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 will come later this month as the administration works to find replacements. WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times first reported the possibility of resignations on 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 this year 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.
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. 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.
While there was some agreement a transition period would help, the discord between the mayor’s office, the board, CPS and the CTU was a leading factor in the move.
Even so, the motives behind the mass resignations appear to vary and be 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 tired of the position they were being put in, and the mayor wanted a change since his appointed board wasn’t doing as he wanted. 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.
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.
“News that the seven-member Chicago Board of Education plans to resign later this month may concern our families and staff. CEO Martinez and his leadership team, principals and staff, remain focused on teaching and learning, continuing the great momentum we’ve seen in students’ academic gains and performance over the past two years,” the statement read.
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. Many have expressed concern about turnover while the school district is in CTU negotiations.
A spokesman for Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement Friday that the governor “doesn’t have the legal authority to intervene in this situation.
“Governor Pritzker’s focus is first and foremost what’s good for Illinois students. The administration will continue to work with our partners in the Illinois General Assembly to invest in public education across the state,” the statement read.
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, who could be fired by the new board after fighting hard 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. And when the leader of an organization changes, there are usually ripple effects in the rest of the leadership.
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.
“These are CPS parents, just as I am, and education champions dedicated to creating learning environments that support our children in the classroom and beyond,” he said.
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.
No matter who ultimately ends up on the board, they’ll need to sort out the challenge of not having money to pay for a new teachers contract, which historically has cost around $100-120 million annually even without agreeing to the CTU’s most expensive demands. Martinez’s current CPS budget leaves no room for a deal.
If the new board continues to view Martinez as an obstacle to avoiding cuts to schools, though, his contract puts them in a bind.
A clause added to Martinez’s contract in December 2022, a few months ahead of the mayoral election, would see him stay on for six months if he’s fired without cause. That’s both an untenable political and practical prospect for Johnson, who can’t afford another half-year without agreement on the district’s financial problems or a deal with the teachers’ union, who are allies of Johnson and spent big to propel him into office.
Because Martinez has not been accused of anything egregious, such as corruption, firing him for “cause” could open up the board to a lawsuit. However, 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 2022 amendment to Martinez’s contract broadened the definition of firing “for cause” to include “any other conduct inconsistent with the CEO’s duties and obligations to CPS or the Board, or that may be reasonably perceived to have a material adverse impact on the good name and integrity of CPS or the Board in the sole judgment of the Board.”
The board members stepping down are Board President Jianan Shi, former head of the parent group Raise Your Hand, and Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a University of Illinois Chicago history professor who was appointed by Lightfoot and was the only member to stay on under Johnson. Also leaving are: special education parent-activist Mary Fahey Hughes; Westside Justice Center Executive Director Tanya Woods; United Way Community Engagement Director Mariela Estrada; Woods Fund President Michelle Morales; and JPMorgan Chase philanthropy executive Rudy Lozano Jr., the son of the storied labor organizer.
The board of mostly activists and advocates was only appointed to serve a year and a half before being replaced in January by a partially elected and partially appointed board. Johnson will appoint 11 of the 21 member board and therefore maintain control for two more years. The other 10 will be elected in the city’s first school board elections Nov. 5.
The 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