Mayor Brandon Johnson announced six proposed appointees to the Chicago Board of Education on Monday following uproar over last week’s announcement that the entire board was resigning.
During a fiery news conference, Johnson rejected calls to pause the appointment process and shot back at criticism that he has been heavy-handed in his handling of Chicago Public Schools.
He said his mission is to avoid major staffing and programming cuts in the city’s schools — and at one point likened his detractors to leaders of the Confederacy who said it was too expensive to end slavery.
“When I ran for mayor, I promised to transform our public education system,” Johnson said at a South Side church. “I’m a man of my word. And that means bold leadership … that doesn’t nibble around the edges and look for incremental gain.”
Johnson said all six of his proposed appointees were vetted by his staff, and they will now go through another vetting process with CPS before they are officially seated on the board later this month. The mayor has sole authority to appoint board members. He did not say who would serve as board president.
The six nominees are all parents of CPS students or those who formerly attended. Three of them have been elected to local school councils.
Johnson said he plans to name a seventh member in the near future.
The first six include:
Community activist Olga Bautista, co-executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task ForceLongtime political consultant Michilla Blaise, now chief of staff for Cook County Board Commissioner Frank AguilarMary Gardner, a veteran West Side activist and advocate for women in public serviceThe Rev. Mitchell Johnson, who works on economic and community developmentDebby Pope, a retired teacher and former Chicago Teachers Union stafferFrank Niles Thomas, a labor and grassroots political organizer
“There’s a lot of attention on this transition of this board right now,” Bautista said in prepared remarks. “I have to ask, ‘Where’s the outrage about what’s at stake if we don’t fully fund our schools?’ We are putting our children’s futures on the line. … The true crisis is in the classrooms, it’s not in this transition.”
In the face of massive political pressures, the new school board will likely be tasked with executing Johnson’s orders on a few key and controversial issues.
The stunning resignation announcement of all board members — that drew concern from city and state officials — was preceded by months of strife between Johnson, the teachers union and CPS Chief Executive Pedro Martinez over how to address the school system’s financial shortfall.
CPS doesn’t have money to pay a $175 million pension payment for nonteacher school staff or for new collective bargaining agreements for the CTU and the new principals union, both still in negotiations.
The CTU has asked for salary raises and more staffing to help unhoused, disabled and migrant students. Johnson’s administration has pushed a short-term, high-interest loan to cover the pension payment and first year of the contracts — an idea rejected by Martinez and the board that is stepping down — and wants to aggressively lobby state lawmakers for more funding.
Martinez and district leaders have instead privately floated furloughs, layoffs and other cost-saving measures for the coming months.
Johnson and the CTU — the mayor’s former employer that helped vault him into office — pushed for Martinez to be fired or resign, but the school board has the final say over the CEO’s contract. The old board also had problems with Martinez, but sources said multiple factors played into the resignations: some board members grew tired of the position they were put in, and Johnson desired a change.
Johnson has repeatedly refused to directly comment on Martinez, only saying he rejects cuts and wants to secure more revenue for CPS.
Johnson’s quick turnaround appointments will aim to project stability and control of a situation that has rocked the city’s political landscape, with a majority of Council members signing a letter over the weekend signaling deep concern over the developments at the city’s school district.
All but nine of 50 Council members signed the letter, including several mayoral allies and 13 of 19 members of the council’s Progressive Caucus.
The Council members said they wanted a full vetting of Johnson’s appointees before they’re seated. A special meeting of the Council to discuss the developments is set for Wednesday, with calls for the resigning and new board members to testify. Johnson cast aside those calls Monday.
“The City Council can have as many hearings as they want,” Johnson said. “There’s only one person who has the authority by state law to make appointments. And that’s the mayor of Chicago, and that’s me.
“Waiting in this moment is the status quo,” he said. “And I am not the status quo.”
Johnson’s appointments come less than one month before Chicagoans will vote for school board members for the first time. That new, partially elected and partially appointed board will be seated in January.
Asked if he had directed the new board members to fire Martinez, Johnson said, “The board’s job, all board members, no matter what board you sit on, is to evaluate the executive. That’s their job. They will do that.”
And asked if the board would take out a loan, the mayor said “everything is on the table” to secure more revenue for CPS and “make sure we don’t lay off Brown and Black women.”
He added that lobbying for more state funding would be a priority, and he would look to give the school system any additional tax increment financing surplus that becomes available beyond the $160 million already budgeted for CPS.
At one point in the news conference, Johnson said “so-called fiscally responsible stewards” are “making the same arguments” as those opposed to ending slavery.
“They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people,” the mayor said. “And now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.”
Johnson on Friday said he was trying to choose candidates who can stay on after January when a new board term begins and it expands to 21 members.
On Nov. 5, voters will choose 10 members.
The mayor will officially appoint the other 10 members and the board president after Election Day.
He has to choose one appointee from each of Chicago’s 10 voting districts so the full board has two members from each district — one elected and one appointed — plus a president from anywhere in the city. If Johnson picked right on Monday, some appointed members can stay.
That’s because the elected school board law requires the elected and appointed candidates to live on different sides of their district.
Blaise, one of the new members, should be able to continue in January. She filed to run for the elected school board but withdrew from her District 5 race. The only remaining candidate, Aaron “Jitu” Brown, lives on the other side of the 5th District as Blaise.
An early version of this story included an incorrect name of one of the new school board appointees.