CHICAGO — The Board of Education met Thursday in a special meeting to discuss the closure of seven charter schools and reaffirm their promise to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ and immigrant students, in the midst of a tense standoff between the mayor and the Chicago Public Schools’ chief Pedro Martinez.

For several months, there’s been speculation about whether or not Martinez would be ousted, but the focus of this meeting was to address the impending closure of almost half of the schools in the Acero charter network.

After Acero’s board of directors announced Oct. 9 it would close 7 out of 15 of its charter schools, there was a significant pushback from students, families and teachers affected, who said they hadn’t known about the closures beforehand. The network serves about 85% Latino students. Its name — Acero — means “steel” in Spanish.

Some Acero parents who recently heard their children’s schools were closing blame CPS Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez and said he should have done more to help them, though the district leader said he has followed regular procedures.

Martinez, who prepared a presentation obtained by the Tribune to address the charter schools closures, did not speak during Thursday’s special board meeting.

After several pleas by parents and community members, the school board passed a resolution urging the district to maintain the Acero schools. No one from the charter network’s 10-member board of directors spoke during the public participation period of the meeting.

The hour-long public meeting began with emotional comments from Acero teachers — flanked by students — and Chicago Teachers Union members. The staff at the Acero schools in question are CTU members.

The proposal by Acero leaders to close Rufino Tamayo Elementary would take away a vital learning environment for the neighborhood of Gage Park, according to Yesenia Lopez, a parent of three Acero students. Lopez is not the recently elected school board member from the 7th District.

“To do so is not just a mistake, it is a betrayal to the Latino community,” Lopez said. “Please find a way to save our schools and support us in keeping … our families intact.”

Closing schools strikes a deep chord for many, including the former teacher and union organizer turned politician Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was part of the fight against mass school closures implemented by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013.

Critics of the mayor say he’s now using the Acero school closures and his ties to CTU to oust the district’s schools’ chief for not agreeing with the union’s financial proposals.

“At this point, it feels like they’re just nitpicking, finding anything they can to try to get rid of the CEO,” said Denise Dyer, co-chair of the Englewood Community Action Council, whose three grandkids go to CPS schools in Englewood.

Meanwhile, those close to Johnson argue that displacing 2,000 students is unconscionable and that they’re ready for a change in CPS leadership.

“The way that this person is operating is well outside of the parameters of his specific role as chief executive officer,” said Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the mayor’s chief of staff.

When asked why Martinez didn’t present in front of the school board Thursday, Johnson said he wasn’t aware of the “blockage” and that there was “no particular directive outside of making sure that we invest in children and not close schools.”

“I’m going to transform this school district, and I’m going to do it collectively,” he said.

Martinez did not respond to requests for comment.

The mayor and his CTU allies have been at odds with Martinez since the schools’ chief declined City Hall’s demand that the district take on a $300 million high-interest loan to solve its budgetary problems, including covering a $175 million pension payment and funding a new contract with CTU.

The disagreement over how to solve the district’s financial woes has led to a soapy, months-long standoff with Martinez’s fate as CPS chief hanging in the balance. Martinez in September said Johnson asked him to step down over the financial dispute, but he refused. Subsequently, all seven board members then resigned and within days were replaced by a second batch of Johnson appointees.

Though Johnson and Martinez’ conflict hung heavily over Thursday’s meeting, the conversation focused mostly on the Acero closures. Caroline Rutherford, Chair of CTU Charter division kicked off the meeting by talking about the impact that the closures of Acero schools would have on migrant students, which many of the schools in the network have welcomed into their classrooms.

“These students arrived in our school after experiencing trauma in their homes to seek refuge in our city. They were timid and scared when they arrived, and now they have friends, a family in our school and a community to support them,” Rutherford said. “But Acero was allowed to close.”

Also on the school board’s agenda was a resolution to affirm that Chicago Public Schools are safe haven for students from all backgrounds and affiliations.

The union’s ongoing contract proposals dovetail the message of equity for CPS students, said CTU Vice President Jackson Potter.

