Mayor Brandon Johnson’s announcement of six proposed appointees to the Chicago Board of Education at a heated news conference Monday leaves the next several months shrouded in uncertainty for the new board and the district.
The news conference came after last week’s announcement that the entire board was resigning over a monthslong controversy related to Johnson’s push to oust Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez — for refusing to take out a high-interest loan to cover the district’s budget shortfall, with $150 million for a new teachers contract and a $175 million pension payment.
Facing hundreds of millions in deficits for this school year as federal pandemic relief funding ran out, the schools chief said that taking out a loan would be fiscally irresponsible. Johnson, who was once a middle school teacher and spent years as a Chicago Teachers Union organizer, said at Monday’s news conference that “people in this city are tired of political leaders that want the status quo to nibble around the edges.”
A lot is at stake in Johnson’s announcements, namely: Will the new proposed board members vote to remove Martinez and sign off on the mayor’s request to take out a loan?
According to Board of Education documents, elected board members are legally and ethically required to have a minimum one-year residency in Chicago and the electoral district.
A Tribune public records review of the mayor’s picks has found that two of the six may have other residences outside of Chicago, but when asked, city officials denied that any appointees lived outside of the city.
In an interview with the Tribune, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter said the appointees have a number of important decisions ahead of them, including the high-interest loan. He said the group comprises people “with strong track records of standing for racial justice and social justice both in their careers and in their activism.”
“We’re in a particular moment where that transition is necessary and these decisions around finance and leadership are front and center,” Potter said.
Johnson’s appointees were vetted by his staff, he said, and have to go through another vetting process with CPS before they are officially seated on the board later this month.
Meanwhile, the district is transitioning to a new, partially, elected, partially appointed board with 21 members that will meet for the first time in January. The new board was championed by Johnson and the CTU. Voters will choose 10 members on election day and Johnson will appoint 10 members after that, plus a board president.
Because of rules that a full board must have two members from different sides of the city’s 10 districts, it is unclear if the new appointees will be in the geographic locations in each district to be appointed by Johnson in January, according to Peter Cunningham, former assistant secretary for communications and outreach in the U.S. Department of Education who worked with Arne Duncan when he was CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
Johnson’s board replacements, having served for only a few months, would not help with a smooth transition to the newly elected board, he said.
“We theoretically could have an entirely new board, or a mostly a new board, starting in January,” he said.
The new board appointees, he said, would likely sow more instability. He said it will take time for them to learn the nuances of a budget and the teachers contract, which he described as “extraordinarily complicated.”
With the $300 million loan the mayor is pushing for, the district will still need to balance the budget with tough cuts to existing positions and programs.
Seeking an immediate financial remedy, both Martinez and the CTU have solicited the mayor to use tax increment financing dollars to solve the budget shortfall. TIF revenue, or property tax dollars collected to spur economic development projects, could be put toward CPS, they say, though Martinez is asking for about half of CTU’s TIF demands for an annual $1 billion payout.
Cunningham believes parents might decide to leave CPS as a result of the proposed board turnover and the economic uncertainty of the district. He isn’t convinced that the decisions from the mayor will lead to better results in the classroom. And he predicts it may be hard to find a new CEO at such a volatile time.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the mayor’s chief of staff and a former member of the Illinois Senate, said after Monday’s news conference that there are students at her child’s school who have had six CPS CEOs during their time in the district. Chaos is endemic to the system, she said.
“What we are trying to do is bring some stability anchor in our values and make sure that we have the resources available to effectuate that vision,” Pacione-Zayas said.
Though it remains up in the air whether the newly appointees will move to remove Martinez or take out a loan, here’s what we do know about them:
Olga Bautista
Olga Bautista has two children in CPS and was a parent representative on the John L. Marsh Local School Council. She is co-executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. An environmental activist who has organized against industrial facilities like General Iron and Ozinga, she’s fought to bring a green new school to the Southeast Side, testifying in support of green schools during one of CTU’s recent open bargaining sessions.
Bautista ran for alderman of the 10th Ward in 2015 but lost to CTU-backed Susan Sadlowski Garza. Last year, she served on Johnson’s transition team on the Environmental Justice Subcommittee and stood beside him as he announced a new city policy in handling environmental concerns.
