The Chicago Board of Education is parting ways with Alma Advisory Group, the search firm tasked with helping the school board find a new CEO, according to a statement from six members of the Chicago Board of Education.
The statement, obtained by Chalkbeat, does not specify when or why Alma wrapped up its work on the search. The six elected board members who signed it — Carlos Rivas Jr., Ellen Rosenfeld, Jessica Biggs, Angel Gutierrez, Therese Boyle, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith — say they now want interim CPS CEO Macquline King to stay in the job until a new, fully elected school board is seated next January.
The end of Alma’s contract is another twist in the CEO search process, which began last spring and appeared to be coming to a close in the late fall, only to seemingly come to a halt. Former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez left the district in late June after he was fired without cause, and the district has not had a permanent CEO since.
The statement, which praised Alma’s work with the board, claims mayoral appointees “sabotaged” the search process and the mayor and “his allies” have “started running political interference.”
But another elected school board who has repeatedly voted in agreement with that group of electeds said Thursday she still feels optimistic about the search. Jenni Custer said the board is on the cusp of selecting several finalists for the CEO role, though members haven’t decided how many and whether all of them will be named publicly.
“We have a lot of great candidates left in our pool,” she said. “We need to see this through before we say the process has been unsuccessful.”
Custer said that in her understanding, the board and Alma parted ways because of a mutual sense that the search firm’s work was done at this point: “Alma has taken us as far as they can, and now the ball is in our court.”
The school board is currently 11 members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and 10 elected members.
Chicago Public Schools referred Chalkbeat to the Chicago Board of Education office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Board President Sean Harden, Monica Santana Rosen, the head of Alma, and the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Each of the board members who signed Thursday’s statement had voted against hiring King as the interim CEO last year. And last fall, board members chose not to advance King as a finalist for the permanent CEO job before the process was halted when other finalist names were reported by Chalkbeat and the Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ.
Later in November, school board members said they were “recalibrating” the search process. It’s unclear exactly where in the search the board is at or how close it is to choosing a candidate.
But during a board meeting Tuesday, Biggs and Smith publicly praised King’s leadership.
“I just wanted to take this time to just say thank you: Thank you for balancing the budget, thank you for visiting schools, thank you for inspiring confidence in our partners and thank you for being here and being a competent leader,” Smith said.
The board members’ calls to keep King are now in line with a broader call from the West Side NAACP and a coalition of Black-led groups, which want King to stay until at least a newly elected board is seated next year.
The question of the mayor’s role in selecting the district’s next leader has hung over the search, with some board members concerned that Johnson would exert control through his appointees. The city’s mayors have traditionally hand-picked the district’s top leader, but there was an expectation that Johnson would play a more hands-off role amid the transition to a fully elected board.
Tensions on the board rose after the names of two finalists, New York City’s former top education official Meisha Ross Porter and current Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero, were leaked to the media late last year, disrupting the search.
The Thursday statement from board members noted “names of finalists have been leaked, progress has stalled, and major decisions have been put on hold” — and it blamed interference from the mayor’s office for these disruptions.
“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 said.
Custer, the elected board member, said she hasn’t yet seen clear evidence that Johnson’s office is meddling in the process.
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
