Entire CPS Board to resign, adding to school district chaos

The entire Chicago Board of Education is resigning, a stunning development after months of acrimony that clears the way for Mayor Brandon Johnson to appoint a new board that will likely follow his orders — fire schools CEO Pedro Martinez, make a contract deal with the Chicago Teachers Union and take a loan to cover a city pension payment and the teachers’ contract this year.

Johnson’s staff confirmed Friday in an exclusive interview that the expected resignations of all seven board members are to come once he names replacements — which his office later said will be announced at a South Side church Monday morning. WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times first reported the possibility of resignations this past Monday.

In the interview, the mayor fought back against the idea that this was a power grab. In the face of a budget shortfall at CPS, Johnson said the historically underfunded school district needs more state money. That’s rather than relying on cuts or furloughs — options Martinez has privately floated to make ends meet this year.

“This is not about a loan,” Johnson said. “It is about investing in our children and not accepting cuts like for too long in this district. Guess who loses when we cut schools? Black and Brown children. I don't want Black and Brown children to lose under my administration. In fact, they're not going to lose under my administration. I'm going to fight for them.”

CPS’ attempts to get more money last spring from Springfield — which has its own fiscal constraints — were unsuccessful, and sources close to the board and teachers union argued Martinez didn’t do enough to make the case for CPS — a charge those close to Martinez denied. Johnson’s strained relationship with Gov. JB Pritzker also didn't help.

The mayor’s office is looking for new members who could stay on in January, when a new 21-member, partially elected, partially appointed board will take charge. It’ll be tricky to identify such members before the election because the law stipulates they have to represent an area that is not represented by an elected member. In a joint statement from the mayor and school board, they painted the departures as an agreed-upon “transition plan” ahead of that new structure.

“With the unprecedented increase in board membership, transitioning new members now will allow them time to orient and gain critical experience prior to welcoming additional elected and appointed members in 2025,” the statement read.

The discord between the mayor’s office, the board, CPS and the CTU was the leading factor in the exodus.

Even so, the motives behind the mass resignations appear to vary and are complicated. The board has backed Martinez in clashes with Johnson at times but has also had its own concerns with Martinez’s performance, WBEZ and the Sun-Times previously reported — and Martinez was up for another review soon with this board. Individual board members haven’t commented on the record beyond the joint statement.

In the end, the departures seemed mutual, a source said. Some board members were upset with the mayor’s handling of the strife and unhappy about the position they were being put in. The mayor, meanwhile, was faced with the unprecedented scenario of his own school board and CEO resisting his demands. Talks about resignations had gone on for weeks, at times prompted by board members and other times by mayoral aides, sources said.

While Johnson might ultimately get his way, these mass resignations likely will be viewed by many as a rejection of the mayor’s approach by his own appointees, especially after a senior aide in his office recently declared that it was Martinez who had “lost the board.” That aide confidently told WBEZ and the Sun-Times that the board was agreeable to a loan.

And it’s an astonishing outcome for this board that was expected to be Johnson’s rubber stamp and has worked hand-in-hand with the mayor to successfully usher in several progressive policy changes ahead of the city’s first school board elections on Nov. 5.

In their own statement, CPS officials thanked the board members for their “countless hours volunteering their time, lending their considerable expertise and experience to support our system and our more than 325,000 students.” While they acknowledged the news “may concern our families and staff,” they reassured that the district is “focused on teaching and learning."

There also likely will be political fallout as the city enters its budget season, with many City Council members having lined up publicly on either side of the CPS issues. Since the announcement, several groups and Council members have admonished the mayor, and one even asked Gov. JB Pritzker to intervene.

A spokesman for Pritzker said in a statement Friday that the governor “doesn’t have the legal authority to intervene in this situation” but promised to work with lawmakers to “invest in public education across the state.” Pritzker said earlier this week that he didn’t think board members should resign.

The resignations can hardly be seen as a win for the CEO. Martinez could be fired by the new board after fighting hard — with the help of allies critical of Johnson and CTU — to stay in place and rejecting Johnson’s request to resign earlier this month. The board — which will still face some legal obstacles to forcing out Martinez — has final say over hiring and firing the CEO.

In the interview Friday, Johnson shot back at his critics, saying many of them are former CPS or city officials “tied to administrations that not only closed schools and privatized assets, but shut down public housing, took the dedicated string for pensions and gave it to greedy corporate interests, spent all the money, left me with the bill, and now they're mad that I'm actually doing what I promised I would do on behalf of parents, even though they have left a trail of harm.”

When Johnson appointed this board in July 2023, he said it would “collaborate around a vision for our schools that ensures every student has access to a fully resourced, supportive and nurturing learning environment.”

But this summer, board members faced difficult decisions about the district’s budget deficit. While they’ve agreed with Johnson that they don’t want to see cuts in schools, they were hesitant to follow the mayor’s push to use a loan to fill a mid-year budget gap that will be created when the teachers' contract is settled. They also disagreed with Johnson over whether the school district should pay a part of a municipal pension payment that covers non-teaching CPS staff.

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced criticism when she shifted part of the payment — historically paid by City Hall — to CPS. Johnson, despite working for the CTU when it criticized Lightfoot for the move, also asked CPS to pay when he found he needed to balance the stretched-thin city budget.

In their first public and stunning rebuke of the mayor, Martinez and the school board didn’t include that loan or pension payment in the CPS budget passed in July.

But the school board also has been raising concerns about Martinez.

In a performance assessment last year, they noted three areas where Martinez needed improvement: visionary leadership, community engagement and management. In particular, they were frustrated with the pace Martinez moved forward with CPS’ five-year strategic plan, which they saw as their hallmark project, according to the December 2023 assessment.

The new board will need to figure out how to pay for a new teachers' contract, which the school district predicts will cost at least $120 million annually even without agreeing to the CTU’s most expensive demands. The budget approved by the board in July does not include money for the contract.

The new board will also face obstacles to removing Martinez — particularly because his contract puts them in a bind.

If they fire him without cause, his contract would see him stay on for another six months. That’s an untenable prospect for Johnson and his allies at the CTU, who spent big money to propel Johnson into office and want Martinez out immediately.

Trying to fire him for cause could open up the board to a lawsuit if a reasonable case isn’t made that Martinez hasn’t fulfilled his job duties or committed wrongdoing. A source close to the board called Martinez’s decision to publicly air his interactions with the mayor in a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune “brazen” and “insubordination” — an accusation that could potentially be used in an effort to fire Martinez.

The outgoing board of mostly activists and advocates was only appointed to serve a year and a half before being replaced in January by the new board. Johnson will appoint 11 of the 21 member board and therefore maintain control for two more years. The other 10 will be elected this fall.

This board can count many accomplishments — heralded by Johnson — toward its progressive education agenda in the short time it led the district. A new five-year strategic plan was finally rolled out and approved in mid-September. It directed the district to focus resources on neighborhood schools after spending decades emphasizing schools of choice — specialty programs, charter schools as well as magnet and selective enrollment schools — as the main way to give more children access to quality programs.

The board also removed police from schools and put an end to student-based budgeting, which distributed money to schools based on student enrollment. This year, it implemented a needs-based formula that put less emphasis on enrollment and more on student needs.

And this board moved custodial management back in-house, ending a massive contract with Aramark, a company criticized for failing to keep schools clean.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Contributing: Tina Sfondeles