A group of six Chicago Public Schools board members blasted Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday, accusing City Hall of sabotaging a professional search for a new head of the school district.
The board members announced in a statement on Thursday that the contract between the Alma Advisory Group, the firm leading the search for a new CEO, was terminated.
“We are extremely disappointed that the mayor and his appointees on the Board have chosen to sabotage the process to find a permanent leader for CPS,” the statement read. “This blatant political interference is harmful to the entire District — to schools, staff, families, and most importantly, the students. Every problem becomes more difficult to solve when there is leadership instability.”
In the statement, the six board members urged their colleagues to “retain Interim Superintendent/CEO Dr. Macquline King until a fully-elected board can restart the search in 2027.”
The termination is the latest setback in a long-suffering search for the next leader of the nation’s fourth-largest school district, and threatens to add further turmoil and uncertainty for families.
The 11-month national search reached the brink of finalist interviews with Mayor Brandon Johnson last fall, until the mayor and his allies “started running political interference,” board members said.
Thus, the fate of the position that’s been filled on an interim basis since June and proven a lightning rod of controversy for the first-term mayor remains uncertain.
Even so, a spokesperson for the Board of Education said in a statement it still “remains on track to identify a CEO/Superintendent” for the upcoming school year. Alma Advisory will work with the district for 30 days “to ensure a seamless transition into final interviews,” the statement said.
In a statement early Thursday evening, the mayor’s office denied interfering in the search process, saying Johnson has not been presented with any candidates so far.
“The statement by a minority of Board members is baseless and inaccurate. The Mayor’s Office has not intervened in the CEO/Superintendent search to this point,” Johnson spokesperson Cassio Mendoza wrote. “Mayor Johnson’s goal is to ensure that the next leader of Chicago Public Schools is committed to fighting for fully-funded schools where every student has what they need to succeed.”
Alma Advisory Group was hired last spring after the school board terminated ex-CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s contract without cause in December 2024. The firm was responsible for recruiting, screening and facilitating interviews with applicants.
In November, the superintendent search had been narrowed down to two out-of-state finalists, from New York City and Denver. After the candidates’ names were leaked to WBEZ/Sun-Times and Chalkbeat, the process effectively ground to a halt and one of them withdrew his name.
Johnson, at the time, told reporters the search was far from complete and encouraged others to apply. In the months since, Alma Advisory has gathered a shortlist of other final contenders, but the “progress has been stalled, and major decisions have been put on hold,” board members said.
“By making it impossible for a professional firm to see this through, Mayor Johnson and his appointed board members have shown that they are either unwilling, unable, or uninterested in finding a qualified CEO/Superintendent to lead CPS into the future,” the statement read.
The statement was signed by board members Carlos Rivas Jr., District 3B; Ellen Rosenfeld, District 4B; Jessica Biggs, District 6B; Angel Gutierrez, District 8A; Therese Boyle, District 9B; and Che “Rhymefest” Smith, District 10A.
The school board, currently a hybrid mix of elected and mayoral-appointed seats, is in charge of hiring for the high-profile role after decades of full mayoral control over CPS. Johnson retains some influence over the board before it transitions to a fully independent body in 2027, but he’s faced challenges with even allies in the board resisting pressure from his team to borrow money to cover district costs.
All those who signed the letter are elected members, representing newly drawn constituencies across the city — an extraordinary display of division within the newly empowered governing body. Board members have also signed non-disclosure agreements, previously shielding almost all of the process from public view.
Now, as Johnson approaches his three-year mark in office and all 21 school board seats are up for election in November, he and his handpicked board president, Sean Harden, find themselves without a clear path forward.
Harden did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
In theory, the process could move forward with the finalists already identified. But without the guidance of an outside firm, it could continue to sputter.
Other board members, however, pushed back against the characterization. Appointed member Michilla Blaise, District 5B, said that the process has been slow-moving because it is deliberate and thorough.
“I wish the contingency of board members who wrote this letter could be more focused on gathering unanimity instead of sowing division and lobbing media bombs,” Blaise said.
Elected member Jenny Custer, District 1B, typically votes in alignment with the board members who signed the letter. But she said it was preemptive to call off the search. Custer noted that the board could still move forward with the identified finalists.
Both Custer and Blaise said they have not seen evidence that Johnson is interfering with the search.
“I think we’re jumping the gun,” Custer said. “I think we need to exhaust all our options before we call it a failure … I think we have a lot of great potential leaders in the district.”
The next superintendent will play an outsized role in shaping the district’s priorities, amid a period of declining enrollment, federal pressures and deep fiscal instability. The cash-strapped district is facing a projected $520 million deficit for the upcoming budget season.
After former-CEO Martinez refused to take out a short-term loan in 2024, all seven members of Johnson’s first handpicked school board opted to resign rather than be caught up in a war of wills between Johnson and Martinez. The mayor appointed a second school board that fired Martinez in December.
The lame-duck CEO stayed on for six months, until his contract ended, before the appointment of interim CEO King. King also resisted pressure from the mayor and CTU to borrow, a decision that led to her not making the cut as a finalist for the permanent superintendent job.
In the statement, board members praised King for her “laudable work under impossible circumstances,” saying that the district should retain her until a fully elected board can weigh in next year.
“She is someone who understands CPS inside and out — as a student, a teacher, a principal, a policy leader, and now as Interim CEO/Superintendent,” the statement read.
Despite the “sad development,” the board members also thanked Alma Advisory for their “competency-based process that was rigorous, thoughtful and thorough.”
A former CTU organizer, Johnson vowed bold investments for Chicago’s disinvested neighborhood schools, but a perfect storm of budget shortfalls and pension obligations on both the city and CPS’s side complicates that goal. So does a political climate in Springfield wary of new taxes or more spending.
Though CPS’s beleaguered finances predate Johnson’s time, how education leaders should fix that problem has been one of the most politically radioactive debates during the freshman mayor’s term.
In May, Harden spearheaded an effort to appoint the mayor’s chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, to serve in the role in the interim. But the effort ultimately failed to gain enough traction, in part because Pacione-Zayas lacked a superintendent endorsement — a new requirement for the role approved unanimously by the school board last year.
As of December, Pacione-Zayas was not in the process of obtaining a superintendent license, Johnson’s office confirmed.
The Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Housing Authority have also gone more than a year without permanent leaders, roles traditionally appointed by the mayor. It has been several mayoral administrations since all three posts were vacant simultaneously, raising internal and external concerns over the direction of the city’s most influential public agencies.
