The Acero charter network announced last year plans to shutter Cruz K-12 as well as Casas, Cisneros, Fuentes, Paz, Santiago and Tamayo elementary schools due to declining enrollment, increasing personnel and facilities maintenance costs.

Cydney Wallace, who serves on the board of directors for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, has been named as the 21st member of the new school board.

“This moment is no doubt historic," elected member Ellen Rosenfeld said, "not just for me but for all of us, because this body reflects the voices and values of the majority of the people of our district.”

The immediate challenges facing the new school board members are enormous: They must ink a new deal with the teachers union, pick a new leader and confront the threat posed by President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to deport thousands of undocumented Chicagoans.

Just days before Christmas, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez was terminated in a unanimous vote by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked Board of Education.

In his first interview since the CPS board voted unanimously to terminate Martinez, Johnson said the current board members were carrying out his vision for the nation’s fourth-largest school district.

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 CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s termination and upcoming departure from CPS:

The unusual Friday night meeting saw more than an hour and a half of public comment before board members went into closed session to debate Martinez’s fate. In a 6-0 vote, the board dismissed Martinez without cause, which triggers a clause in his contract allowing him to stay on for a six-month transitional period and receive 20 weeks of severance.

The board announced a special meeting for Friday evening where it will take up only a small handful of items, including the schools chief’s possible termination and a settlement with CPS.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s picks, which include a mix of well-known community activists and candidates who lost their bids to win a seat on the board, will join the 10 people who won in November.

“What we’ve heard from the families is that we should not close these schools,” CPS Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona told the Chicago Board of Education during its Thursday meeting.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said the district enacted a “comprehensive response” to protect its students, families and staff when President-elect Donald Trump’s first term began in 2017, and CPS officials are planning to take similar steps before Trump’s inauguration next month.

Sean Harden — who previously worked as Chicago Public Schools’ deputy CEO of community affairs and as an executive assistant to former Mayor Richard M. Daley — took his oath of office and was sworn in as the board’s seventh member Thursday.

CPS Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s second highest ranking leader, told reporters Thursday that the two sides remain “significantly” far apart at a time when CPS is facing a financial crisis.

The Chicago Board of Education is in the midst of massive change. Residents just voted in 10 members of the city’s first elected school board.

The six-member board on Thursday unanimously approved a measure demanding Acero return any unspent public funding if it moves ahead with the closures at the end of the current school year.