As Thursday’s School Board assembly approaches, a extensively publicized disagreement between Chicago Public Schools management and Board President Jianan Shi may sign a rift at a time when Executive Director Pedro Martinez most wants the board’s assist.
In response to what the Chicago Public Schools communications staff initially referred to as a “joint assertion” despatched to the press Tuesday afternoon, Shi posted on his X web page at 7 p.m. that it was, in truth, “not a joint assertion.”
“As board president, I’m simply seeing this now,” Shi wrote of the district’s feedback, which stated the college board had “no intention of taking motion” on Martinez’s contract at its subsequent assembly and wouldn’t even think about taking out a high-interest mortgage to cowl CPS’s price range deficit. Mayor Brandon Johnson has superior the mortgage plan, which Martinez has continued to oppose, most just lately in a Tuesday Tribune op-ed that confirmed experiences that the CEO had rejected Johnson’s request to resign.
In the assertion, CPS additionally once more denied claims of deliberate college closings, which the Chicago Teachers Union continued to accuse the district of throughout a public bargaining session later that night.
During the session, a CPS spokesperson stated that the assertion had been mistakenly offered as a joint assertion on account of an “inner misunderstanding” as they’d “rushed” to provide a press release, nonetheless, they confused that the message was nonetheless correct.
Aside from clarifying that the assertion shouldn’t be attributed to the Council, in his submit to X, Shi didn’t touch upon whether or not the CPS’s claims had been correct.
The Prime Minister didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Illinois state statute and a decision the board will vote on Thursday point out that closures are extraordinarily unlikely no less than by the tip of the present college 12 months.
District pointers on potential college closures, consolidations and boundary adjustments, which state regulation requires college districts to develop and make public every college 12 months, don’t enable for closures or consolidations this 12 months, CPS famous in its assertion.
The council may also vote on Thursday on a decision that might place an additional moratorium on any “closures, mergers, and phase-outs” for CPS faculties by the tip of the 2026-27 college 12 months.
“References to high school closures and co-location are a tactic to create extra chaos and uncertainty, to steal valuable time from offering a world-class training to our youngsters,” CPS wrote.
Martinez stated Tuesday that he has no plans to resign or shut faculties and that the board will think about a decision to increase the moratorium on college closings by 2027. The present state moratorium was set to run out in 2025.
However, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter confirmed Tuesday’s public bargaining session an inventory obtained from the union itemizing the colleges being thought of for closures and mergers.
President Stacy Davis Gates pressed CPS officers in attendance for solutions about why the record was created and who requested it. Bogdana Chkoumbova denied that the district proposed closing faculties, to which Davis Gates repeatedly confused that “there’s a couple of solution to shut a college.”
“I perceive what you stated and the way you stated it, however I’m additionally wanting on the faculties on the record and seeing how they’ve been disadvantaged of sources, which everybody right here is aware of is a situation of closures,” Davis Gates stated.
Potter additionally stated the record specified that “a sure variety of sustainable faculties can be integrated into current faculties.” The union is advocating for the variety of “sustainable faculties” to be elevated to 200 by the tip of the 2027-28 college 12 months.
The district at present has 20 sustainable group faculties, that are absolutely funded and staffed faculties that supply complete assist to college students and their households. Speakers at Tuesday’s bargaining session spoke concerning the impression sustainable group faculties have on their college students, with dad and mom, a scholar and a instructor taking the rostrum.
“(Sustainable Community Schools) means a lot to me…to my group…to my children,” stated a Christian Fenger High School father or mother. “It allowed my children to get their identify again. They’re not a zipper code,” she stated.
Davis Gates stated they’re attempting to increase sustainable group faculties. He does not need to proceed to commute with the district, he simply desires Martinez to do his job.
“Pedro does not must show he desires to do one thing good for Chicago Public Schools, he can do it already,” Davis Gates stated. “This concept that he wants a allow or extra airtime to try this is ridiculous. We have a CEO who’s doing extra to maintain his job and do press than he’s to speak to (representatives) about college funding for our faculties. It’s embarrassing.”
Last week, the union introduced that the House of Delegates had handed a vote of “no confidence” in Martinez’s management “in gentle of his failure to urgently deal with the district’s wants and undertake the transformation of our faculties,” in response to a press launch.
While a possible termination of Martinez’s contract just isn’t on the Board of Education’s agenda for Thursday, he’s up for a efficiency assessment in January. To lose his place, he must be ousted by the complete Board of Education. Even then, if fired with out trigger, he can be eligible to stay in his place for a couple of six-month “transition interval” after which obtain 20 weeks of severance pay.
If the board of administrators fires Martinez “for trigger,” his contract can be instantly terminated with out severance pay.
Termination “for trigger,” in response to the contract, might be for quite a lot of causes, together with incompetence within the efficiency of job duties; fraud or embezzlement; negligence; cruelty; immorality; legal exercise; or the train of poor judgment in a severe matter that displays poorly on the CPS or the board. The contract additionally states that “a discovering of wrongdoing or a advice for disciplinary motion, as much as and together with termination,” will observe an investigation by a supervising Office of Inspector General or any designated investigative company.
