Education
Timeline: CPS CEO Pedro Martinez Was Fired. Here’s What Happened in the 8 Months Before That Decision Was Made
Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez speaks at Orr Academy High School on June 7, 2023, beside Mayor Brandon Johnson. (WTTW News)
The Chicago Board of Education unanimously voted to terminate Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez without cause Dec. 20 in an unprecedented move that puts the cash-strapped school district on a path toward new leadership and a likely lengthy legal battle.
A clause in his contract means Martinez will stay on for six months in a transitional period and then receive 20 weeks of severance pay. The resolution approved by the board indicated that Martinez will have his duties as CEO “modified.”
That decision didn’t come out of nowhere, but instead arrived after months of contentious contract negotiations, difficult budgeting decisions and tensions between Martinez, Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union.
To fully understand what led the district to this point, let’s go back in time to the spring of this year. Below is a timeline of the major events leading toward Martinez’s termination and upcoming departure from CPS:
April 29, 2024: Bargaining gets underway between CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union on a new contract with the union’s existing deal — which was reached following an 11-day strike in 2019 — set to expire at the end of June. Both sides express general optimism and agree to hold the first-ever public bargaining sessions.
June 25: In an interview on “Chicago Tonight,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said negotiations had been less contentious in the past thanks to the election of Mayor Brandon Johnson — a former teacher and CTU organizer.
“The voice that you don’t hear from the CTU is one that is confrontational because we don’t have a mayor being confrontational with us,” she said. “In fact, we have the opposite. We have a mayor who’s encouraged both sides to work together to foment this transformation.”
July 10: CPS releases its budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year, which relied on grant money, departmental cuts and central office reductions to fill a shortfall that had ballooned to more than $500 million. That proposal was expected to be released a month earlier, but was delayed as CPS needed additional time to “do further diligence” on its shortfall and new funding model.
July 12: The CTU slams the district’s budget proposal, with union Vice President Jackson Potter putting blame directly on Martinez.
“CPS CEO Martinez’s proposal is not a budget,” he said in a statement, “it’s an act of make-believe. It’s the product of a man driving with his hands over his eyes.”
July 25: The seven-member Board of Education unanimously approves the school district’s budget, with the caveat that it would have to be amended later once CPS and the teachers union reached a deal on a new contract.
Aug. 14: WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times report that Johnson is pushing to oust Martinez after tensions over the district’s budget hole and the ongoing CTU contract negotiations.
Aug. 26: Martinez and Johnson appear together for an event marking the first day of classes in the new school year, but Martinez says he hadn’t spoken to the mayor since the reports came out that the mayor wants him gone.
Sept. 18: Johnson reportedly asks Martinez to resign his position. The mayor is not able to fire the head of CPS on his own — that can only be done by the Board of Education.
Johnson has backed the union’s demand that a new contract include pay raises for teachers, more art teachers and services for children experiencing homelessness, which would likely require the cash-strapped school district to borrow a significant amount of money at a relatively high interest rate.
Martinez has said a decision to borrow more money would be catastrophic for the district.
Sept. 22: The CTU’s House of Delegates issues a unanimous vote of no confidence in Martinez as contract negotiations grow increasingly contentious.
Sept. 24: Martinez, in a Chicago Tribune op-ed, writes that he has refused Johnson’s resignation request, stating his choice was not a “rebuke of the mayor but rather a decision to pursue our vision for the future of CPS.”
Sept. 30: Johnson denies asking for Martinez’s resignation. “I didn’t ask anybody to do anything,” he said at a press conference.
Oct. 4: All seven members of the Board of Education — who were handpicked by Johnson following his 2023 election victory — abruptly resign. In a joint statement, the board and Johnson said the move was necessary to lay “a strong foundation for the shift” to a hybrid, 21-member board in January 2025.
But questions were raised about whether that board had refused Johnson’s request to terminate Martinez and approve a high-interest loan.
Oct. 7: Johnson announces six new board appointees at a contentious news conference. The mayor refused to allow the new members to answer a question from media about whether they supported a district loan.
And when asked if he had questioned the appointees about whether they’d be willing to fire Martinez, Johnson said: “They were asked to carry out the vision of public education, the one I ran on, the one that’s in my transition plan, the one that’s in this transition five-year plan, they were asked to carry that vision out.”
Oct. 31: Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson resigns less than a week after he was named board president after his antisemitic, misogynistic and conspiratorial social media posts generated widespread criticism and calls for his ouster.
Nov. 21: Davis Gates pens a letter to Johnson, imploring the mayor to get involved in bargaining as Martinez has “slow-walked negotiations” with the CTU.
“We are now at a critical juncture that requires your intervention to ensure that the Board of Education enshrines the commitments to transform public education that the people of the city of Chicago elected you to carry out,” Davis Gates wrote to Johnson.”
Dec. 17: Johnson announces 10 selections for the new 21-member Board of Education which is set to take over in January. The hybrid board is comprised of 10 elected members, and 11 appointed by the mayor. Multiple elected members — who have not yet been sworn in — implore the existing board to hold off on any major decisions until the new board is in place.
Dec. 19: The Chicago Tribune reports that Deputy Mayor for Labor Relations Bridget Early in a Sept. 12 email wrote, “Here’s what lies ahead for the Board for the remainder of this term: CEO out by 9/26,” showing the mayor’s office had expected Martinez to be terminated months earlier.
Dec. 20: Hours after Martinez filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education and its members, seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent his dismissal, the board at a special meeting unanimously votes to terminate him without cause.
Doing so triggers a clause in his contract allowing him to stay on for a six-month transitional period and receive 20 weeks of severance.
“I remain as committed as ever to help our school community build on their remarkable progress,” Martinez said following the vote. “It’s not about me. It’s important that we have a smooth transition to a new CEO instead of throwing everything into chaos in the middle of a school year.”
The CTU celebrated the board’s decision, claiming he’d “put his personal politics, career goals, and media stardom ahead of the needs of our students and their families.”
“As educators, we saw and felt the true impact of Martinez’s lack of leadership up close and personal,” the union said in a statement.
Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected]
