Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago Board of Education voted Friday to fire Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez, clearing the way for the mayor to install a new leader for the nation’s fourth-largest school district after a monthslong power struggle. After a closed session, the school board voted 6-0 to terminate Martinez’s contract and provide him 20 weeks of severance pay. His duties and responsibilities will be modified, according to the resolution — a prospect Martinez challenged after the vote. Since the board removed Martinez without cause, he will be allowed to stay on for six more months — in what is sure to be a tense environment, given the hybrid school board will still be majority-Johnson allies and there is still much uncertainty. That leaves in question the next phase of Johnson’s education agenda, under fire from critics and allies alike due to his controversial push to take out a high-interest loan. Martinez, visibly angry, alternating between speaking in English and Spanish, gathered with members of his cabinet after the vote. “I never question any board who wants their own leader. …because it’s not about me. It’s important we have a smooth transition to a new CEO instead of throwing everything into chaos in the middle of the school year,” he said, vowing to remain involved in bargaining the Chicago Teachers Union contract and guiding the transition to come. “Allow my team to be the wonderful company leaders that they are. Let’s stop playing games,” he said. Martinez said he respected the decision, but as a CPS graduate, denounced the criticism heaped upon him in recent months. “Who are they really talking to,” he said. “This is a CPS kid, graduated from 1987 in Pilsen – not going to one of our selective enrollment schools (but) a neighborhood school, in an underfunded school, in an underfunded community,” Martinez said. The firing of Martinez Friday occurred just hours after the CEO’s attorney William Quinlan of the Quinlan Law Firm LLC filed an injunction against the board for acting outside of its fiduciary duties. Quinlan sent a letter to the board earlier in the day warning them about the potential legal action. He included a host of concerns, including whether the new board members had the authority to fire Martinez or appoint a co-CEO to work alongside him. Martinez has fought very hard to keep his job. Financial analysts say the struggle to stay in his role demonstrates the financial stakes of Friday’s late vote. “(Firing Martinez is) district suicide,” said School finance expert Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. “If there was one city that this man was particularly committed to, it’s this one.” Martinez, a Chicago native, is a holdover from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration. He has led the school district since 2021, when he tusseled with the Chicago Teachers Union over returning to classrooms throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. His tenure has been marked with gains in student achievement. Johnson, a former CTU organizer, opted to keep Martinez on when assuming office last year as the district pivoted to a five-year plan to prioritize neighborhood schools over selective enrollment and magnet schools. But that alliance fractured this summer when Martinez and Johnson’s first iteration of the school board declined to take up a $175 million pension obligation for non-teaching CPS staff, as well as a $300 million loan that would cover that payment plus the beginning raises in CTU’s upcoming contract. Martinez in September said Johnson asked him to step down, but he refused. All seven board members then resigned and were replaced by a second batch of Johnson appointees. Those new members — sans Johnson’s handpicked board president who resigned amid controversy and with the addition of recently nominated member Sean Harden — fired Martinez Friday. The meeting where Martinez was fired was called at the last minute earlier in the week, and the agenda was amended to include two options to oust the CEO: termination or settlement. Before closed session, elected officials, parents and advocates spoke both for and against Martinez. “Pedro Martinez was entrusted with a leadership of CPS and a stability to our schools, and yet schools on the West side — where I live — remain in constant state crisis,” said Tara Stamps, commissioner of Cook County’s 1st District. Ald. Silvana Tabares, 23rd, called the mayor a “walking conflict of interest when it comes to CPS and CTU.” She told they board they would be “abdicating (their) autonomy and self-respect by carrying out this plan.” A larger than usual crowd waited in the auditorium at CPS’ administrative building on the South Side Friday during the board’s closed session for the seven-member body to emerge and take a vote. At 9:00 p.m., the board announced their much-anticipated move to remove the CEO. They rejoined several minutes later for a re-vote because they didn’t lay out the terms of his firing. It is unclear if Martinez knew what would happen before they took a vote. Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin contributed.