“None of these issues that they need to settle will be worth the consequence of six, seven days or how many ever days out of school,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

The new 21-member, partially elected CPS board is set to vote Thursday on whether to make that pension payment and figure out how to pay for new contracts with the unions representing teachers and principals.

Officials from Chicago and Illinois are sounding the alarm as the U.S. Department of Education plans to lay off about half of its workforce, putting its future in peril while causing “chaos” for students and schools throughout the country.

CTU leaders met outside Chicago Public Schools’ Loop headquarters ahead of Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting where they expressed hope that a new contract could be finalized soon if district leaders agree to their final demands.

The 21-member board at its monthly meeting Thursday voted to amend language in a revised resolution that would now aim to save five Acero schools: Cisneros, Casas, Fuentes, Tamayo and Santiago.

In a letter to families Wednesday, officials with the Acero charter school network said the individual was taken into custody by ICE agents, though the agency itself did not respond to a request for comment.

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.

Pritzker’s budget team provided a rosier projection of an extra $1.5 billion in revenue growth, meaning he has to cover a $1.7 billion budget gap to balance the budget, rather than the $3.2 billion deficit previously estimated.

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.

“That is the last thing that students and families need,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said of a possible teachers strike, “and given how close our teams are to an agreement, we see no reason for such a drastic step.”

A statement from the Secret Service said the agents were investigating a threat against an official they are charged with protecting.

In many districts across the country, educators have sought to reassure immigrant parents that schools are safe places for their kids, despite the president’s campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations.

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.

The Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools still have not reached a contract deal. Meanwhile, the CPS Board of Education’s publicly elected members will be sworn in this week, and the district will be on the search for a new leader since the current board fired CEO Pedro Martinez.

A new annual report published Wednesday from the CPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) highlights the office’s major investigations from the previous year.