The Chicago Teachers Union has accused Chicago Public Schools leadership of plotting potential mass school closures, while Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez has vehemently denied these allegations, calling them “misinformation.”
CTU sent a letter to Martinez last week asking for clarification on why school district officials had circulated budget slides referencing “space consolidation” plans and generated a facilities analysis of over 100 schools that seemed “to be considered for possible cuts, closures, and consolidation.”
Following the district’s neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis of CPS facilities done as part of planning for the newly enacted five-year plan, Martinez said in a letter Tuesday that some had “falsely interpreted” this list as the district planning to consolidate and close schools.
“CPS has no plans to close, consolidate, or co-locate any of our schools,” Martinez said. “The decision to close or consolidate schools could never be done by the District alone. Such actions would need to be proposed and approved by the Board of Education. If that process were to take place, it would begin with extensive community engagement and never be done in secret.”
Martinez has pledged not to close schools under his leadership. A statewide moratorium on school closures will now expire on January 15, 2025, after a bill to extend the deadline to 2027 was struck down amid opposition from both Johnson and CTU.
Martinez said in an email addressed to CPS staff that the only potential changes being made to schools are at Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center in Mckinley Park, as the school’s lease is ending following this school year, and Kelvyn Park High School in Hermosa, where they discussed the “advantages” of adding seventh and eighth grade to their building.
Despite Martinez’ outright denial of the allegations, CTU has continued to press him on whether he is concealing his consideration of school closures.
After Martinez wrote a letter to the union on Monday stating that “no plans exist” for school closures, they responded the next day asking again why CPS leadership had commissioned a “spreadsheet identifying over 100 schools for potential closure or co-location.”
CTU leadership also published a statement on Tuesday in which they wrote, “We won’t stop asking questions until we have real answers. Every single claim made by CPS about the need for school closings in 2013 and before was a lie. We told them then and are telling them now: closing schools harms everyone, especially our most vulnerable.”
In 2013, CPS approved the largest mass school closure in Chicago history, shuttering 49 elementary schools and one high school program.
When CTU vice president Jackson Potter addressed the Board of Education at Wednesday’s agenda review meeting, he continued to demand answers about the origin of what he said was a “specific and very detailed list” of proposed consolidations.
He expressed particular concerns about the presence of multiple “sustainable community schools” in the analysis, a model where schools provide additional academic, health and social support services in partnership with community organizations. Potter said that their closure would lead to “staff reduction and program cancellation, and greater displacement and mobility of our students.”
“Why would you explore an option that the mayor, the law, community organizations, the board, and all of our bargaining units have rejected long ago?” Potter asked.
The two groups will be meeting Sep. 24 for another public bargaining session for CTU’s ongoing contract negotiations.
