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The Chicago Board of Education has agreed to rent the building housing Acero Santiago charter school in the West Town neighborhood, avoiding a potential sale and loss of the school site.
The property at 2510 W. Cortez St. is owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago, which had put the building up for sale last July.
Last week, the board approved adding the building to its master lease agreement with the archdiocese, a move that also added the buildings of four other Acero charter schools the school board took over last year to prevent Acero from shuttering those schools.
In total, Chicago Public Schools will transition five Acero schools — De las Casas, Cisneros, Fuentes. Octavio Paz, and Santiago — into district-run schools by the 2026-27 school year.
“I’m not gonna lie, this past year, especially the last six months, have been so scary because we knew that the CPS board members wanted to save us, but then we didn’t know if we’re going to have a building,” Reyna Rodriguez, a Santiago parent who pushed for CPS to keep the building, told reporters during a press conference Monday. “It feels like a dream.”
During that press conference, elected board member Carlos Rivas, who represents the area that includes Santiago, said the board’s vote means CPS will lease the building for at least the next decade.
The lease agreement represents the latest development in CPS’ gradual and unprecedented takeover of these charters, as other schools in Chicago’s charter sector face financial challenges, closures, and some accusations of mismanagement.
CPS did not respond to a request for comment. Archdiocese spokesperson Yasmin Quiroz said the sale was planned after the school faced closure last year but it changed course once CPS “expressed its desire to retain the school.”
“In recognition of the important service the school provides to the local neighborhood, the parish decided to retain the building and lease it to CPS rather than sell it,” Quiroz said in an email to Chalkbeat.
The cost of the master lease agreement with the archdiocese will increase by about $2 million with the addition of the Acero buildings, to a total of roughly $7 million for the next fiscal year.
Rivas said he began pushing to keep the building after being “caught off guard” by the archdiocese’s listing of the building, which at the time was reported to be $6.75 million.
On the first day of school at Santiago, parents and teachers held a press conference decrying the possible sale and pressing CPS to intervene.
Rivas and Ald. Gilbert Villegas, who also represents the area, told reporters that the “X-factor” in negotiations with archdiocese was twofold: The continued pressure from Acero parents to keep the school and an agreement with the archdiocese that it could still sell off a church building on the Santiago site that’s separate from the school.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
