Six of Seven Charter Renewals Postponed to June 10

Ironically, their charter renewal happened by accident. After a long night of debate and parliamentary maneuvering, Board Member Karen Zaccor led the charge to postpone the charter renewal votes until June 10. Zaccor and other CTU-aligned board members said they wanted time to receive more information from Chicago Public Schools staff on the mechanics of a recently proposed mid-cycle evaluation process to become part of renewing charters.

Both Board President Sean Harden and Superintendent/CEO Macquline King, who usually don't speak during board debates, stepped in to ask the board to proceed with the renewal votes as scheduled while asking questions about the mid-cycle evaluation proposal. But their pleas went unheeded. Six of the seven charter renewals were postponed by votes of 11-8.

Due to confusion about which motion was being put to a vote, the 11-person majority unintentionally voted to pass a 4-year renewal for the University of Chicago Charter school, as proposed by CPS leadership. The vote occurred at 6:41:04 of the meeting, which you can view here.

It was not until after closed session ended, at 7:38:18, that board secretary Susan Narrajos informed board members that a review of the video showed there had been no intervening motion to postpone the vote on the University of Chicago Charter School's renewal. Narrajos herself had misspoken, leading board members to believe they were voting to postpone the renewal when in fact they were voting on the renewal itself. Nonetheless, the vote to approve the renewal was upheld