The Board of Education voted unanimously to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez during an extraordinary special meeting Friday night after a monthslong leadership struggle with Mayor Brandon Johnson that has engulfed the school district.
The saga doesn’t appear headed for an immediate resolution, however, after Martinez filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education and all seven of its members hours before the meeting. He asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent the board from taking action Friday, but there wasn’t enough time to get in front of a judge before the meeting.
Martinez’s 44-page lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court alleged the board, and its individual members, breached his contract.
At the end of the hastily called meeting five days before Christmas, Johnson’s appointed school board fired Martinez without cause, triggering a portion of his contract that will keep him in his $360,706-a-year job for six months. The board said Martinez’s duties would be modified but didn’t explain how. After that period, Martinez will receive 20 weeks’ severance, which comes out to $138,733.
In a news conference after the vote, Martinez said “leading the system that shaped me has been the opportunity of a lifetime” and he was “disappointed by the board’s decision tonight.
“When I hear these narratives out there, I’m like, ‘Who are they really talking to?’” he said. “This is a CPS kid, graduated in 1987 in Pilsen. … Who do they think they’re talking to?
“Of course, I would’ve liked to see my contract to the end, but throughout the saga … all I have ever asked is that if you want to move on from me, just honor the terms of my contract,” Martinez said. “I never questioned any board that wants their own leader.”
He stressed that a smooth transition would be vital “instead of throwing everything into chaos.”
A new 21-member partially elected, partially appointed school board is set to take over Jan. 15. Five members who voted to fire Martinez were picked by the mayor to continue on that board.
The board is considering installing Sean Harden — Johnson’s pick for new board president — as interim co-CEO during that time to freeze out Martinez from key decisions, three sources told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ. Conversations are fluid over who exactly would step in and how much power Martinez would retain.
Sidelining Martinez could allow Johnson and his allies at the Chicago Teachers Union to move forward with items that Martinez has blocked: settling a new union contract, pushing a pension payment for non-teacher CPS staff onto the school system’s books and taking out a short-term loan to fill a midyear budget deficit and avoid budget cuts like layoffs or furloughs.
But the lawsuit contends that even if the board keeps him on for 180 days, it will still violate his contract if it changes his role without his “expressed written agreement.”
“Let’s not play games, and let’s not confuse families,” Martinez said. “Let’s not start putting out there, ‘Oh, there’s going to be a co-CEO.’ I’m sorry, that is not good faith.
“If you haven’t met my lawyer, please get to know my lawyer,” he added.
In a five-page letter sent Friday afternoon, Martinez’s attorney, Bill Quinlan, asked the board to cancel or postpone the meeting and “not to take any steps to terminate Mr. Martinez or diminish his role as CEO,” warning that ”any such actions would constitute … a breach of Mr. Martinez’s contract with the board.
“Such action would also be contrary to the interests of the children and families that CPS and the board serve,” the letter read.
He claimed the efforts to fire Martinez have involved a “months-long campaign orchestrated by the Chicago Teachers Union and its ally, Mayor Brandon Johnson, to improperly and unlawfully terminate Mr. Martinez based on wholly pretextual reasons.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Illinois State Supt. of Education Tony Sanders were copied on the letter.
Martinez mingled with parents and huddled with senior CPS officials outside Friday night’s meeting at the school district’s South Side Colman office at 4655 S. Dearborn St., where board meetings have been held in a former school auditorium the past few months. He was the first to take his seat on stage for the meeting. His only interaction with the board members who he had just sued was to shake board vice president Mary Gardner’s hand.
The meeting featured an hour of lively and at-times harsh public comments, mostly from elected officials both in support and opposition of Martinez, with cheers and jeers from the packed audience. The board moved into closed session around 7:30 p.m. to discuss Martinez’s future. The CEO and board members walked down a hallway without talking to each other. Once they arrived at the executive session room, Martinez and other top CPS officials were directed into a different room so the board could meet on its own.
The board emerged after an hour and a half and voted to fire the schools chief. A source close to Martinez said the board didn’t alert Martinez before taking the public vote — he found out with everyone else in attendance.
Board members refused to answer questions after the meeting. One member, Frank Niles Thomas, was asked by a gaggle of reporters whether he was worried about Martinez’s lawsuit and replied: “No, I’m not.”
The Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ first reported in August that the mayor’s administration was laying the groundwork to replace Martinez.
Chicago’s mayors have had the ability to hire and replace the schools chief through their appointed Board of Education since 1995, when state lawmakers gave City Hall control of CPS. This level of acrimony over a transition is unprecedented.
Johnson opted to keep Martinez when he was elected but decided to make a change this year after the CPS CEO clashed with the mayor and teachers union over a budget deficit, pension payment and new union contract. It’s the first time a mayor has tried to oust a schools chief during CTU negotiations. Martinez has refused to resign or accept a buyout — also marking the most significant opposition a CPS CEO has mounted to being replaced.
The Board of Education has the right to fire Martinez without providing a reason — his contract only requires six months’ notice, 20 weeks’ severance and that he remains CEO during that time “to ensure a smooth and stable transition.” Martinez’s five-year contract runs through June 30, 2026.
“The board, its designees, and the CEO will work collaboratively to develop and implement a transition plan that will ensure stability for the Board and the district’s students, families, and staff,” Martinez’s contract says.
The board and mayor’s office had long seen that route as the one that would fend off a lawsuit. But Martinez’s attorney is now arguing that even firing the CEO without cause could violate his contract if a co-CEO is installed and Martinez’s role is limited in those six months.
Martinez’s lawsuit alleged that individual board members acted outside of their board duties to breach his contract. He said their actions resulted in “harm to his reputation, career and professional prospects” and “emotional damages.”
The complaint also alleged the board members didn’t have the legal authority to take any action because, according to the suit, they have not completed mandatory school board member training. Martinez said in his post-meeting news conference, however, that “They are a valid board. They have the power. They have the authority. My issue is when they don’t do it the right way.”
Johnson and the school board likely would have rather pushed out Martinez sooner. But former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Board of Education amended Martinez’s contract in December 2022 — in her last months in office — to require the six months’ notice of termination without cause.
The alternative would be firing Martinez for cause by citing wrongdoing or poor performance. But, until now, the school board had feared that path was the more likely one to draw a lawsuit. Martinez’s supporters — and now his legal counsel — have argued he has not committed any gross wrongdoing.
His contract spells out the reasons he could be fired for cause: misconduct, criminal activity, failure to perform his duties, fraud or other wrongdoing or “any other conduct inconsistent with the CEO’s duties and obligations to CPS or the Board, or that may be reasonably perceived to have a material adverse impact on the good name and integrity of CPS or the Board.”
The third path to Martinez’s departure would be a buyout. The school board has repeatedly offered Martinez significant money to leave, but he has insisted he wants to stay through the end of the school year, sources said.
Ironically, if the mayor’s office and school board had opted to fire Martinez without cause back in August, Martinez’s six months would be up in February. Now he’s set to stay on through the end of the school year.
Quinlan’s letter said the board considered firing Martinez in closed session conversations at two board meetings on Nov. 14 and Dec. 4. And this past Monday, five board members sent Martinez a letter that included his performance review for the 2023-24 school year, Quinlan said.
The evaluation was less than a page, he said, and gave Martinez a rating of “needs improvement” for “making no efforts to schedule” one-on-one meetings with the new board members, and for not leading the charge on the district’s recently approved five-year strategic plan. Quinlan said neither charge was accurate, leading to the belief that the board had made up reasons to justify firing Martinez.
Thirteen elected officials weighed in on Martinez’s future at Friday’s meeting, including 10 members of City Council and two incoming elected school board members.
Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd) tore into school board members who she said were “abdicating your … self-respect” and “being used … not as board members, but as patsies for [the mayor’s] CTU overseers.” Voting to fire Martinez would “dishonor your names and reputations for the rest of your lives,” she said, calling the mayor a “walking conflict of interest when it comes to CPS and CTU.”
Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) called the board members “political hacks that are stepping in to do some dirty work.”
Ald. William Hall (6th) said he understood why Board of Education members might be afraid: “[Martinez] has been to places and sued board members and walked away with $800,000. He’s setting the stage for a repeat of his last job.” Hall was referencing Martinez’s lawsuit against a Nevada school board that tried to fire him a decade ago.
But Hall urged board members to proceed as planned because schools for Black students have not been transformed under Martinez, he said.
“We have essentially demonized teachers for basic things that they need to teach well under his watch,” Hall said.