An attorney representing the Chicago Board of Education offered a buyout to Pedro Martinez, the embattled chief of Chicago Public Schools, according to sources close to the conversations.
The offer, made over the phone earlier this week, came after Martinez retained attorney William J. Quinlan to represent him in an ongoing power struggle with Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union, which has waged a fierce campaign against the chief executive officer as the union negotiates a new contract with the district.
Martinez’s contract limits the district’s ability to fire him without cause and could lead to an expensive lawsuit. So far, Martinez has resisted the buyout offer, sources said.
With pressure on Martinez ratcheting up, the current six-member school board met Wednesday at CPS’ administrative office in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood to decide key issues that will be addressed at the board’s monthly meeting Dec. 12. Tension over the CEO’s fate could be felt in the auditorium where the meeting was held, overshadowing conversations with board members.
“Pedro Martinez intends to honor his contract with the Chicago Public Schools and see that the 325,305 students and parents get the benefit of what they bargained for with him,” William J. Quinlan of the Quinlan Law Firm LLC, Martinez’s attorney, said in a statement to the Tribune.
A spokesperson from Cozen O’Connor, the firm representing the school board, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Martinez previously said he declined a request by Johnson to resign and has faced months of pressure from the mayor’s allies who want him to leave or be fired by the board. The point of conflict has been the CEO’s refusal to take out a $300 million high-interest loan that would help pay for a new four-year teachers contract and a pension payment formerly covered by the city.
The previous school board resigned in early October amid the conflict and Johnson appointed a new board just days later.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, the new six-member board peppered speakers with an unusual amount of questions. At times, members expressed confusion about the raised policies — ranging from boundary requirements for enrollment in district schools to diversity protections and the confirmed location of Velma Thomas Early Childhood Learning Center.
The teachers union, which buoyed the mayor to power in 2023, has criticized the CEO’s mishandling of the closures of several charter schools in the Acero charter network in recent weeks. The union’s criticism of the CEO’s handling of the Acero closures remained front and center Wednesday.
Holding back tears, parent Norma Gaeta told board members that she’s enrolled her children in Acero’s Sandra Cisneros Elementary School in Brighton Park for more than a decade. Gaeta criticized the charter operator for failing to hold a town hall with parents or offer support to students since announcing the closures.
“Cisneros is a second home to my family,” she said, crediting the school community with spurring her fifth-grade daughter’s academic performance and social and emotional growth. “Please help us save our schools.”
Despite a November board resolution that directed Acero representatives to appear, the charter operator was a no-show at Wednesday’s meeting. Board members directly addressed the absence.
“What does it take to get someone from Acero to show up and talk to us?” asked board member Michilla “Kyla” Blaise.
The district’s portfolio office is continuing to work on solutions, board member Frank Thomas said, addressing the multiple Acero families present.
“One of the reasons we can’t get Acero to come here is because contracts make people perform. … When the contract doesn’t have any teeth in it, we can’t make them do much,” Thomas said of CPS’ contract with Acero, in which the district has no legal authority to prevent the charter operator from voluntarily closing its schools.
Martinez, who remained stoic for most of the hourslong meeting, nodded his head in agreement.
In an emailed statement sent after the meeting, Acero said discussions with CPS to hold a town hall in January are underway and the charter school operator complained that the district didn’t provide Acero with CPS’ proposed solutions before the meeting as promised.
“The anticipated closure of seven Acero schools was an extremely painful choice,” the charter operator said, noting it remains open to discussing any solutions with CPS.
Teachers contract negotiations bubbled into board conversation Wednesday in a notable way when a member of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association voiced concerns with the CTU’s contract proposals, adding another union voice to a fray of labor organizations currently displeased with the teachers union. A fault line between CTU and the historically allied Service Employees International Union Local 73, emerged earlier this week.
“While I emphasize we respect the work done by our colleagues in CTU, there are several provisions within their contract that present significant challenges for principals and assistant principals,” Kia Banks, CPAA’s chief of staff, said at Wednesday’s meeting.
The meeting came on the heels of CTU’s release of a “road map” to reaching a collective bargaining agreement — and followed a directive to “expedite” the contract that board members appointed by Johnson sent Martinez earlier this month.
A CPS spokesperson said Tuesday that while the district remains committed to bargaining in good faith, it does not expect its projected $10 billion cost of meeting the teachers’ demands to substantially decrease based on CTU’s updated priorities. The union criticized CPS’ figure as inaccurate, but its road map doesn’t provide an alternative estimate, the district spokesperson said.
As CPS faces an approximately $500 million deficit in each of the next five years, raises remain unresolved, among other key demands. Following CPS’ offer of 4% to 5% raises in the fall, the union recently countered with a 5% to 6% ask, down from the CTU’s initial demand of 9%.
The counterproposal and other “must-haves” in CTU’s road map represent “reasonable movement to settlement,” board Vice President Mary Gardner said, asking the CEO to explain how he’s working toward a resolution. Martinez hinted that updates would be discussed in Wednesday’s closed session.
“I am cautiously optimistic there’s more urgency now for us to actually get counter-proposals (that) we’re in the process of analyzing now,” he said.
The next fact-finding stage of mediation is scheduled to occur this month, with a report anticipated at the end of January.
CTU aims to settle the contract, “not in weeks, not in months, but now,” the union’s financial secretary, Maria Moreno, said at the meeting Wednesday. Gardner hammered that point home.
“We do not want a strike. Period. We don’t want that,” she said, before adjourning the public portion of the meeting.
Any decision on Martinez’s fate would be made in the closed session. For weeks, all current board members have refused to comment.
In mid-November, the newly appointed school board retained the outside law firm Cozen O’Connor, a move that hinted at the beginnings of the process of firing Martinez.
At the time, George F. Galland, an employment lawyer at Miner, Barnhill & Galland PC, said the board was likely looking for “cause” to fire Martinez, because it would save the district money.
Quinlan, Martinez’s lawyer, acted as general counsel to the state of Illinois appointed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and has been working with the CPS chief for about two weeks, Tribune sources confirmed. Quinlan’s father, also a lawyer, was chief counsel for three Chicago mayors. His uncle was the Cook County Board president and prosecuted James Wright, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The board can terminate Martinez’s employment contract — which expires in June 2026 — in two ways.
By firing Martinez “for cause,” according to the contract, the board would have to cite misconduct or criminal activity, incompetence in the performance of job duties, fraud or other wrongdoing. In addition, Martinez would not be eligible for severance pay. Martinez’s contract allows him the option to pursue a wrongful termination lawsuit.
If the board fires Martinez “without cause,” the CEO can remain in his position for 180 days and will receive 20 weeks of his base salary of $340,000 in 2022, according to public records.
