Covering Chicago Public Schools is not for the weak

It had been a long week in a chaotic year on the education beat.

Chicago Public Schools officials had released a new five-year strategic plan. And the Board of Education had voted to approve it. Sarah Karp, my WBEZ colleague covering education, and I had produced two in-depth stories on that plan that week.

By that Friday in mid-September, I was ready to relax and enjoy an afternoon at Wrigley Field with my brother. But my colleagues and I got a call that morning: A source said Mayor Brandon Johnson had met with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez earlier in the week and told the schools chief he wanted him out.

So, Sarah, Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman and I spent the next several hours working sources to confirm the news while writing a story, publishing it and continuing to update. My call log says I made and received 40 work-related phone calls that day.

And yes, for most of this time, I was sitting in Wrigley Field, trying to listen to calls through crowd noise and writing on my phone. That wasn’t the most fun Cubs game my brother has attended — despite the win.

But that’s how it's been covering the saga of the mayor’s office and CPS leadership — ever since we broke the news in August that Johnson’s administration was laying the groundwork to oust Martinez. We got the call for that tip at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday when I was at my pool league. I immediately stepped out to talk to Sarah (luckily I wasn’t playing a match at the time). She was getting ice cream with her two nieces, who overheard our call. The girls' parents are Brandon and Jenn — the same names as the mayor and his deputy mayor for education at the time — and they worried their parents were firing someone named Pedro Martinez.

We reported the news the next day.

It's been one twist after another for CPS. In the weeks after we reported on Johnson's meeting with Martinez, we saw the entire school board resign, a new board appointed, the new board president step down, Chicago’s historic first-ever school board elections and much more.

And I have to admit: For weeks, we had thought there was little chance the mayor would try to fire Martinez this year. Even though Johnson’s close allies at the Chicago Teachers Union were increasing their public pressure and rhetoric against Martinez, we thought they’d try to settle their contract before making a move. After all, Martinez could be the union’s public foil in negotiations — much as mayors Lori Lightfoot and Rahm Emanuel were before him. Johnson, who used to work for the CTU, surely wouldn’t play that role.

I have way less time on the education beat than Sarah or former Sun-Times education reporter Lauren FitzPatrick, who’s now one of our watchdog reporters. But I have been around for several years at this point, through a CTU strike, tense pandemic reopening negotiations and other crises.

CPS hasn’t seen this type of leadership struggle before. The entire school board resigning and a protracted battle to oust the CEO is unprecedented.

But it’s also important to stay grounded. These developments are at the highest levels of the school system, not in neighborhoods or classrooms. So is this the craziest or most chaotic time at CPS?

The CTU and mayor argue the historic closing of 50 schools was more impactful and harmful, and that certainly has merit.

Teachers’ strikes, when it feels like the whole city shuts down and every single public school student and parent is affected, are also up there.

No matter the level of chaos, leadership instability, especially when it plays out publicly and in messy fashion, isn’t good for the system.

Nonetheless, as always, we’ll be here to document it and put it in context for you.