Outgoing Chicago Public Schools chief Pedro Martinez is alleging board members are continuing to usurp and modify his duties, despite a temporary restraining order issued by a Cook County judge in December that prevents them from doing so.
Although Martinez was fired without cause on Dec. 20 he is allowed to stay in his position through mid-June. With one foot out the door and two months before starting a new job, he continues to butt heads with the school board.
Martinez’s lawyer filed a motion Thursday saying the judge’s order preventing the school board from stripping him of his duties should stand. The motion includes an affidavit from the schools chief claiming that some board members have continued to overstep their bounds in unprecedented ways.
The chief executive officer’s dismissal followed serious disagreements with Mayor Brandon Johnson about how to settle this school year’s budget in the midst amid a deficit. Johnson requested that Martinez take out a $300 million loan, which he said was irresponsible. Just days after the firing, several board members — including Board President Sean Harden — attended a contract bargaining session with the district and the Chicago Teachers Union. The controversial move was unusual because the CEO and his team negotiate union contracts, not the school board.
Then, on Dec. 24, Cook County Judge Joel Chupack sided with Martinez and blocked the board from modifying his job duties during his remaining six months in office, including attending contract negotiations or managing CPS staff without the CEO’s approval.
A lot has changed since that stunning legal battle.
Just this week, the Chicago Teachers Union officially finalized its contract with the district. Martinez will soon be moving to Massachusetts to become the next commissioner of the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
In a motion, Jeremy Glenn, the lawyer representing the board, argued the judge’s ruling should be dissolved because the “harm the (temporary restraining order) sought to prevent has not come to fruition. The newly ratified teachers contract represents “changed circumstances” from when Judge Chupack made his initial ruling in late December, Glenn said.
Martinez’s lawyer, William Quinlan, responded that the temporary restraining order prevents board members from interfering with any of the CEO’s duties, “including and not limited to CTU negotiations.” He emphasized the schools chief’s ongoing necessity for injunctive relief because the board has “not ceased from their efforts to interfere with (Martinez’s) job duties.”
Martinez’s affidavit describes some of those efforts, both before and after the teachers union settled its contract.
“Since entry of the (temporary restraining order), I have been informed of, and witnessed firsthand, several examples of attempts by the Board or appointed members to undermine and usurp my authority and to prevent me from carrying out my duties as the CEO,” it states.
On Feb. 6, according to the affidavit, mayoral-appointed board member Karen Zaccor proposed a resolution to replace the teachers’ evaluation system, known as REACH, due to its discriminatory nature. Mayor Brandon Johnson is a close ally of CTU, and his appointees also typically side with the union’s ideology.
According to Martinez’s affidavit, the “resolution mirrored a complaint by the CTU, which identified amendment of the system as one of the CTU’s ‘must haves’ for concluding negotiations.”
Martinez also points out that though CTU’s contract was settled earlier this month and finalized by board members, still pending are contracts for the principals union and Service Employees International Union Local 1, which includes lunchroom managers who work in schools.
There are “me-too clauses” that require the district to match terms in union contracts, which Martinez says in the affidavit could unwind already negotiated agreements and “broadly unbalance the District’s budget.”
Like the conflict that led to his ousting, most of Martinez’s statements revolve around budget items pushed for by CTU. He writes that “there is presently no readily available funding source” for a proposal designating all district schools as permanent vaccination sites. The proposal is expected to be discussed at May’s board meeting.
CTU proposed the vaccination sites initiative during contract negotiations, but it was ultimately excluded from the collective bargaining agreement.
The affidavit alleges that Board President Sean Harden has, in recent weeks, tried to revive a budget amendment that would force the district to cover a disputed $175 million pension payment. Harden delayed the budget amendment vote at a board meeting in March when he didn’t have the votes to pass it.
Martinez writes that the district’s projected deficit for the upcoming school year is $529 million and that the district will be “unable to assume debt on reasonable loan terms in the current climate.”
Harden has pushed back on the memos and financial presentations Martinez has provided board members, according to the CEO. In early April, Harden tried to schedule a separate meeting with the district’s financial officers, according to Martinez.
Then, on April 14, Martinez said he attended a special meeting at Harden’s request, where the board president informed him that it was not his “role to influence individual Board members on whether, on behalf of the District, to incur debt or other obligations.” Harden asked that all information to board members be funneled through him.
“I am not aware of any precedent for Mr. Harden’s instruction, nor of any basis for the Board President to limit the CEO’s ability to communicate District-related information to Board members,” Martinez writes in his statement.
President Harden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
