On Thursday, February 27, Lucy Salgado, mom of two students at Rufino Tamayo Acero School, a charter elementary school in Gage Park, knelt before the Chicago Board of Education and asked them not to close her children’s school. “I am begging you, hear me! . . . Don’t take their education away,” she told the board.
Salgado was speaking off the cuff at the meeting. Over the last few months she’s had a lot of practice speaking to the board. Since October, when the Acero Schools network announced it would close seven of its schools this spring, she and other parents have been speaking at board meetings, urging Chicago Public Schools to keep the schools open and hold Acero Schools accountable for how it uses its funds.
In December, the six-member interim Board of Education voted unanimously to pay to keep Acero’s seven charter school campuses open through the 2025-26 school year. Beyond 2025-26, their resolution called for Chicago Public Schools to permanently operate five campuses and transition them into district-operated schools: Sandra Cisneros, Bartolomé de la Casas, Carlos Fuentes, Rufino Tamayo, and Esmeralda Santiago.
But after CPS and Acero leaders began negotiating the transfer, school district officials and board members tussled over how to adjust their commitment to the charter schools based on finances. CPS officials warned that keeping all seven campuses open could put the district on the wrong side of a state law that limits how much money school districts can give charter schools.
In Thursday’s meeting, the board reaffirmed their commitment to bring the five charter campuses into the district. They voted down language that would have reduced their commitment to four campuses and would have created more wiggle room to make further changes depending on finances. But they will not try to stop Acero from closing its Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Octavio Paz campuses at the end of the current school year.
“No es justo [It’s not fair],” said Maricela Lopez, grandmother of a Paz student. “Todo los niños merecen sus escuelas. [All children deserve their schools.]”
The struggle raised many thorny issues the board will likely face again, from asserting its authority in the face of district officials accustomed to managing a compliant board, to balancing the harms to children from closing schools with the financial and legal risks of operating underenrolled buildings in poor condition. Thursday’s decision didn’t end the struggle for Acero families, either. This week, families at Paz and Cruz will learn more from CPS about their options for next year. Even the families at schools CPS has promised to absorb are being encouraged to transfer to other Acero schools, parents said.
Board debates money, autonomy and promises
Although Acero says it must close the campuses for financial reasons, a balance sheet provided to bondholders shows the charter network held $47.6 million in cash and investments as of the end of December. The charter network does face long-term financial challenges. Like schools across the city, Acero schools are experiencing declining enrollment; fewer students means less money. At the same time, personnel costs are increasing, both because Acero has raises built into its teacher contract and because it’s hiring more teachers to serve students who need special or bilingual education.
The proposed closures appear to be Acero’s attempt to reduce future building repair bills. The campuses Acero wants to close are former Catholic school buildings leased from the Archdiocese of Chicago, with looming deferred maintenance costs. For example, Cisneros, the school CPS officials wanted to pull off the list of schools to take over, is staring down two 80-year-old boilers that could quit at any minute. The boilers ate up a great deal of airtime during Thursday’s board meeting.
Because Acero is a charter network, CPS cannot demand Acero keep any of its schools open or force it to spend money on building repairs. “We have no leverage,” Alfonso Carmona, the CPS chief portfolio officer responsible for charter schools, told board members last Thursday.
Parents are furious with Acero. They view the operator as sitting on cash while demanding debt-ridden CPS take on financial risks. “Why are they not spending the supposed reserve money they have on the schools?” asked Melina Pereyra, a former Acero parent whose family lives near Cisneros. “Now you want CPS to take over and fix your mess. For all the parents that doesn’t make sense.”
While a minority of board members shared school district leaders’ concerns about finances and the potential to run afoul of state law, the majority sent a clear message: we made a promise and we’re sticking to it. On Wednesday night, five board members attended a candlelight vigil at Tamayo to show support for the students and their families.
During Thursday’s meeting, board member Michilla Blaise (who attended the vigil) noted, “There is so much talent and brilliance on this board that we can really think through what has been happening in CPS for years and make things different. The Acero situation, we don’t need to rethink that. We did this already in December. . . . I know it’s hard for the staff, but again, let’s be revolutionary.” Blaise was appointed to the school board in October and reappointed in December to serve until January 2027, when a fully-elected board will take office.
Board member Debby Pope, a recently retired CPS teacher and staffer who led the successful effort to ensure the final resolution reflected the board’s December commitment to keep five campuses open, said, “We’ve been talking about financial risk. We’ve been talking about liability risk. What we haven’t been talking about is the risk to the children of the Acero schools.” Notably, three board members—Angel Gutierrez, Carlos Rivas, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith—ultimately supported the final resolution after voting against the language that restored the board’s December 20 promise to keep five Acero schools open.
What’s next for Acero families
Chicago Public Schools and Acero are continuing to negotiate the terms of an agreement in which CPS will cover any operating deficits Acero might incur next year, and then absorb the five campuses in July 2026. According to a recent message from Acero to families, on March 12 and 13, CPS and Acero will lay out school options for Paz and Cruz families.
Many observers are worried that Acero families will decide to pull their students from all seven campuses, not just the two now marked for closure in June. “Look, we lost a lot of parents because they don’t trust Acero anymore,” said Pereyra. “I’m one of those parents. You get tired, you know?” But she has also heard that parents who have already left are considering returning.
The parent leaders behind the fight to keep Acero schools open are in the process of launching a nonprofit, Parents for Education. “We’re going to start educating our people,” said Salgado. “We will fight for our children’s futures.”
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