A top Chicago Public Schools official is recommending closing only two of the seven Acero charter campuses slated to shut down then considering whether to take over the other five schools in two years, arguing that could minimize the effects on families while erasing the charter organization’s financial deficit.
That path was one of five options that CPS leaders presented to Board of Education members Thursday for how to address the proposed closings. Others included the school district taking over the operations of the publicly funded but privately managed charter schools, letting all of them close or providing more funding to keep all seven schools open for at least two more years.
Several board meetings have been packed with Acero parents, students and staff decrying the closings — which would be Chicago’s largest since 50 were shuttered in 2013 — and asking the district to intervene.
School board members have also been highly critical of Acero — to the point that the charter network threatened legal action against the board last week for “defamatory” and “reckless” comments.
The board has demanded that CPS leaders come up with alternative solutions to the cited financial troubles of the Acero charter network.
But the Acero closings have become key fodder in the ongoing strife between Mayor Brandon Johnson and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, and Johnson’s handpicked board removed a CPS presentation of various solutions from a meeting agenda last month, frustrating district officials. That presentation happened at Thursday’s meeting instead.
“What we have heard from the families is that we should not close the campuses,” senior CPS official Alfonso Carmona told the Board of Education. “So when I think about [allowing Acero to close all seven schools] — the option we have historically done in the past for charter schools — that’s an option that honestly, in my opinion, should be taken out of the equation.”
But Acero’s projected financial deficits that have been cited in the decision to close the schools do require action, Carmona said.
Absorbing the schools into CPS could cost up to $28 million, he said. Alternatively, giving Acero more cash to keep running all seven would take around $3.2 million. But that would be a temporary solution for just one year, and it would create precedent that CPS would step in to provide more funding to charter operators facing financial hardship, officials said.
So Carmona recommended allowing the closure of the Paz campus in Little Village, a 98-student elementary school, and Cruz, a K-12 school in Rogers Park with 542 children. Carmona said those two schools are chief contributors to Acero’s projected financial deficit, which he predicted might entirely disappear if they closed. Under this plan, CPS would provide Acero with little to no additional money to keep operating the other five schools for two years then consider taking them over in 2026.
It’s unclear whether Acero officials would agree to any of these plans. CPS and the school board don’t have the authority to force Acero to keep its schools open. But officials from both the district and charter operator have expressed a willingness to work together to find a solution.
The Board of Education didn’t vote on any of the five paths forward, but a few board members said they’d like to move quickly.