Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez is currently facing a legal battle as his attorneys are in court to contest his recent termination by the CPS School Board. This hearing is taking place on Tuesday morning.
A judge hearing the lawsuit at the Daley Center granted a temporary restraining order Martinez’s lawyers requested.
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Chicago Public Schools Board members will not be allowed to participate in negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union unless the CEO says they can.
The restraining order will remain in effect until the next court date, Jan. 9.
Furthermore, it has been brought to light that shortly after assuming his position, the chief talent officer at CPS raised concerns about potential ethics issues regarding Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is currently on leave from his CPS job to work with the Chicago Teachers Union.
In a separate development on Monday, Martinez’s legal team took action by filing a cease-and-desist order against the CPS School Board. They argue that the board is unlawfully interfering by engaging in negotiations for a new contract with the teachers’ union.
A spokesperson for the CTU told ABC7 that for the first time this cycle, CPS board members were at contract negotiations after those same board members voted unanimously to fire Martinez without cause on Friday night.
It comes after Martinez’s attorneys filed a temporary restraining order in response to his firing last week. He will remain on the job through the school year.
“One argument he did make in the papers he’s already filed is that the board was not properly constituted. These members didn’t receive, he says, the proper training. They weren’t vetted properly, is what he alleged,” ABC7 Chief Legal Analyst Gil Soffer said.
In a cease-and-desist letter sent to the school board, Martinez’s lawyers called for the board members’ actions at the bargaining table to stop, saying their attempts, in part, “unlawfully infringe on and interfere with Mr. Martinez’s authority, as CEO, to act as the sole representative of the Board in these negotiations.”
Soffer weighed in.
“He may certainly raise this point – the subject of the cease and desist as evidence of the backdrop of what’s been happening to him,” Soffer said. “The only question, tomorrow, really for the judge to consider… it’s whether he is entitled to a temporary restraining order to undue the dismissal.”
This legal battle is coming to a head after Martinez refused to take out a loan, at the behest of Johnson, to pay for a Chicago Teachers Union contract.
The teachers union criticized Martinez for his legal action, calling it a “dangerous new precedent” and saying that he “fails to understand what his job is and who he works for.”
ABC7 reached out to the school board and Johnson’s office for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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