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The Board of Education voted Monday to name Macquline King as Chicago Public Schools CEO, ending a rocky yearlong search for the district’s permanent leader.
The board voted 18-1 to hire King, who has been the district’s interim leader since last June, when former CEO Pedro Martinez left after being fired without cause. Elected board member Jennifer Custer voted no but did not share a reason.
Under her three-year contract, she will earn $380,000 a year, about $20,000 more than Martinez was earning before he left the district and about $40,000 more than what he was offered in 2021.
The board officially picked King last week over Sito Narcisse, the former superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools in Louisiana who was named another finalist earlier this month.
King is poised to face big challenges going forward, including a $520 million projected budget deficit. She’ll also be in place through school board elections this year and when a new, fully elected board is seated.
As interim chief, King has been forced to navigate some major issues during her nine months on the job, including closing a $734 million budget deficit that sparked a fight with the mayor’s office, the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, and upheaval in the district’s charter sector.
King hasn’t rolled out major policy changes in her time so far, though last fall she was interested in reorganizing the district’s network offices, which help manage principals.
Norma Rios-Sierra, an appointed board member who sat on the board’s CEO search committee, said she’s glad to have stability in the district.
“The thought of taking her out of that role and putting someone else into that role and having them relearn all of that is a little bit scary,” Rios-Sierra said in an interview last week. “And knowing she’s willing to take that on and work with us is a sigh of relief.”
King started in CPS as a teacher in 1994, ultimately becoming a principal in 2007 until 2022. During that time, her work was both highlighted in the news and scrutinized by district officials in two incidents, once for failing to immediately report allegations of abuse and another time for failing to do a background check for a volunteer. She has said those critiques, which did not result in formal discipline, are the result of her not having enough staffing and support at the time.
She began working for Mayor Lori Lightfoot as an education policy advisor in 2022 and stayed in that role under Mayor Brandon Johnson until taking the job as interim schools chief last summer.
Union leaders, education groups share support for King
Unions, community organizations and elected officials welcomed King to the permanent CEO role as someone who navigated major challenges in the past year, has been willing to engage with them and, unlike other previous CEOs, rose up through the district’s ranks.
During public comment ahead of the board’s vote, Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, lauded King for overseeing the unprecedented, midyear transfer of students out of two shuttering ASPIRA charter network high schools. He noted other challenges ahead of CPS, including the projected budget deficit and a federal government that has pulled funding from the district.
“We can’t stave off the harm that is on the horizon without being in lockstep in our advocacy and vision,” Potter said. “I look forward to doing more of that transformation together in a moment that requires all of us to do more.”
The city’s principals union has previously shown public support for King. That union’s president, Kia Banks, said Monday that she knows King and the union will not always agree, but that King has so far “demonstrated a willingness to engage directly with school leaders,” creating a solid foundation for their relationship going forward.
In an interview last week, Dian Palmer, president of SEIU 73, the union that represents thousands of school support staff workers, said she’s most excited about stability for the district with a leader who worked her way up through the system and understands Chicago’s complexities. Palmer said King has been “patient and kind” about her union’s concerns, even when they didn’t agree.
For example, last summer the district’s budget cuts included laying off hundreds of unionized custodians. At the same time, the union supported King’s plans not to include a short-term loan in the budget in fear that future high-interest repayments would result in staff layoffs.
“I am really looking forward to her working with the union — at least that’s what she says,” Palmer said. “She wants to work with us and really have a positive atmosphere for education, for the students, not just the service workers, who we represent, the custodians, the [special education classroom assistants], but also for the teachers.”
Daniel Anello, CEO of education advocacy group Kids First Chicago, welcomed King’s appointment, noting in a statement that she “has already navigated a number of complex challenges related to the district’s finances, attendance, and more” and has shown “a clear commitment to putting students’ interests first, without yielding to political pressure.”
Anello also supported a three-year contract, which he said will mean stability for CPS as the board transitions to a fully elected body next year.
The national search process started last year with community meetings and a detailed wish list for what the board would look for in a candidate, including “significant” experience in public education that involves working with students, a record of focusing on equity and improving student outcomes, experience working with labor unions, and financial management experience — an area King doesn’t have formal training in.
But after finalist names leaked and one of the candidates dropped out in the fall, the board decided to conduct more interviews. By February, as the board narrowed down candidates, the board’s search firm, Alma Advisory Group, departed and six elected board members said they’d lost confidence in the search, accusing the mayor of meddling, which he’s denied. Those board members called for retaining King as the interim chief until the new board is seated.
King had applied for the job of CEO in 2021, but the board at the time, appointed by Lightfoot, picked Martinez. Then several months into her time as the interim chief, she again applied last fall for the permanent job amid the board’s search to replace Martinez but was not advanced as a finalist.
By then, at least seven board members who are also mayoral allies disagreed with her budget proposal that was ultimately approved. And separately, other board members appeared caught off guard after she pitched a plan to reorganize network offices.
In recent months, some organizations called on the board to keep King in place until at least a new elected board is seated in January. King was then added back into the mix in recent weeks.
Remel Terry, president of the West Side branch of the NAACP, said her organization is “excited” that King will stay. The organization has felt left in the dark about the search process, Terry said, and asked the board twice to pause the search and retain King permanently through next school year. It was disappointing that King was taken out of consideration in the fall even though “she has already demonstrated her ability to lead this district under pressure,” Terry said.
The group will keep a close watch on how the district’s Black Student Success Plan — which has been under federal scrutiny — will be implemented, Terry said. She also expects King to stay as communicative as she has been with organizations like hers, as well as parents, as she takes on the permanent role.
“Having access and being able to speak directly to concerns and issues is a very important piece,” Terry said.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
