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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked college board voted Friday to fireside Chicago Public Colleges CEO Pedro Martinez, taking a step their predecessors had resisted and capping a months-long marketing campaign by the mayor and academics union to oust the colleges chief.
The board voted unanimously to fireside Martinez with out trigger, which underneath the phrases of his contract means he’ll keep on the job for six extra months — by the top of the present college yr — after which obtain severance pay of about $130,000.
“It’s not proper,” an indignant and emotional Martinez instructed reporters after the vote.
“Clearly I’m disillusioned by the board’s resolution tonight,” he stated, including that he would guarantee a easy transition for the following CEO. “Main the system that formed me has been a possibility of a lifetime.”
The firing was a dramatic end result to months of turmoil that pitted the mayor and the academics union — a detailed ally that catapulted him into workplace — in opposition to Martinez. The unprecedented growth comes weeks earlier than Chicago’s new, 21-person hybrid college board with appointed and elected members begins work. It additionally comes because the district enters a decisive part in its high-stakes negotiations with the Chicago Academics Union over a brand new contract.
Martinez made a last-minute authorized bid earlier Friday to save lots of his job earlier than the vote. His attorneys filed motions in search of to dam his potential firing, alleging board members had been appointed “to do the bidding” of a mayor and academics union which have “scapegoated” Martinez.
CTU issued a press release after the vote saying Martinez was stalling by not agreeing to a contract that “ensures each CPS scholar a high quality college day, protects latest educational features, and gives lecture rooms with the assets our college students and households deserve.”
“We look ahead to the highway forward for CPS, and we urge the board and the mayor to step into the management hole that the CEO has created and select a future candidate who understands the task,” the assertion learn.
Forward of the vote, incoming elected college board members, training organizations, and former CPS CEOs Arne Duncan and Janice Jackson issued statements in help of letting the brand new board determine Martinez’s destiny. That listing grew Friday to incorporate U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia and Yesenia Lopez, an incoming elected college board member who was endorsed by the Chicago Academics Union — which has criticized Martinez and solid a vote of no-confidence in him within the fall.
On the assembly, a gaggle of principals expressed help for Martinez and raised considerations about CTU proposals that they really feel will take away tutorial time from kids. The principals union has expressed comparable considerations over the previous a number of weeks. In the meantime, Jackson Potter, vp of the Chicago Academics Union, stated the union has made extra progress in negotiations this week and desires a swift deal.
Greater than a dozen of elected officers additionally spoke — each in help of and in opposition to Martinez.
Tara Stamps, a Cook dinner County commissioner, former instructor, and CTU staffer, blamed Martinez for faculties on her residence turf of the West Facet that also have “continual underfunding” and “crumbling infrastructure.”
“Pedro Martinez’s management have left these faculties in a drought and our academics and our college students are paying the worth for that,” Stamps stated.
Others referred to as for the board to attend. Jennifer Custer, an incoming elected college board member who was backed by the Chicago Academics Union, requested the board to carry off on the choice — and criticized the union’s proposal package deal.
“Are you going to sentence the primary elected board to serve in a capability the place our sole job for the following two years is to not deal with scholar outcomes and making CPS a greater place, however to determine tips on how to regular the ship within the wake of the chaos that’s created by the choice to fireside a CEO mid yr and inevitably conform to a contract that we will’t afford, and whereas the district suffers financially already?” Custer stated.
After the general public remark interval, the board met in closed session. After 90 minutes, members emerged and voted Martinez out with out remark. The board then left with out taking any questions from reporters.
Tensions stem from district’s cash woes
The battle between Martinez and the mayor’s workplace displays a basic rift over how the district ought to navigate a time when federal COVID aid {dollars} are operating out and main deficits loom.
The union and Johnson have argued that the district ought to add extra employees, cut back class measurement, and conform to a litany of different proposals. The mayor’s crew recommended over the summer season that CPS take a high-interest mortgage to cowl the brand new prices — after which redouble its push to line up new income from the state or different sources. The Martinez administration countered that any prospects for brand spanking new funding are unsure, and the district ought to keep away from including to its vital debt burden.
