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The Chicago Academics Union is escalating a struggle with CEO Pedro Martinez as its contract negotiations drag on, with the union accusing the faculties chief of plotting to shut or consolidate underenrolled faculties.
Martinez says there aren’t any such plans, and that the district’s latest evaluation of its buildings led to the conclusion that closures have been pointless. State legislation bars Chicago from closing public faculties till Jan. 15, 2025.
“Let me reiterate: I cannot suggest that any faculties be closed throughout my management of CPS,” Martinez wrote to district households this week.
However CTU has doubled down, arguing that the existence of the evaluation — which neither CTU nor the district would supply to Chalkbeat — is an issue. Jackson Potter, the union’s vice chairman, advised Chalkbeat Wednesday that college board members ought to take into account eradicating Martinez over the evaluation, calling the faculties chief a “large barrier to our collective success.”
The back-and-forth is an indication that the union is seeking to put further strain on the CEO as negotiations proceed. Martinez, appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, is already on shaky floor, with Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer and shut ally of the union, reportedly contemplating ousting him. And in a metropolis the place the shuttering of roughly 50 campuses a decade in the past nonetheless touches a nerve, the union’s allegations are eye-catching — even when it’s unlikely the faculties chief would pursue politically unpopular closures beneath a mayor and faculty board that oppose them.
The confrontation over closures comes because the district faces looming finances deficits and after Martinez has clashed with each the mayor and the union. The CEO lately rejected an enchantment from Johnson to take out a high-interest short-term mortgage to cowl a $175 million worker pension cost and the price of the trainer contract. In the meantime, the union has lambasted Martinez for restricted progress in the talks over the CTU’s slate of proposals, the union’s most far-reaching and costliest to this point.
In an announcement to Chalkbeat, CPS spokesperson Mary Ann Fergus reiterated that there aren’t any plans to shut or consolidate faculties.
Faculty board President Jianan Shi and Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The services evaluation: what we all know
Though the arrival of migrant households helped push enrollment up final fall, CPS has grappled for years with enrollment declines which have left lots of its campuses underenrolled, particularly on the town’s South and West sides. Methods to finest handle the problem of shrinking faculties is a problem districts throughout the nation are dealing with post-pandemic, amplifying fears of attainable closures.
In a letter to households earlier this week, Martinez mentioned the district performed a neighborhood-by-neighborhood services evaluation to tell a brand new five-year strategic plan that prioritizes efforts to prop up neighborhood faculties. In separate communication to workers, he mentioned the varsity board requested the research.
In his letters to oldsters and workers, Martinez mentioned the district wouldn’t take into account a consolidation plan with out first consulting households and residents. He famous that the district is at present trying into two particular strikes: a brand new house for the Velma Thomas Early Childhood Middle and shifting the seventh and eighth grade from Kelvyn Park Excessive Faculty to 3 neighborhood elementary faculties.
Officers have additionally identified the state moratorium in opposition to faculty closures in Chicago, which expires in January on the identical day a partly-elected faculty board will probably be sworn in. Johnson’s administration and his appointed faculty board have mentioned unequivocally that they haven’t any urge for food for closing campuses, although they opposed a invoice in Springfield that, partly, would’ve prolonged the moratorium to 2027.
Regardless of Martinez’s reassurances, union officers have repeated their declare that the district is contemplating closing faculties, together with throughout public remark on the faculty board’s Wednesday assembly.
Potter mentioned the evaluation CTU obtained included an in depth checklist of roughly 70 faculties that might be consolidated with 70 different campuses. He additionally mentioned the union has inside finances slides that reference consolidation as one possibility for addressing the district’s monetary woes, with workers furloughs as one other risk.
“Why would a CEO have a listing of 140 consolidations? Why would that be generated in such an in depth method in the event that they weren’t contemplating it?” Potter mentioned. “That’s a waste of time and assets.”
Fergus, the district spokesperson, reiterated that the district reviewed facility utilization as a part of ongoing work associated to the Training Amenities Grasp Plan and its annual capital plan.
By state legislation, Fergus mentioned, CPS is required to put up tips by Oct. 1 for “faculty actions,” a time period used to explain adjustments to a college. She mentioned solely co-locations – when faculties share a constructing – can be thought-about and may solely be explored by CPS as soon as a college group has requested it.
As negotiations proceed and metropolis finances looms, extra strain on Martinez
The backdrop to this struggle is the continuing contract negotiations.
After months of little progress, the district and union introduced in a mediator to supervise the contract talks final month. On the bargaining desk, the district has supplied lecturers raises of as much as 5% within the subsequent 4 years, which officers say will carry the common educator wage to greater than $110,000 by the tip of the contract, together with profit will increase for free of charge to lecturers and different concessions. However the district has balked on the union’s proposals to codify class sizes and staffing minimums within the contract, amongst others. The 2 are scheduled to discount in public subsequent Tuesday.
Additionally looming is strain on Johnson to shut a $223 million deficit within the Metropolis of Chicago’s present finances and shut subsequent yr’s almost $1 billion hole. Each gaps within the metropolis’s finances, which covers metropolis providers equivalent to police and hearth, public libraries, and streets and sanitation, exist partly as a result of the varsity board handed a $9.9 billion finances this summer season that didn’t embrace cash for the pensions of non-teaching workers. The CTU as soon as sharply criticized Lightfoot when she handed on this similar pension cost to the varsity district throughout her tenure.
Johnson prompt CPS take out a high-interest, short-term mortgage, however district leaders, backed by the varsity board, have mentioned short-term borrowing to cowl these prices would solely add to CPS’s already substantial debt. Stories that Johnson was laying the groundwork to take away Martinez emerged in August amid this disagreement.
The union has made its displeasure with Martinez clear, arguing that district officers – and Martinez particularly – have didn’t foyer state lawmakers and the governor aggressively for added funding.
Potter mentioned union leaders to his data haven’t spoken with board members about eradicating Martinez. However he famous that since studies first got here out that Johnson was planning to oust the faculties chief, the district and union have made extra headway on the bargaining desk — “enhancements within the tempo and seriousness of bargaining.”
Nonetheless, he mentioned, “If each time we make incremental progress on the bargaining desk it’s as a result of we have now to threaten Pedro Martinez’s job, that’s not a wholesome customary. It’s an unimaginable one.”
The CEO nonetheless has the assist of many faculty leaders. Earlier this month, roughly 460 principals and assistant principals wrote to the varsity board arguing that after years of management turnover, Martinez is making progress in main the district and his elimination weeks into a brand new faculty yr would trigger important disruption for college students and workers.
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter masking Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org .
