The Chicago Board of Education picked City Hall advisor and former principal Macquline King Wednesday as the interim CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
King’s record at CPS came under scrutiny last week after the Chicago Tribune revealed she’d been investigated multiple times as a principal and was found to have failed to implement certain district protocols around student safety. King did not face formal discipline.
The vote was close: Eleven board members — one elected and 10 appointed — voted for King, while eight voted no. Elected board member Ebony DeBerry abstained. Asked why she abstained, she said she did not feel her constituents would support her voting for King, and that a “no” vote wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
The board also disagreed over discussing the vote in public. Elected board member Jennifer Custer called for a public discussion, but that motion failed with 12 no votes.
Board members have been split for weeks on who should lead the district as the board searches for a permanent CEO. At one point, the mayor’s chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas was floated as a possibility but was not officially considered after board members said they wanted to stick to their commitment to hiring someone with a superintendent’s license.
Outgoing CPS CEO Pedro Martinez’s last day is June 18 and he will begin a new job July 1 as Massachusetts’ new education commissioner. The previous Board of Education fired Martinez in December without cause following high tensions, largely rooted in budget decisions, between CPS and the mayor’s office, as well as the Chicago Teachers Union.
The interim will serve until the board hires a permanent CEO. The board’s search for a new permanent leader, being led by Alma Advisory Group, is underway. The board’s goal is to hire someone by the end of September, according to appointed board member Anusha Thotakura.
The board appeared to whittle its choices down from five people three weeks ago to King, who has been an education policy advisor for City Hall since 2022, starting under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot; Carmona, the district’s current chief portfolio officer; and Nicole Milberg, the district’s current chief of teaching and learning. All three have superintendent’s licenses.
Thotakura said she didn’t feel King’s personnel record was disqualifying because she was never formally disciplined. She said she liked that King had relationships both in and outside of the district.
“We right now need a leader that can get us through the next few months, through passing a balanced budget and through a strong and successful opening of the next school year,” Thotakura said. “We are looking forward to Dr. King’s leadership, her experience in and outside of CPS, to provide the district with the stability and the continuity that we need to get us through the next few months.”
According to a press release from the Board of Education, King has “spearheaded interagency collaboration to facilitate migrant student enrollment and expand early childhood access. She has fostered strong relationships with labor partners and monitored legislative bills impacting public education.”
King will be immediately tasked with resolving the district’s $529 million budget deficit. Asked how she’s considering closing that deficit, King told Chalkbeat she first needs to understand the details, consider various ideas around the budget, and work with board members and senior CPS leadership to find a solution.
King said applying for interim CEO was solely her decision, not the mayor’s, but she’s not interested in the permanent job at this time. In 2020, she applied for the permanent CEO role that Martinez eventually got, she said.
“I always chose to lead in schools that were challenging, and right now the district is in a very challenging position, so I don’t shy away from challenges,” King said. “It’s been a theme of my career.”
After a brief job at a private school, King became a CPS teacher in 1994 at Robert Nathaniel Dett Elementary School, according to employee records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. In 2007, King became principal at Alexandre Dumas School. Six years later, in 2013, King became principal at Courtenay Language Arts Center in Uptown.
During her tenure at Courtenay, King was highlighted for her participation in a leadership program for new school leaders. Her first year as principal at Courtenay was when the school merged with former Stockton Elementary. Following the merger, some teachers and parents described part of the school as a “war zone” that was marred with student fights, and they accused school leaders, including King, of not doing enough to quell the fights or log incidents, according to a DNAinfo story at the time. A parent leader, however, said King had a “daunting task” in overseeing the thorny school merger that CPS was advised to hold off on but approved anyway, the news report said.
Chalkbeat filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all personnel records for each finalist.
While King’s personnel records did not show any formal discipline, the district did on two occasions write memos about how she should improve.
In April 2015, King failed to immediately report allegations of two school staffers injuring a student to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services or in CPS’s internal reporting systems, as required, according to an investigation conducted later that summer. CPS later gave King two “directives for improvement,” including reminders that allegations of abuse must be reported immediately to DCFS and CPS.
About six months later, two students participating in Courtenay’s after-school program were found in a bathroom with their pants pulled down and looking at each other’s “private parts and butt,” according to an investigative memo about the incident. The after-school provider — Youth Guidance — changed its protocols to require staff to accompany children when they went to the bathroom. But the investigation, which centered on King and several other school staffers, found that staff “did not do anything” to ensure that Youth Guidance was following its new protocols “or that the involved students were being kept separate from each other.”
In December 2015, a child fell and injured their arm at the school, but neither the school nurse nor King notified the student’s emergency contacts, and other staffers failed to ensure the student received timely medical care, according to that investigation.
In August 2019, CPS discovered that a person who had started volunteering at Courtenay the year before King became principal did not have a background check. CPS discovered the issue after that volunteer applied to be a security officer at Courtenay and a required background check found they had a criminal background, which wasn’t further detailed in the records obtained by Chalkbeat. In a formal nondisciplinary memo, the district informed King that she must always ensure employees have background checks.
King told Chalkbeat that it was “fair” for board members and the public to be concerned about the investigations without more context. She said she worked at “challenging” schools, and some of the investigations demonstrated a need for more staffing so that she and her team were equipped to follow all district procedures.
“I feel like the incidents that were reported in the news are incidents that demonstrate the need for support for principals and not punishment,” she said. “So each of the incidents that are noted, there [is] no documentation of support for schools.”
King said a lack of support for principals is why principals unionized and are currently bargaining with the district over their first contract. King has been vocal about the principals union and a desire for more support for school leaders.
Several board members have said King’s personnel history was concerning.
“There are parents on the board who have kids who go to their schools, and I am baffled that they’re willing to allow a leader with that kind of record to sit there and make some of these decisions when they have a true stake in the game,” said Custer, who supported Carmona. “I don’t know how they’re excusing it away.”
Neither Carmona’s nor Milberg’s personnel records included disciplinary or investigative memos.
Carmona has worked for the district since 2001. He was initially a bilingual teacher and eventually became a principal at Robert Healy School in 2010. In 2016, Carmona left to take a job as superintendent of a private, nondenominational Christian school in Milwaukee, according to his employee records and LinkedIn profile. He came back to CPS in 2019 to lead Network 10 schools on the Southwest Side before becoming the district’s chief portfolio officer, a role that oversees the district’s charter, options, and contract schools.
Under Carmona’s leadership, the district has recommended shorter renewal lengths for charter schools than past administrations. He also advised the board as it took the unprecedented, high-profile move this year to save five of seven Acero charter schools that Acero had planned to close.
Milberg taught in Newark, N.J. and Washington, D.C. before coming to Chicago Public Schools in 2009. She became assistant principal of Ellen Mitchell School in 2010 and eventually became the principal in 2012. In 2018, she was tapped to become chief of schools for Network 6 schools on the city’s west and southwest sides. She became CPS’s chief of teaching and learning in 2023.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
