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After emotional pleas from the community, the Chicago Board of Education moved Thursday to keep five of seven Acero charter schools open — overriding the independent operator’s plans to shutter half the schools in its network.
The decision means two charter schools — Paz and Cruz — would still close in June. Paz is an elementary school, and Cruz is a K-12 school. CPS, which will cover the costs of the five campuses, must still hash out a formal agreement with Acero, which officials said they will move to do immediately.
The school board’s 16-3 decision — its first major one since becoming a hybrid elected board — caps an intense months-long back-and-forth between the charter operator, school district officials, the teachers union, and the school board, which changed more than once since news of the planned charter closures first emerged.
“It feels devastating for the Paz and Cruz families,” said Caroline Rutherford, the CTU’s charter division vice chair and an Acero teacher. “There is room at Casas, which is not far from Paz, to move the entirety of Paz into Casas if that’s an option for us. Cruz — there are not Acero schools that are close by, but we do want to create a transition plan to keep those school communities whole.”
The change came after district officials warned that helping Acero keep all seven campuses could violate state law and be financially risky for CPS at a time when the district has at least a half-billion-dollar deficit next fiscal year.
Families and teachers, who have blasted Acero for moving to close the schools in the first place, celebrated the board’s decision and loudly cheered after their vote. District leaders said risks still exist with keeping even five schools open.
Board member Che Smith said the board had to make a decision that was financially responsible. At the same time, he said the board “must be vigilant against the bad actors and as you can see, you have much support from members on this board.”
The board’s decision moves away from a December plan that called for covering the costs of running all seven campuses for next school year. It does stick with a plan to make five of the campuses district schools by the 2026-27 school year. CPS had presented an amended resolution to the board Thursday, which would have saved just four of those schools for next year, but board members moved to change that language in order to save five.
“My name is not going to be connected with some garbage; it’s not,” board member Jitu Brown said. “We made a promise to these communities.”
A handful of board members opposed committing to turning five schools into district-run campuses by the fall of 2026, arguing that the district may not have the resources to keep those campuses afloat. Those members instead supported exploring the option.
“We have to be able to ask ourselves, ‘Is it functioning, is it effective, is it financially sustainable, what is the strain on the district office?’” said board member Ellen Rosenfeld. “We must stay within state law at all times.”
The decision came four months after Acero announced that it would close seven schools due to a $40 million deficit, impacting about 1,800 students and 200 staff members. The Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ reported in November that the network still had tens of millions of dollars in cash available.
However, it leaves open the question of where students at Paz and Cruz will go and how the district will absorb the five schools in the future.
Parents and staff speak out against closures
In sometimes tearful testimony, more than a dozen parents, staff and union leaders asked the board to keep the schools open, with several saying they felt their trust was broken. Parent Lucy Salgado, described the combined pain of school closures and immigration concerns, citing a Wednesday incident in which federal immigration agents detained a father who was dropping off his children at an Acero school in Gage Park.
“I beg you: Don’t do this,” Salgado said through tears. “Help these children out.”
Luis Delgado, a sophomore at Northside College Prep who attended the Santiago campus, praised the Acero school for making him less shy and getting him involved in sports and student government.
“I urge all of you to uphold the resolution not because it interests yourself, but because it interests the constituents who elected you to this position,” Delgado said, who added that if the board approves closures, “in the next election, you will have consequences.”
In a presentation to the board, Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona and Chief Budget Officer Mike Sitkowski said that state law prevents school districts from spending more than 103% of what it spends per student at district-run schools on charter schools. A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education did not immediately outline the consequences for violating that law.
And after an analysis of Acero’s campuses, officials calculated that it would cost about $4 million to replace two 80-year-old Cisneros campus boilers, which officials said are 40 years past their life expectancy, and would push the district past the limit of what it’s legally allowed to spend on the Acero network. Saving just four schools and excluding Cisneros would eliminate the legal issue, Carmona said. Saving five would mean the district could spend up to $200,000, which would exceed the legal limit and doesn’t account for other costs that could come up, Carmona said.
“When we go into these negotiations, I could not agree more with some of the students — we shouldn’t be talking about finances, we should be talking about the kids,” Carmona told the board. “Every single one of those schools are commendable … why the presentation is about finances is because of the constraints of the law.”
Several board members asked if the boiler problem could be pushed off another year, with board member Anusha Thotakura noting that CPS has more than $3 billion in critical repairs throughout the system. CPS officials said the board could choose to wait to replace the boilers, but that would open the district to risks, such as losing heat because of broken boilers.
CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said CPS doesn’t “have a choice but to address” the issues because they involve “the safety of the children…that is the highest risk of all.”
Board member Jenni Custer asked what would happen if the boilers broke and the district was restricted on how much it could spend to fix them due to legal issues; Chief Operating Officer Charles Mayfield said the district would have to move students and staff to another location.
CPS directed to convert schools into district-run programs
Ultimately, the board voted to keep five, assuming the potential risk of covering expenses — including accounting for possible enrollment loss and other expenses — at those campuses.
Thursday’s meeting capped off a confusing week for families and staff, who learned two days ago that the original plan from December could change. Parents received an email Tuesday morning from Carmona, who said the board would vote on a plan to save just four of the Acero schools — not all of them — for next year, and allow another three to close.
On Wednesday, dozens of staffers and parents attended an evening vigil alongside the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents Acero teachers, to call for board members to vote against the proposed changes to the plan. Board members Anusha Thotakura, Norma Rios Sierra, Yesenia Lopez, Ed Bannon, and Michilia Blaise attended the vigil and committed to voting against the amended resolution.
Since Acero announced the closures in October, families and the union have held rallies and attended multiple board meetings to push CPS to save the schools. Charters are privately run, public funded schools that are allowed to operate under a contract with CPS. Parents and staff have said they’ve felt ignored by Acero leadership.
Parents and the union celebrated the December decision from the previous board, made up of seven people appointed by the mayor, but weeks later pressed CPS and Acero for more updates about how it would keep the campuses open or a formal agreement to do so.
