Principals Question CTU Contract at Board Meeting
Believe me you, public meetings are so interesting, and so dang important!
Each month I report on the Chicago Board of Education and Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund meetings. And the mainstream media, of course, completely ignores what is discussed.
At the March 20, 2025 Chicago Board of Ed meeting, the beginning of public participation started with union officials (this was not the case during the reign of corporate Mayors Richard Daley and Rahm Emanuel who mandated union officials had to sign up to speak).
The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association (CPAA) Chief of Staff Kia Banks, with President Troy LaRaviere standing next to her, complained about the ‘transformative contract’ the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools just agreed to. The four year teachers contract includes extra preparatory time for teachers.
“With the extra prep time, who will supervise the children?” Banks asked the Board Trustees. “We’re already struggling with the limited resources we have.”
She next ripped into the evaluation agreement in which teachers rated excellent and some proficient based on their rating score will have a three year period between ratings. But the principals complained that three years to determine educator effectiveness is too long.
“Principals are evaluated every year and we’re held accountable,” Banks said. “We need a mechanism to know how those teachers are performing if principals are to be held accountable. We need to hold our teachers accountable for their teaching. Aug 18 is the first day of school. I’m asking you today, what is your plan?”
The classic battle between the boss and the worker. Should the principals have more power to fire teachers or teachers have more protection against unfair ratings?
The next speaker took aim at the networks, another growing concern for people working in the schools. Bureaucracy has been creeping upwards as more employees in the networks are conducting walkthroughs, more evaluations of the principals, the schools and the teachers. The age of surveillance is alive and well as people are watching people who are watching people. George Orwell’s 1984 is alive and well in CPS!
Dr LaTangela Ward said virtually that she is a CPS parent and product of CPS.
“Today I urge you to reconsider (the) supervision structure of public school principals by repurposing the role of network chief,” she said. “The responsibility of network chief such as professional development, CIWP plans and fostering community engagement are essential, but (it) can be handled by school-based personnel, like an internal leadership team. The $32 million spent on the network chief positions, a small fraction of this cost could be better invested in enhancing in-house teams to directly benefit students. I propose that we revert to a more foundational governance structure, empowering the Chicago Board of Ed, the CEO, LSCs, and ILT’s with holding principals accountable. I also recommend increasing the number of LSC voting members by adding two more teaching members to the team. By doing so we can ensure a richer, more diverse representation of educator’s voice in decision making. The decentralization would not only enhance accountability, but would also infuse our schools with fresh ideas and perspectives. Let’s reinvest a fraction of these funds back into the schools, not only will this save a significant amount of money but this will shift and foster a nurturing environment of our schools. I urge the Board of Ed to embrace this transformative change so we can ensure a brighter future for our students and ensure our schools are a supportive place where all our stakeholders can thrive.”
I had to quote her at length here because I completely agree and was amazed somebody would call out this absurd form of bureaucracy terrorizing teachers and schools. Today's schools exude a more cold corporate feel focused on standardized testing and data streams at the expense of the community and humanity of people.
The $32 million spent on the network chief positions, a small fraction of this cost could be better invested in enhancing in-house teams to directly benefit students.
Once again, a team of frustrated and angry parents from the Inter-American Magnet School demanded that Principal Juan Carlos Zayas be removed from the school immediately while the CPS Law Dept conducts its investigation into allegations of retaliation, abuse and harassment under his leadership. The parents and others have been attending the monthly board meetings for the past year to ask that their principal be removed. The parents who spoke said people at the school are afraid to speak up because they can face retaliation, staff morale is low and students feel unsafe.
“The Principal has shown little regard for the community,” they said. “Over 6 months we have come to this Board begging for change.”
They said the principal neglected to answer their concerns, such as communicating to the community when someone tried to enter the school, and removing parents from volunteering at the school if they voice criticism. Parents have brought up bullying, physical violence and sexual violence in the school and the Local School Council voted to conduct an investigation as well.
“The community urges this Board to remove Principal Zayas immediately before any further harm is done,” Jennifer Torres said.
The group Educators for Excellence reps spoke to the Board about the black student achievement and equity gap, and said in order to ensure black student success, they ask that the Trustees create a resolution to create a black student committee.
Apparently there is a political battle going on over who can represent black students. Educators for Excellence was a group that began during the education reform days that feigned to march for student and minority rights while getting funding from corporations and wealthy sponsors who are anti-union and anti-pension.
The Youth Connection, Perspectives, Elaine Locke, and North Lawndale College Prep Charter Schools all lined up asking to renew their charters. The IL Network of Charter Schools said it was disappointed to see the renewal vote punted to next month.
“Schools still don’t know (the) renewal term rate,” they said. “Schools should have no less than 3 years to ensure stability and stay open. There are 119 charter public schools.”
Miguel Guevarra - a Special Education teacher at Instituto Justice & Leadership Academy, an alternative charter school for students kicked out of other schools, told a story about how his peace circle avoided fighting between students. “So if you understand the roots and the causes of the problems in our city then you will understand why our school is important. You won’t find this on a renewal application. Give us five more years for our renewal, we got our contract with the CTU.” (Note: I taught with Miguel at Hammond School. He was a very dedicated teacher who coached our soccer team and ran the band club.)
Alderwoman Stephanie Coleman, 16th ward, said she represents 20 public schools and she asked that the three charter schools in her ward be renewed. “I have three vacant schools in my ward,” she said. “We need to right that wrong.” (Public officials speak at the end of the board meetings.)
Two fiery CPS critics spoke after a short absence at the board meetings. Dwayne Truss, the former Board of Ed Trustee and Westside activist, said to not balance the budget on the backs of the students by taking out “payday loans”. Dr. Angel Alvarez spoke out against the horrible finances due to “decades of mismanagement.” “In 2013 you closed 50 schools, yet now we have $1 billion in debt,” the doctor thundered. “Why every year do we keep going over budget?”
I feel like I won the lottery getting on here
A parent demanded that the Walter Payton High School Principal be removed because of unfair treatment and inadequate parental support. She said the school should have spent its discretionary funding on the students and not balloons. A parent and student at Jones College Prep High School asked to keep their popular band teacher who was being replaced because he only had a temporary position. “He has transformed this program!” (Watch School of Rock!).
CPS parent Jeremy Carlson, said Kilmer Elementary School in Rogers Park needs a playground. “I feel like I won the lottery getting on here!” he said.
Alyssa Blanchard, the case manager Hammond & Corkery, and a 25 year special education veteran, spoke about her impossible situation. “Right now I’m on a full time workload on a part-time schedule at two schools and it’s hard,” she said. “It’s really, really, really hard because we need full time case managers in these buildings. One of my schools has three cluster classrooms, and they need the most support.”
She said sometimes her principal has to facilitate her meetings when she’s not there. They have 92 kids on the caseload and 12 kids coming down the pipeline in the last 50 days of school.
“We need more help with our migrant population. We’re trying to decide if it’s language acquisition or a true learning disability. And we’re being obligated to provide instruction in Spanish and we can’t obligate the district to services that we can’t provide, but then we can’t violate their rights by not providing it. But then we still have to write the IEPs to the services to what they need and not to what we can provide. So we need you to fund special education, to fund case managers, to fund dual language programs, to fund bilingual teachers, to fund the bilingual special education teacher.”
Chicago Board of Education March Meeting - https://www.cpsboe.org/meetings/meeting-videos/4401