The head of Chicago’s largest high school charter network is stepping down after six years on the job.
Noble Schools CEO Constance Jones announced in an email to staff and families that she will “pass the torch to a new leader” and work with the network’s board and an outside consultant to find a new CEO.
In a statement, Jones said she is focused on the start of the school year and plans on staying and overlapping with the new CEO “for several months to support a smooth transition during the year ahead.”
“Noble is in strong and stable shape, both organizationally and financially, and recently secured the longest charter renewal term granted by Chicago Public Schools,” Jones wrote in a statement.
Noble opened its first campus in 1999 and now serves more than 12,000 students across 18 campuses.
As the first woman and first Black person to hold the position, Jones led the organization through a series of policy changes impacting Noble’s mostly Black and Latino students, including the relaxing of the network’s once-stringent dress code and a shift away from a “no-excuses” approach to discipline in 2020 amid a broader racial reckoning following the police killing of George Floyd.
Noble CEO Constance Jones stands in front of a window at the network’s downtown office.
The Noble Schools network has had a reputation for strong academics and a college-going culture. In her email, Jones said the network’s recent graduating class received 17,000 college offers, including from Yale, Brown, Howard, and Stanford Universities. The network enrolled more than 2,800 seniors last school year, according to district enrollment data.
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