediately share any updates on Wednesday.

The new board will be triple the size of the current one. The current room has a dais with enough seats for the seven board members, plus seats for the board’s student member and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

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