Several months into contract proposals, the union is demanding more support for bilingual students, 9% raises for teachers, lower class sizes, among other asks — which protect vulnerable students, something Potter said would be more important following the election of GOP President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has repeatedly said wants to dissemble the U.S. Department of Education. The union had its latest round of contract negotiations Wednesday.

“For our students who live in poverty, and (the Department of Education) is dismantled, we will need other means by which to protect those vulnerable populations. Our contract proposals do that,” Potter said.

At one point in the meeting, board member Michilla Blaise directly called out the school district.

“We’re making sure that we’re putting our foot down and we’re going to stand with you,” she said, addressing the group of Acero families in attendance. “It seemed like CPS was kind of resigned to letting this go.”

Blaise thanked them for showing up. “You inspire us to do better,” she said.

Charter schools are managed by nonprofit organizations and governing bodies that operate separately from the district.

While charter schools are in contractual agreements with the district, CPS cannot unilaterally require Acero to keep the seven campuses open. The CEO of CPS does not have any authority to prevent a charter from closing its doors at the end of this school year, according to a statement from the district Tuesday.

The slides Martinez planned to present at the meeting, obtained by the Tribune, state that prior boards have not offered financial support in the past to charter operators closing schools for financial reasons. The slides also mention declining enrollment, the need for significant facility improvements and other reasons for the closures.

Since 2013, 25 charter schools in CPS have closed. Of those, 12 were self-directed closures (similar to Acero’s decision), while the remainder were school board-directed closures, according to the scrapped slides.

When the Acero Charter School Network was renewed for three years in 2023, the network had met financial performance standards, the district said. The decision to close seven schools was made by Acero executives who based closures on the network’s projected deficits.

Acero, for its part, said it had nearly 20 meetings with senior CPS officials prior to the special meeting on Nov. 14.

“While we are disappointed by the misinformation surrounding this heartbreaking circumstance, we welcome working with the Chicago Public Schools to find long-term and sustainable solutions for everyone impacted by these anticipated closures,” said Helena Stangle, Acero’s chief culture officer in a statement.

According to a timeline outlined in the slides, the district had been trying to work with the board along “standard operating procedures,” and they had received no indication that they should deviate from their normal operations until a board meeting Nov. 1.

Since then, the slides indicate district officials have met multiple times with Acero, and proposed a solution to extend the deadline to apply to a portal for GoCPS — the application Chicago families use to apply to various schools, including charters and selective enrollment campuses — until Nov. 22.

The six members at the school board meeting voted to extend that deadline to Dec. 15. They also voted for Acero representatives to come before the board and discuss alternatives to the closures. The proposal states that if the charter operator proceeds with its plans, the board will take the “substantial disruption and harm” of the closures into account.

The closures were supposed to begin at the end of the current school year. The district offered three different plans in the presentation: to work with Acero to keep the schools open, help transition the students to other CPS schools, or a “contingency plan” to absorb the campuses and re-open them as district-run schools,” something the union had asked them to do following the closures in October.

Though there were rumors that Thursday’s meeting would be a day of reckoning for CEO Martinez, nothing was publicly announced about the school’s leader’s fate after a nearly five-hour closed session. After the meeting, board members Rafael Yañez and Frank Niles Thomas declined to comment to reporters.

However, an item voted on by the board Thursday — the hiring of outside legal counsel for $40,000 to represent the board — may hint at the beginnings of the process to fire Martinez, according to George F. Galland, an employment lawyer at Miner, Barnhill & Galland, P.C.

Galland said the board is likely looking for “cause” to fire Martinez, because it will save them money.

“It’s a very common ballet that’s both in the public and the private sector,” Galland said. “But (Pedro) does not really have cause under the definition of his contract.”

Martinez’s contract says termination without cause requires about six months’ notice and twenty weeks of his base salary, which is over $130,000. The CEO makes $340,000 per year.

To fire Martinez for cause, the school board must cite failure to perform duties, fraud, misconduct, or any other wrongdoing. In January, Martinez is subject to a performance review.

-------

Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin contributed.

____

©2024 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.