All members of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board plan to resign, the latest turmoil gripping his administration as it struggles for control of the Chicago Public Schools system led by embattled CEO Pedro Martinez.
Chicago Board of Education President Jianan Shi, along with members Elizabeth Todd-Breland, Mariela Estrada, Mary Fahey Hughes, Rudy Lozano Jr., Michelle Morales and Tanya Woods informed the mayor’s office of their resignations, the mayor’s office announced in a Friday statement. The extraordinary shakeup clears the mayor to reappoint the entire school board.
In a statement, the mayor’s office said: “Mayor Brandon Johnson and members of the Chicago Board of Education are enacting a transition plan which includes all current members transitioning from service on the Board later this month. With the shift to a hybrid elected and appointed Board forthcoming, current Board members and Mayor Johnson understand that laying a strong foundation for the shift is necessary to serve the best interests of students and families in Chicago Public Schools.”
Shi didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus declined to comment, saying the resignations will be received by the mayor’s office first.
The departures stem from an ongoing campaign by Johnson to oust schools chief Martinez, one that is taking place amid stalled contract talks with the Chicago Teachers Union and has placed immense pressure on the seven-member school board to carry out the CTU-aligned mayor’s orders. On Friday, all seven of those members made the decision to exit rather than respond to that pressure.
The mayor has hemmed and hawed over the last couple weeks when asked about his wish for Martinez’s removal, which can only be forced by the Board of Education. On Wednesday, he dodged questions on whether he asked for the school chief’s resignation by saying he doesn’t “ever discuss personnel issues. I find it to be highly offensive and irresponsible and raggedy. And I don’t do raggedy.”
“Of course, I was elected to fight for the people of this city, and whoever’s in the way of that, get out of it,” the mayor told reporters.
Though Johnson now has a clear path forward to appoint people more willing to do as he asks, the refusal from his first batch of handpicked board members — many also from progressive, grassroots backgrounds — to do his bidding was a stunning turn.
The first-term mayor ran on a platform of transforming public education, and seemed well-equipped to deliver his agenda given his familiarity with the system and ability to lean on close advisors with CPS expertise. But he has instead found himself presiding over an increasingly uncertain situation surrounding the nation’s fourth-largest school district.
Part of Johnson’s opposition to Martinez stemmed from the CEO’s refusal to take out a $300 million high interest loan as well as assume a $175 million pension payment for nonteacher CPS employees. The school board sided with Martinez on those matters in July when voting on CPS’s $9.9 million budget, one that will surely need to be amended to account for the next CTU contract.
If the resignations are striking, so too is the mayor’s maneuvering that led to this moment. Never in modern history has Chicago seen a CPS chief pushed out while union contract negotiations are ongoing.
Critics have said Johnson and the CTU are attempting to consolidate power rather than allow checks and balances during a time of fiscal austerity. But supporters of Johnson argue Martinez has to go because he has proven ineffective at lobbying Springfield for more cash and does not want to see the bold educational investments that Johnson campaigned on.
Johnson in the summer of 2023 appointed Shi to lead the school board through its final stretch before transitioning to a hybrid elected school board in January. Shi was formerly the executive director of the nonprofit Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, which is partly funded by the nonprofit arm of the CTU and taught high school science at Eric Solorio Academy on the Southwest Side.
Board vice president Todd-Breland, a University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor of history, was the one holdover on the body from the previous term who Johnson had chosen to keep, until now.
Estrada serves as director of community engagement at the United Way of Metro Chicago and worked for the city’s inspector’s general’s office and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.
Lozano, the son of a slain activist, is a community leader with a background in youth mentorship and currently works as an executive in JP Morgan’s philanthropy division.
Longtime community organizer Morales is president of the Woods Fund Chicago and the former associate director of the Alternative Schools Network.
Tanya D. Woods is also executive director of the nonprofit legal aid clinic the Westside Justice Center. Fahey Hughes is a longtime special education advocate.
Johnson now has the authority to install a brand-new board, paving the way for Martinez to be fired and for the loan to be taken up before the year ends. The next scheduled school board meeting is Oct. 24.
The mayor’s team proposed the $300 million high-interest loan after it became apparent Gov. JB Pritzker would not budge on the union’s demand for $1.1 billion in additional funds per the state funding formula as contract negotiations heated up. CPS most recently offered CTU salary increases of 4% to 5% over the next four years in its counteroffer to the union’s April demand for 9% annual raises.
The $300 million would cover the start of those pay hikes as well as the $175 million pension payment toward the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund. That obligation used to be the city’s until Mayor Lori Lightfoot shifted the burden onto CPS, a move initially opposed by Johnson but now one he is fighting to preserve as he faces a nearly $1 billion fiscal shortfall in 2025. Martinez, with the blessing of the Shi-led school board, did not include the $175 million payment or the $300 million loan in CPS’s $9.9 billion budget for next year.
That era is over, however, and Martinez’s days as CPS CEO appear numbered.
There are two avenues the board can take to fire Martinez. If the body fires him without cause, he would be entitled to stay on for six months and receive 20 weeks of severance pay, but the dynamic with the board would surely be contentious in that period. If the board were to fire Martinez “for cause,” his contract would be terminated immediately without severance pay, but Martinez might challenge the firing in court.
The new hybrid elected school board will be installed Jan. 15, though the mayor will retain control by one seat until the next elections two years from now that will seal the makeup of 2027’s fully elected school board.