A newly appointed school board did not hold a closed meeting to address personnel matters Friday, a choice that in a less turbulent time for the nation’s fourth largest school district would not seem unusual.
But the school board meeting Friday was hardly typical, held a day after the board president resigned because of social media posts deemed antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial by critics that included Gov. JB Pritzker. The former board president, the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, was replaced Friday with a temporary chair: Michilla “Kyla” Blaise.
The meeting culminated months of back-and-forth between the district and Mayor Brandon Johnson. It followed a stunning school board shakeup in October over pressure to oust Chicago Public School Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez for his refusal to take out a loan to cover a pension payment to the city and a new teachers’ contract.
Politics controlled the pulse of the meeting around two main issues: the antisemitism called out in the Rev. Johnson’s social media and the closure of seven Acero charter schools.
“We need a level of transparency. The board needs a level of transparency. These are hard conversations, and we just need to be truthful and honest,” said board member Rafael Yañez, a hate crimes investigator with the Chicago Police Department.
Martinez opened Friday’s meeting by mentioning his background as a CPS graduate and touting increased graduation rates, post-pandemic literacy gains, and enrollment increases. He urged audience members to vote in the upcoming election, in which the board — whose seven members were overhauled last month — will change again in the in the first-ever school board election for the district.
Public comment at times grew hostile, as parents and aldermen brought up the background of Rev. Johnson and accused several of the new board members of being involved in the mayor’s plans to disrupt the school board to push his agenda to take out a loan. Several people told the board explicitly not to follow the orders of Mayor Johnson, a former educator and CTU organizer, to fire Martinez.
This week has been “extremely hard” for Chicago’s Jewish community due to both a shooting in West Rogers Park and the Rev. Johnson’s online comments, said Dan Goldwin, chief public affairs officer at the Jewish United Fund. While the Rev. Johnson resigned from his position as board president Thursday, Goldwin said Johnson’s “departure has not ridden this board entirely of hostility towards Jews.”
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Goldwin asked what the school board would do to make Jewish students feel safe. He questioned board member Debby Pope for her tweets boycotting Michael Rapaport’s visit to the Vic Theatre stating “Zionists aren’t welcome in Chicago” and board member Olga Bautista’s alleged signature on a letter calling Zionists similar to white supremacists.
“Is it any wonder that Jewish students, parents, teachers, and staff feel unsafe, unheard, and unseen throughout the CPS system?” Goldwin asked. “Assuming Pope and Bautista are not planning on doing the honorable thing and resign like Reverend Johnson, I call on this board to explain to the majority of Jews who are connected to Israel how they will be made to feel safe, welcome, seen, and heard.”
In response to public comment, Pope said she is a Jewish woman and the daughter of a woman who “witnessed firsthand the murder and brutality against our entire family in Nazi Germany.”
“I think it’s extremely important to make all students comfortable,” Pope said. “I think it’s important to put our ideologies aside and focus on children and focus on their well-being.”
Board member Frank Thomas addressed the controversy surrounding the resignation of the Rev. Johnson, stating that while Thomas “may not personally agree … that has nothing to do with the work of this board.”
At one point in the meeting, Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, signaled toward a letter signed by over 40 aldermen last month asking the mayor for increased transparency following the previous board’s resignation and inviting the newly appointed members to meet before City Council. Johnson denied the request, but Villegas said the invitation still stands.
“If any substantial action is taken by this board before the newly-elected representatives take their place, it can only be seen as an illegitimate, political, iron-handed move by Mayor Johnson,” Villegas said. “This is not what Chicagoans want. It’s not what so many fought for in the effort to get an elected school board, and it’s not governing with transparency.”
Early in the meeting, school board member Yañez brought up the announced closures of seven Acero charter schools, which predominantly serve Latino students.
“We have to do better … it’s painful. It is truly painful,” Yañez said, to cheers.
Parents and students have repeatedly protested the closures, saying they weren’t notified. CPS CEO Martinez has also said the district wasn’t notified when the closures were announced.
“While charter school operators are authorized by CPS, our district has no legal authority to prevent them from voluntarily closing their schools. That said, we are here,” Martinez said, pledging to work with Acero families as the charter operator plans the closure of nearly half of its fifteen locations, concentrated on the Southwest Side, at the end of the year.
Yañez asked Martinez when the board would hear updates about Chicago Teachers Union negotiations. CPS CEO Martinez said the district planned to have “very in-depth briefings” on both issues in the next few weeks.
In the meeting, which lasted about three hours, CPS signaled progress in restoring bus services.
But that development didn’t mitigate the more pressing concerns of school closures that prompted multiple parents to plead with the board and the district’s CEO, to “do whatever it takes” to keep Acero schools open. Several choked up as they spoke.
“Closing these schools contains a message that students of color are not valued, that schools serving Black and brown communities can be shut down, and that institutions supporting low-income populations can be discarded, and those in power do not need to stop it,” said Brittany De Leon, a second and third-grade teacher.
Two parents of Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center students also implored CPS to renew its lease with the Archdiocese of Chicago so that the bilingual preschool can remain in the McKinley Park building in which it currently operates. The district deemed the walls and ceilings of multiple classrooms as failing or damaged in a 2021 facilities assessment.
“Yet … no one was prepared for this situation with our school,” parent Schuyler Stallcup-Simara said of uncertainty surrounding the school’s location after its lease expires at the end of the school year.
As Acero parents filed out of the auditorium on the South Side, they repeated their message: “Do better! Do more!”
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