Two months after parents and educators celebrated a Board of Education vote that spared seven Acero charter schools from closure for a year and promised to absorb five of them in 2026, Chicago Public Schools officials are now set to backtrack from that plan.
The about-face would suddenly leave three campuses shuttered at the end of this school year and the other four — along with their families and staff — facing uncertain futures. But it’s not a done deal. Some board members are pushing to keep at least five schools open next year.
CPS officials are asking the Board of Education to vote on the new plan at its monthly meeting Thursday, citing their evaluations over the past couple months that showed saving the schools would require the district to give Acero more funding than allowed under state law.
“Where financially and legally possible, the district continues working to keep as many of the Acero campuses open as possible,” a CPS spokeswoman wrote in a statement.
In December, CPS officials presented several options to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s six-member appointed school board to address Acero’s planned closure of seven of its 15 schools. The district recommended the plan that ultimately passed in a unanimous vote: CPS would give Acero, the private charter school organization, additional money to keep all seven schools open next school year, then the district would take over the operations of five of the schools the following year.
After extensive negotiations between CPS and Acero officials, the district now says that plan isn’t possible.
CPS’ new plan would see Acero’s Cisneros and Paz elementary schools and Cruz K-12 campus close at the end of this spring. Even under the old version, Paz and Cruz would have been saved for only one year and closed after the 2025-26 school year. Cisneros, however, was one of the five campuses that CPS would have permanently taken over. Now, it would close in a few months.
Meanwhile, the Casas, Fuentes, Tamayo and Santiago campuses would be maintained for the 2025-26 school year like planned. But in another change, they wouldn’t necessarily be saved after that.
CPS is asking the school board to vote on an amended resolution that would direct the district to explore the “viability” of transitioning those four charters into district-run schools. Before, the resolution called on the district to “create a detailed plan to transition” the schools.
Two sources close to CPS and Acero’s negotiations said costly facilities upgrades were key reasons the move proved too costly.
CPS officials cited state law that requires school districts to give charter operators between 97% and 103% of the funding it gives district-run schools per student. Operational costs and building repairs would exceed that, they said.
Melina Pereyra, whose children attend Cisneros, said she and other parents feel betrayed by Acero.
Parents have attended board meetings for months trying to save their schools and were relieved at the news in December. This week, she was incredulous that, after years of not repairing buildings, Acero would now demand CPS pay for upgrades that make the plan too expensive.
“That’s unfair,” she said. “I don’t think it’s the boiler. I don’t think it is the floor. I don’t think it is the ceiling because let me tell you, all the Acero schools need fixing.”
Pereyra said parents are disappointed that the school district isn’t holding Acero accountable for mismanagement and hoarding funds. Acero’s financial documents show it has $46 million in savings and investments, according to a first-quarter statement Acero provided to bondholders.
Many of the 21 members of the partially elected school board have expressed serious concerns about the Acero closings and asked CPS to do all it can to keep them open.
Carlos Rivas Jr., 3rd District board member, said he thinks “Acero is asking for too much.” But he said he understood CPS officials’ explanation of state law and didn’t think the board should go against the district’s latest recommendation.
“We don’t have power over [Acero],” he said. “We need to make sure that moving forward we have steps in place for when something like this happens. For the families themselves, all we can do is apologize. I don’t want this to happen, but Acero has put us in a really tough spot.”
Board member Michilla Blaise of the 5th District was on the Board of Education in December and approved the first resolution. Blaise said she continues to want five of the schools to stay open.
“We need to learn how to stabilize the system so we set up our kids for success,” she said. “This volatility helps no one.”
The other 5th District board member, Jitu Brown, said he, too, was upset that school district leaders put forth this new plan.
“We are the governing body, not an advisory board,” he said. “My understanding of the will of the board is to do right by families by keeping the schools open with the hope of absorbing some of them. We need to find out what happened.”