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A Cook dinner County Circuit Courtroom decide dominated Tuesday that the Chicago Board of Training could not block colleges chief Pedro Martinez from doing his job and will not attend lecturers contract negotiations with out his approval.
Decide Joel Chupack granted Martinez’s request for a short lived restraining order in a Christmas Eve ruling from the bench, marking one other dramatic flip within the energy battle between the CEO and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked board members.
The board fired Martinez with out trigger on Friday, which means he’ll keep on the job for an additional six months and acquire greater than $130,000 in severance pay. As a part of that vote, the board mentioned it will modify Martinez’s powers with out specifying how.
However on Tuesday, the decide dominated that the Board of Training members are barred from “obstructing” Martinez’s “efficiency of his job duties.” In addition they can not attend the district’s high-stakes contract negotiations with the Chicago Academics Union — as three did on Monday — with out first getting permission from Martinez, the ruling mentioned.
Board members additionally can not try and handle any of Martinez’s staffers, the ruling mentioned.
One other court docket date has been set for Jan. 9.
“Pedro Martinez remains to be the CEO, and there’s no query about that,” mentioned Invoice Quinlan, Martinez’s legal professional. “They don’t have the correct to limit his duties and restrict his statutory obligations.”
Jeremy Glenn, an out of doors legal professional representing the Chicago Board of Training, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday’s ruling.
Not less than three college board members took the bizarre step of attending contract negotiations Monday with out an invite from the CEO or the mayor. Martinez’s lawyer responded with a letter demanding board members stop and desist from attending, describing it as “illegal interference” with Martinez’s authority.
After Tuesday’s ruling, Martinez instructed reporters that the present board — picked by a mayor who’s an in depth ally of the lecturers union — may “pressure a contract down our throats,” and that CPS’s negotiating workforce thought of resigning en masse when board members confirmed as much as Monday’s negotiations and tried to intervene, Fox 32 reported. For his half, board President Sean Harden mentioned he and others attended merely to assist CPS’s workforce.
Throughout a press convention Tuesday afternoon, Chicago Academics Union President Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged that nobody however Martinez is in cost — and that he needs to be able to take the blame if the current progress stalls in contract negotiations.
“Folks get to say that this contract is being bargained with the Chicago Academics Union and Pedro Martinez, so we stay up for lastly seeing him on Thursday,” Davis Gates mentioned.
Martinez has not attended negotiations. Sometimes, college district CEOs and superintendents go away contracting negotiations for district bargaining workforce members with uncommon exceptions, equivalent to when a deal is sort of at hand.
Reema Amin is a reporter overlaying Chicago Public Faculties. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
