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A Cook dinner County Circuit Court docket choose dominated Tuesday that the Chicago Board of Schooling might not block colleges chief Pedro Martinez from doing his job and will not attend lecturers contract negotiations with out his approval.
Choose Joel Chupack granted Martinez’s request for a short lived restraining order in a Christmas Eve ruling from the bench, marking one other dramatic flip within the energy battle between the CEO and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked board members.
The board fired Martinez with out trigger on Friday, which means he’ll keep on the job for one more six months and accumulate greater than $130,000 in severance pay. As a part of that vote, the board stated it could modify Martinez’s powers with out specifying how.
However on Tuesday, the choose dominated that the Board of Schooling members are barred from “obstructing” Martinez’s “efficiency of his job duties.” Additionally they can not attend the district’s high-stakes contract negotiations with the Chicago Academics Union — as three did on Monday — with out first getting permission from Martinez, the ruling stated.
Board members additionally can not try to handle any of Martinez’s staffers, the ruling stated.
One other courtroom date has been set for Jan. 9.
“Pedro Martinez remains to be the CEO, and there’s no query about that,” stated Invoice Quinlan, Martinez’s lawyer. “They don’t have the correct to limit his duties and restrict his statutory obligations.”
Jeremy Glenn, an out of doors lawyer representing the Chicago Board of Schooling, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday’s ruling.
Not less than three faculty board members took the weird step of attending contract negotiations Monday with out an invite from the CEO or the mayor. Martinez’s lawyer responded with a letter demanding board members stop and desist from attending, describing it as “illegal interference” with Martinez’s authority.
After Tuesday’s ruling, Martinez advised reporters that the present board — picked by a mayor who’s a detailed ally of the lecturers union — might “power a contract down our throats,” and that CPS’s negotiating staff thought-about resigning en masse when board members confirmed as much as Monday’s negotiations and tried to intervene, Fox 32 reported. For his half, board President Sean Harden stated he and others attended merely to assist CPS’s staff.
Throughout a press convention Tuesday afternoon, Chicago Academics Union President Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged that nobody however Martinez is in cost — and that he needs to be able to take the blame if the current progress stalls in contract negotiations.
“Individuals get to say that this contract is being bargained with the Chicago Academics Union and Pedro Martinez, so we sit up for lastly seeing him on Thursday,” Davis Gates stated.
Martinez has not attended negotiations. Sometimes, faculty district CEOs and superintendents go away contracting negotiations for district bargaining staff members with uncommon exceptions, similar to when a deal is almost at hand.
Reema Amin is a reporter protecting Chicago Public Faculties. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.