CPS Board Meeting Today: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Interim Board Votes to Fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez

CHICAGO (WLS) – Mayor Brandon Johnson’s interim Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously Friday night to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.

Martinez will remain in office for the next 180 days and will also receive 20 weeks’ worth of severance pay.

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A turbulent meeting follows, with some criticizing the school district superintendent over his tenure.

“Pedro Martinez was tapped to lead CPS to bring stability to our schools, and yet schools on the West Side, where I live, remain in a constant state of crisis,” said District 1 Commissioner Tara Stamps Cook County.

Others called the vote a political game with consequences.

“You don’t just fire a CEO. They are intentionally paving the way to burdening taxpayers with billions of dollars in costs and burdening the District and you personally with costly litigation,” said 23rd Ward Ald. Silvana Tabares. “They are being exploited. The mayor is a walking conflict of interest.”

Attempts by Johnson and the Chicago Teachers’ Union to oust Martinez have taken months.

SEE ALSO | The CTU is calling for a contract agreement with Chicago Public Schools before President-elect Trump takes office

It all started when Martinez and the previous school board refused to take out a $300 million short-term, high-interest loan to pay for an expensive teaching contract.

Before Friday’s board meeting, Martinez’s attorney, Bill Quinlan, tried to block the vote by filing an injunction, saying the decision to fire Martinez was a violation of his contract.

And before filing that TRO, Quinlan, in a letter to each board member on Friday, urged members to reconsider firing Martinez or limiting his duties.

Quinlan wrote that any attempt to appoint a co-CEO without Martinez’s approval, which sources say is being considered, would be a breach of contract.

The letter gave the board a deadline to respond, but it failed to do so.

Instead, the board went into closed session after voting in favor of a plan to keep open seven Acero charter schools that were scheduled to close by next year.

Board members later returned and voted in front of the public to fire Martinez.

RELATED | ‘Dysfunctional’: Mayor Johnson’s leadership questioned over budget management, CPS

This comes as some newly elected school board members wanted to delay a decision on Martinez’s future until the hybrid school board is sworn in next month.

And according to an internal memo obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Johnson’s employment adviser told previous board members that the mayor expected Martinez to leave by Sept. 26 and wanted to finalize a teacher’s contract.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said she hopes to reach an agreement before Christmas and before the newly elected hybrid school board is sworn in on Jan. 15.

CPS says it doubts an agreement will be reached by next week, given the more than 700 contract claims.

Despite Friday night’s vote, Martinez received support from former CPS CEOs, seven newly elected school board members, several city councilors and nearly 700 principals and assistant principals. They all called for continued stability for the school district.

Sources told ABC7 that the school board is already considering naming a co-CEO.

Martinez’s attorneys told ABC7 they plan to go to court as quickly as possible to overturn Friday night’s decision.

The CTU issued a statement on Friday’s vote, saying: “For nearly a year, Chicago educators have been intensely focused on securing a deal that guarantees every CPS student a high-quality school day, protects recent academic achievements, and provides classrooms with the resources our students and families deserve. “
Despite all this, CEO Pedro Martinez faltered.

Mr. Martinez put his personal politics, career goals and media fame above the needs of our students and their families. As educators, we saw and felt firsthand the true impact of Martinez’s lack of leadership.

We saw his unwillingness to hire more school nurses to serve our vulnerable school communities. We saw this in his refusal to provide funding for our neighborhood public schools, which were struggling to meet the needs of a growing immigrant population. We saw him struggle to find real solutions for the ACERO families.

Regrettably, we saw it at the negotiating table where he was unwilling to join us in the solutions-focused work of securing many of the academic gains our young people have made over the last three years.

Chicago’s students and their families deserve a fighter as CEO: Martinez seemed willing to put up a bigger fight for his job than for this city’s students and families and the funding their schools desperately need. But instead of proactively leading our school district and fighting for full funding for our schools, he always sat there, putting CPS and ACERO students and families at risk.

As we approach the end of the year and grapple with the reality of a second Trump term in public education, we must not waste time responding to the baseless claims made by Mr. Martinez and his expensive lawyers.

To be clear: Fighting with former Blagojevich attorneys will not improve school life for our students and their families, provide resources for our classrooms, or provide protection for our students, staff, and their families.

Now more than ever, Chicago needs a true champion for public schools. We need a leader who is unwilling to accept overcrowded classrooms, vacancies, and failure to address the needs of students in special education and English classes as standard operating procedure.

The Mayor, Board of Education and next CEO must shift the culture of district leadership to one of collaboration, commitment to equity while paying more than lip service, and providing proactive leadership in fighting the coming attacks and for the full funding our schools need earn.

We need a leader who will fight with us to reclaim the promise of public education for our city, its students and their families. We need a leader who sees the historic opportunity before CPS, Chicago and the state of Illinois to end generations of disinvestment, reverse the trend of balanced budgets for Black and brown students, and create a foundation of excellence for every school in every neighborhood.

We look forward to CPS’s path forward and urge the Board and Mayor to close the leadership gap created by the CEO and select a future candidate who understands the role.

The video in the player above is from a previous report.