Finding Chicago’s Next District Leader

While Chicago’s education reporters are preparing for next week’s board vote on amending the Chicago Public Schools budget, here at Board Rule we’re going to catch up on how two board members are learning more about governance and take a first look at the search for a new CPS leader. 

Back in February, I promised to give you a look at the School Board Partners fellowship. Board members Carlos Rivas and Ellen Rosenfeld are among the 75 current fellows meeting weekly over Zoom for 10 weeks. Each fellow is paired with a mentor from a previous cohort who serves on a board elsewhere in the country. Fellows also receive coaching on how to take their ideas and turn them into policies. 

On Valentine’s Day, I spoke with Erica Freeman, vice president of impact at School Board Partners, to learn more about the fellowship and her insights on governance as a former staffer for the Orleans Parish School Board in New Orleans. Here’s what I learned from our conversation.

SBP Model: Empowered, Balanced Governance. While some districts have turned to Student Outcomes Focused Governance, as promoted by former Kansas City, Missouri school board chair A.J. Crabill and the Council of Great City Schools, School Board Partners’ vision balances attention to student outcomes with helping board members strengthen their abilities to manage finances, supervise their superintendent or CEO, and create policy. 

“We focus on using the tools the board has to govern, not giving their power away to the superintendent,” Freeman said. School Board Partners has seen a lot of school boards act as rubber stamps and defer excessively to their district leadership. “We think an effective board is pushing back, asking the right questions.” School Board Partners is also deeply invested in helping boards shape policies that will outlast their tenure and help solve persistent issues that have parents coming to complain about school-level problems.

Fellowship Programming. The fellowship seminars cover governance, equitable student outcomes, personal leadership, and sustainability. “We actually believe that as school boards, if we're just better at the school management, managing your superintendent, engaging with the superintendent, you know, collecting data, that actually everyone in the ecosystem would benefit,” Freeman said.

Within the governance strand, two topics stand out as especially important for the Chicago Board of Education right now: community engagement and hiring a school district leader.

Freeman noted the importance of board members getting out into the community, not waiting for the school district to create opportunities for them. “True board engagement that is standalone, is separate from the district, is important. A lot of boards don’t adopt it as a strategy,” she noted. “That’s one of the things we try to push them to think about.”

One of the perils of individual board members engaging locally is that all communities will not have the same access to board members; it will depend on who is willing to take initiative. She advises more enthusiastic board members to encourage their colleagues to follow their lead. “You just have to get out there and talk to the people. It’s hard. I know it is,” she said. “I've been there. I've been in rooms. I've been yelled at before.” 

Successful community engagement also requires sustained effort. “It probably takes about three years of consistent community engagement to start seeing the benefits,” she said. (Which suggests that only those current board members who plan to seek re-election would see any reason to make the effort, since the rest will be gone in two years.)

Launching Chicago's Search: A Supe or a CEO?

Community engagement can also make or break a district leader search. To learn more about hiring a district leader, School Board Partners devotes one of its 10 webinars to the topic, usually in the form of a panel discussion with alumni fellows from different school districts who have recently finished a search to share their learnings. “It’s a really hard role to hire for, and the talent pool is not that big,” said Freeman. “We do hear a lot, especially from community [members], that they would prefer homegrown talent,” but boards often conduct national searches in hopes of attracting the best talent.

Chicago’s board is launching a national search, led by the Alma Advisory Group, a Chicago-based firm. “I want us to get going on the community engagement aspect. What do communities want from their next CEO?” said Carlos Rivas. He has appreciated the fellowship’s opportunity to talk  with board members across the country who have recently held searches. He, like his colleague Che “Rhymefest” Smith, also strongly favors ensuring Chicago’s next school leader is a superintendent, which would require a change in state law. Rivas thinks it’s likely the board will have to appoint an interim superintendent after Pedro Martinez’s June departure and wants to make sure that decision is fully in the board’s hands. 

“I am definitely not interested in a process where the mayor is appointing someone,” Rivas said. “It’s the job of the board to appoint an interim and then to appoint the next superintendent.

Back in the fall, there was a great deal of speculation that Cristina Pacione-Zayas, currently Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff, would be his choice to lead CPS. Although Pacione-Zayas has advanced degrees in educational policy, deep policy experience in early childhood education, and ground-level experience managing school climate at Clemente High School through the Culture of Calm program, she does not hold a superintendent’s license.

Rivas and other observers not on the board have expressed interest in the possibility of hiring someone with CPS experience who is now leading another school system. One example of such a person is LaTanya McDade, who served as chief education officer under CEO Janice Jackson and is now the superintendent of Prince William County, Virginia’s schools. Notably, as of July 1, 2024, McDade’s salary was $387,994.46, higher than CEO Pedro Martinez’s current pay of $360,706. [Note: she was the first person who came to my mind, which means absolutely nothing as to whether she would be a candidate in the search. She's just an example.]

Board Rule readers, if you have questions about the search, tips on who is in the running, or thoughts on who should be in the running, please email them to me at my spiffy new Board Rule email: maureen.boardrule@gmail.com.

Upcoming: Yesterday, Crain's reported that Bridget Early, Chicago's deputy mayor for labor relations, will leave City Hall effective March 15. Early's behind-the-scenes efforts last fall to pressure the mayor's handpicked board to remove CEO Pedro Martinez came to light in December. In February, the Chicago Tribune reported that Early had sent a presentation to "top education officials" outlining scenarios for the school board to take on the controversial $175 million pension payment. In an interview with Crain's Chicago Business, Early described the CPS contract with the Chicago Teachers Union as "nearing its conclusion."

Tomorrow and Friday from 10:30-12:30, the Chicago Board of Education will hold public hearings on the mid-year budget amendment. Speaker slots are full, but there are plenty of observer seats left for anyone wanting to watch in person. The livestream will also be available.

Next week, Board Rule will publish on Wednesday, ahead of the budget vote, run a special edition on Friday, March 21 to debrief the vote, and then take a week off for spring break.