Education

Macquline King Officially Named Permanent Chicago Public Schools CEO

Macquline King will officially drop the interim tag from her title as Chicago Public Schools CEO after the city’s Board of Education voted to make her the district’s next permanent leader.

The 19 board members present at Monday’s special meeting voted 18-1 to name King as the new full-time CPS CEO. Elected board member Jennifer Custer offered the lone no vote.

King’s three-year contract with an annual salary of $380,000 takes effect July 1. She told the board she was “honored and humbled” to accept the full-time position.

“It is a responsibility I carry with the weight of every student’s future in mind,” she said. 

That vote also brings to a close the board’s nationwide CEO search, which lasted nearly a year since a previous version of the board fired King’s predecessor, Pedro Martinez, without cause amid a monthslong feud with Mayor Brandon Johnson.

King spent 12 years teaching in CPS classrooms before serving as principal at Dumas Elementary School and Courtenay Language Arts Center. King then took over her policy director role in 2022, in which she advised the mayor on “education initiatives, aligning resources and policies across CPS, City Colleges, and early childhood programs,” according to the city.

In 2022, she became the city’s senior director of education policy under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a role she continued to hold after Johnson’s election the following year. After King was appointed as interim CEO, Johnson said he believed she possessed a “deep, firsthand understanding of our school communities.”

Johnson congratulated King on Monday, saying she has “demonstrated commitment to the success of CPS students, teachers, and families.”

“I look forward to continued partnership with Dr. King, educators, and community stakeholders as we work to deliver the high-quality education every student in Chicago deserves,” he said in a statement.

While she has already navigated one difficult budgeting season — passing a balanced budget after CPS faced a $730 million shortfall without taking on the additional borrowing Johnson pushed for — King will face tougher challenges ahead with the district heading for a budgeting gap of nearly $1 billion in the coming years.

King acknowledged those difficulties, but committed to strengthening the district’s financial outlook and educational outcomes, saying she would do so not through a “monologue” but instead through conversations with educators, families and students.

“We cannot and we will not let financial headwinds jeopardize those hard-won victories and our students’ confidence,” King said. “I will pass budgets that are moral documents, budgets that ensure the business of the district never gets in the way of the success of our students.”

Board member Yesenia Lopez lauded King for her role in supporting school communities across the city during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement as part of “Operation Midway Blitz” last fall.

“She leads with empathy but also with courage,” Lopez said. “Given the situation right now, given that our schools, our students, our families, our staff need consistency, need strong leadership, that’s why I will be putting support for her.”

The search for a new CEO lasted for several months after other candidates reportedly dropped out and some members accused Johnson of sabotaging the selection process.

In February, the board ended its contract with Alma Advisory Group, the firm hired to lead the search, and a handful of elected board members published an open letter accusing Johnson and his appointed board members of sabotage.

In their letter, the elected board members said the selection process had been “working well” until November, when they claim “Johnson and his allies” began “running political interference.”

Those elected members instead wanted to hold off on selecting a permanent CEO until 2027, when the partially elected, partially appointed board will instead become fully elected. But they also supported King staying on as interim CEO until that time.

“I have never wavered in my support of Dr. King, not from Day 1,” board member Ellen Rosenfeld said. “I supported her because I believe (in) her proven bravery and proven independence. But now the work begins.”

In addition to board members expressing their support Monday, education labor leaders said they, too, look forward to working with King.

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter criticized past CEOs for gutting district programs and closing schools and said that with King now taking over, he hopes that “sordid past remains there where it belongs.”

“I look forward and the CTU extends our hand in partnership that builds upon our collective work in a moment that will require all of our coordination, collaboration and practice to meet the considerable challenges ahead,” Potter said.

SEIU Local 73 President Dian Palmer said that in a school system that has “too often treated collective bargaining as an obstacle,” King instead “sees it for what it is — a partnership.”

“She knows that sustainable progress in our schools cannot be won through top-down mandates, it is built brick by brick through honest negotiation, mutual respect and shared sacrifice,” Palmer said, adding that, “She has done the work. She is the work.”

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