“It is not acceptable to concentrate polluters in Black and brown neighborhoods, just as it’s not justified to subject students and teachers to unsafe and underfunded schools,” she said during Monday’s news conference, going on to decry disinvestment at the district and criticisms about the uncertainty of the board’s transition.
Southeast Side students “deserve fully staffed classrooms, safe learning environments and the resources that they need to thrive, including social workers, teacher aides and speech therapists,” she said.
The Rev. Mitchell L. Johnson
The Rev. Mitchell L. Ikenna Johnson, the father of two CPS graduates and one current CPS student, is an “economic development expert” who has helped secure contracts for local minority-owned electric companies on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line upgrade, according to the city’s release.
Johnson regularly hosts a WVON radio program — the Community Plan Foundation Hour — and founded JCrew Consulting Group as well as the nonprofit Crescent Moon Foundation. JCrew offers faith-based, public and private sector consulting, according to its website.
A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Johnson was until recently a South Holland resident, according to county property records and a WTTW report about Johnson’s efforts to help get Kanye West off the presidential ballot in 2020.
Johnson’s biography on his website say he lives in Calumet City, though the Johnson administration said he now lives in Hyde Park.
Michilla “Kyla” Blaise
A mother of two daughters in Chicago Public Schools, Michilla Blaise is a longtime political consultant and the current chief of staff for 16th District Cook County Commissioner Frank Aguilar. Michilla Blaise previously vied for a school board seat in District 5 before dropping out of the race in early September.
Blaise is also a mayor-appointed member board commissioner for the Northwest Home Equity Assurance Program for the 39th Ward and previously worked for then-Ald. Helen Shiller of the 46th Ward.
A fourth-generation Chicago West Sider, Blaise has voiced her support of investing resources into the West Side if elected. Now, as a proposed board member, this could soon become a reality.
Debby Pope
Debby Pope, a longtime activist and retired bilingual history teacher, worked in education for 33 years serving at Benito Juarez Community Academy, Carl Schurz High School and Gage Park High School. A member of the Chicago Teachers Union from 1990 to this past June, Pope previously served as the union’s class size coordinator and grievance correspondent.
Pope’s recent appointment to the school board doesn’t come as a surprise, as the former teacher filed necessary campaign finance paperwork to run for a seat in District 1 though ultimately didn’t run.
A member of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators, a group that run by members of the CTU, Pope has fought to defend retired teachers’ pension payments as a retiree herself. Pope, who recently went private on the X social media platform, had reposted a tweet in opposition of CEO Pedro Martinez and several pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist tweets.
One tweet called for the Vic Theatre to cancel actor-comedian Michael Rapaport’s upcoming show in November due to his pro-Israel stance.
Mary Russell Gardner
Mary Russell Gardner has been an educational advocate “all her life,” according to Janette Wilson, who has worked with her at the storied Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, an international human and civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
This year, she filed three challenges against candidates running in the CPS 5th District out of 42 total challenges filed. She objected to all but Aaron “Jitu” Brown and Michilla “Kyla” Blaise in that district. (Blaise withdrew from the race in early September, leaving Brown the sole candidate in District 5.)
Gardner grew up on the West Side and currently lives in Austin. She ran for alderman in the 29th Ward in 2011 and state representative in 2010, and has two children who went through CPS schools. Her daughter Crystal is the associate political director of United Working Families, which is affiliated with the CTU.
“(Gardner) is a parent, and she is a parent organizer,” said Wilson, who has worked with Gardner for about 40 years. “I think that she will bring a historical frame of reference to the board, as well as a contemporary understanding of the challenges we face trying to provide high-quality education for every child.”
Frank Niles Thomas
Frank Niles Thomas is a grassroots political organizer who lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood. He has four children who graduated from CPS schools, according to the city.
He worked as the Streets and Sanitation superintendent for the 21st Ward for over a decade. He was a onetime member of the Dunne Elementary School Local School Council and before that, his City Hall bio said he founded an unnamed leadership mentoring program there.
The principal at Dunne STEM Academy said she wasn’t aware of any mentoring program that had been started there. The city clarified the program was started in 1998. Reached on the phone Thursday afternoon, Thomas said that once he is vetted and sworn in, he would pass on his grocery receipts.
Chicago Tribune’s Joe Mahr, Jeremy Gorner and Sarah Macareg contributed.
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