The earlier appointed board — underneath stress to oust the CEO and tackle the mortgage — resigned en masse in October. Whereas that board had some considerations with Martinez, it wasn’t ready to fireside him, sources beforehand instructed Chalkbeat.
Johnson appointed seven new members in October. He introduced Monday 4 of them would proceed to serve, whereas three will step down as a result of they aren’t eligible based mostly on the place they dwell. The mayor additionally introduced six different appointments to the brand new board and has but to call yet another.
Extra lately, the destiny of faculties in one of many metropolis’s largest constitution networks has confirmed divisive.
The board and the mayor’s workplace criticized Martinez for not appearing aggressively sufficient to seek out alternate options to the deliberate college closings at Acero constitution college community. On Friday, the Board of Schooling accredited a decision to cowl Acero’s finances deficit to maintain all seven faculties open subsequent college yr. The board additionally directed CPS management to create a plan to transition 5 of the campuses into CPS faculties for the 2026-27 college yr.
Martinez oversaw pandemic rebound, new strategic plan
Martinez was employed in 2021 by Johnson’s predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and steered the district throughout a turbulent time, as college buildings reopened for full-time in-person instruction after being shuttered in the course of the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak and commenced the work of addressing the educational and social-emotional harm from the pandemic.
By some accounts, his tenure has introduced a measure of stability after COVID’s large disruption. His administration has touted information displaying the district’s college students have recovered in studying sooner than most different districts throughout the nation.
Throughout his roughly three years on the helm, Martinez presided over a big growth of its workforce, utilizing federal pandemic aid {dollars} to convey on 1000’s of recent academics and help employees.
He additionally oversaw the adoption of among the mayor’s greatest education-related priorities, together with a controversial plan to ban campus police and an overhaul of the district’s strategy to budgeting this spring that de-emphasized scholar enrollment; as a substitute, the district now gives base staffing positions to all faculties and components in a college’s degree of scholar wants in budgeting for added positions and help.
Martinez was additionally on the helm when 1000’s of migrant kids from Central and South American international locations enrolled within the district’s faculties, leading to a higher want — and problem to obtain — bilingual providers for college students at many faculties, significantly these in low-income, Black communities.
On the day the earlier Board of Schooling handed a brand new five-year strategic plan — which focuses on the mayor’s precedence of boosting assets for neighborhood faculties — the mayor requested Martinez to resign.
When Lightfoot appointed Martinez, a Chicago native and former CPS chief monetary officer, he was the superintendent of the San Antonio Unbiased College District. Johnson selected to maintain Martinez within the position after defeating Lightfoot within the 2023 mayoral election — one thing academics union president Stacy Davis Gates stated initially of this college yr she requested of the mayor. The union had stated the CEO gave the impression to be ushering in a brand new period of extra collaboration and higher rapport between the CTU and district officers.
However issues modified this summer season amid contract negotiations over an intensive, pricey slate of CTU proposals. Martinez, together with the Johnson-appointed college board, balked at taking over a short-term, high-interest mortgage. Johnson had urged the district to take out the mortgage to pay for the contract’s prices and canopy a $175 million cost to a metropolis pension fund that covers non-teaching employees.
The CTU had lambasted Lightfoot for passing that pension price on to the varsity district and argued the town ought to proceed to cowl it because it had prior to now. The Johnson administration has partly blamed the town’s finances woes on that pension cost. On Monday, the Chicago Metropolis Council narrowly handed Johnson’s $17.1 billion finances plan after a bruising two month finances course of throughout which even his progressive allies criticized his management.
Martinez stated in September that Johnson requested him to resign and he refused, citing a necessity for stability in a district roiled by frequent management turnover in recent times.
In latest weeks, the academics union intensified its criticism of Martinez, at the same time as his administration supplied educators as much as a 5% pay elevate within the coming years and profit will increase for free of charge to academics, amongst different concessions. Union leaders have stated Martinez is resisting union staffing, class measurement, and different proposals that might rework a district traditionally suffering from inequities within the scholar experiences amongst campuses and neighborhoods. Additionally they claimed Martinez didn’t foyer for extra state funding aggressively sufficient or make a plan for the expiration of federal COVID aid cash.
Mila Koumpilova contributed.
Reema Amin is a reporter overlaying Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.