Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday sought to pump the brakes on the Chicago Board of Education’s search for the next leader of the nation’s fourth-largest school district by suggesting the process is not close to completion after all.
The mayor distanced himself from the names floated as final-round contenders and indicated further applicants should throw their hats in the ring, despite district leadership and an outside firm spending the last half year getting to this point.
“There are others that will continue to apply and seek the position, but in no way do I have a strong opinion about any of the individuals that are making their way through a process,” Johnson said at an unrelated City Hall news conference, following reporting from Chalkbeat and WBEZ/Sun-Times that the school board had settled on two finalists who were slated to be interviewed this week. “I’m not aware of a scenario in which people have been deemed as finalists. … That just has not been what has been reported back to me.”
Johnson also pointed out that one of the candidates, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero, already pulled out since his name was leaked. The other name reported was Meisha Ross Porter, former leader of New York City’s schools system, who was also floated as a potential schools chief under Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. She was still in the running as of Monday afternoon, but her interview didn’t happen that day.
The mayor sidestepped a question on whether his team was considering blowing up the monthslong CEO search process entirely and starting over. That was a concern from some elected school board members after his ally, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, sent a letter to Johnson’s handpicked school board President Sean Harden last week criticizing the process as untransparent and arguing Johnson retains the final authority to install the next head of CPS.
In the letter, Davis Gates pointed to a section of Illinois’ school code, which states: “The Mayor shall appoint a full-time, compensated chief executive officer, and his or her compensation as such chief executive officer shall be determined by the Mayor.”
The section was written in 1995, when CPS was put under mayoral control. But it was not changed when legislation was passed in 2021 to establish an elected school board.
“The process the Board is undertaking complies with neither the letter nor the spirit of the law,” Davis Gates wrote. “Chicago’s students, parents, educators, and voters deserve to have this remedied at once.”
Asked whether he agreed with Davis Gates, the mayor pivoted to speaking broadly on the school board’s task ahead of transitioning to a fully independent body by 2027. But he asserted the current process of appointing a CEO remains ongoing and “people can still apply.”
“You’re going to have folks who are going to continue to advocate on behalf of their particular constituency, and that’s her responsibility, to advocate on behalf of her members,” Johnson said about Davis Gates’ letter. “As I understand, the process hasn’t ended, right, and I know there are a number of people who would love to be able to serve this city.”
The school board, Johnson and a community panel had been slated to interview finalists for the city’s schools superintendent this week. Were they to have arrived at a pick, that would have been the final stage to moving on from ex-CEO Pedro Martinez’s messy firing without cause in December 2024, after a protracted power struggle between the former schools chief and Johnson during the final years of mayoral control over CPS.
The dispute at the heart of that spat hinged on district finances, including a disputed pension payment, and a controversial loan to cover that cost and the start of the new CTU contract inked earlier this spring.
Harden, the mayor’s handpicked school board president, did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday. He and Johnson have remained aligned throughout those ups and downs, but the school board makeup remains hybrid for now and even elected members endorsed by the CTU have bucked the mayor when it came to his schools agenda.
His handpicked interim CEO, Macquline King, also rejected Johnson’s latest push to borrow to avoid pushing the district further into debt — a move that split members of the board. She is not a finalist for the permanent role, which Johnson reacted to on Monday by taking another shot at how her budget plan that passed was “not the best way that I would encourage someone to balance a budget off of a projection or hope and prayer.”
CPS hired an executive search firm to lead the superintendent search in May. The firm concluded a community engagement process this summer, which included community gatherings, surveys and more than 70 interviews and focus groups.
Unlike other large, urban school systems, the district opted not to officially name its finalists. Board members signed nondisclosure agreements, leading some to criticize the process for a lack of transparency.
In her letter to Harden, Davis Gates said the prospect of board members signing NDAs was “wholly inappropriate for a process that is supposed to be democratic.”
“The voters of Chicago did not elect a school board to have it conceal one of the most important decisions it will make,” she wrote.
However, two reported candidates’ names were leaked regardless. Marrero has now withdrawn, while Ross Porter’s next move remains up in the air. Should she also turn down the role, CPS may have to return to square one with finding its next leader.
