Board members say Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board president Sean Harden is leading an effort to vote down a resolution that requires the next interim leader of Chicago Public Schools to have a superintendent licensure in order to install the mayor’s chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, to serve in the temporary role.
If approved, the appointment would be a major shift in Johnson’s administration and elicit strong reaction from critics of the mayor and his strongest ally, the Chicago Teachers Union.
The search for a new short-term superintendent to fill in for Pedro Martinez, the outgoing CPS chief executive officer, has been the topic of discussion at board meetings and in community forums for months since the CEO was fired without cause in late December amid extreme financial uncertainty. He will stay in his position until mid-June.
Although the board is technically in charge of hiring and firing the district’s leader, Johnson appointed the majority of the board and the mayor traditionally influences who is placed in the high-profile role. Board members will likely vote to approve her appointment at May’s monthly board meeting.
But first, board members told the Tribune Wednesday Harden is trying to corral a majority vote of 11 members to undo a resolution that passed unanimously at a March board meeting, which requires that both the next CEO and the interim CEO must have a “valid Illinois Professional Educator License, with a Superintendent endorsement.” Pacione-Zayas does not have a superintendent licensure.
“There’s almost no difference and no daylight between at —this point — Elon Musk as the CEO, Trump as the CEO and Mayor Johnson saying that we don’t need criteria and qualifications,” said Che Rhymefest Smith, a board member from the 10th District on the far South Side who introduced the resolution. “I feel like it’s an attack on the school board being an independent body. It’s an attack on democracy.”
The appointment of the interim officer will have large financial implications for the district, as that person will address an over $500 million deficit in setting a budget for the following year and lay the groundwork for a permanent appointment later this fall. Martinez was fired in large part due to disagreement over the district’s finances, after he refused to accept a borrowing plan pushed by Johnson to cover a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching CPS employees.
Pacione-Zayas, a close member of the mayor’s cabinet, is likely to side more favorably with Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, when making the weighty financial decisions this summer.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At an unrelated press conference Tuesday, Mayor Johnson deflected a question about why he isn’t prioritizing a superintendent licensure in the appointment of his chief of staff.
“Someone who understands the direction of our school district is critical. That person has to have a clear sense of our financial challenges,” he said. “So someone who has a deep and profound perspective around … the needs of students, particularly (the) diverse needs of our students.”
Johnson also defended Harden.
“I actually think that there’s something pretty special about our board president, which I think is a model for how our next interim could relate to the school board, someone who is a product of our public education system,” he said.
And though the board is split between members who were elected and appointed by the mayor, the appointment only needs a simple majority to pass at their board meeting. Over half of the board was elected by Johnson or endorsed by CTU in the most recent school board election.
Pacione-Zayas has a wide range of experiences in education and community engagement, from her previous work at Enlace Chicago and Latino Policy Forum. She led an initiative to provide stability at Roberto Clemente Community Academy in 2010 and was the associate vice president of policy for the Erikson Institute graduate school. She was an Illinois state senator before working her way into the mayor’s office and climbing to chief of staff.
With the city, she was in charge of overseeing the rapidly unfolding migrant crisis, which proved to be a complex challenge as tens of thousands of people with high needs descended on Chicago, sent on buses by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
She received some criticism for that effort, particularly tied to the death of a 5-year-old in a warehouse turned migrant shelter on the Southwest Side in December 2023.
Pacione-Zayas was copied on an email obtained by the Tribune from Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, in late October 2023 about complaints from migrants regarding alleged exposed pipes with raw sewage, a cockroach infestation, insufficient provision of meals and water and outbreaks of illness. Migrants said the death was caused in part by deplorable conditions in the warehouse in the coldest winter months that weren’t addressed.
She also received pushback for her handling of the firing of a top communications official for the mayor.
After Ronnie Reese, the city’s former communications director, was let go last year, the Tribune reported that he had been accused of sexual harassment, misogyny, racism and other abusive behavior. Records showed that Reese kept his job for months even after a city human resources investigator notified Pacione-Zayas of the formal complaints about Reese’s alleged behavior.
In a meeting between members of Reese’s team and Pacione-Zayas, the chief of staff “repeatedly advocated for Reese’s inclusion in meetings about this matter and referenced ‘peace circles,’ but the team was unanimously against his inclusion due to the shared fear of retaliation,” according to a written complaint received through a Freedom of Information Act request.
For the mayor to opt to move his administration’s second in command will be a major shakeup that, while rumored for months, begs the question of who is left in his inner circle to serve as his next chief of staff.
In October, when asked by a WTTW reporter if she would consider the job as interim CEO, Pacione-Zayas said no.
“I’m the chief of staff to the mayor,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Pacione-Zayas said she was still the chief of staff when asked by a Tribune reporter in Springfield about the appointment earlier in the day. She said there were national candidates under consideration.
“The mayor has certainly looked all around,” she said.
Chicago Tribune reporters Jake Sheridan and Jeremy Gorner contributed.
