Johnson’s new CPS board meets for the first time

Three weeks after the entire Chicago Board of Education resigned, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new board will meet for the first time this Thursday and will include a seventh member whose appointment has not yet been announced.

School board meetings were postponed for a week as the mayor’s new representatives went through an onboarding process. But the public will get its first real look at the people tasked with following the mayor’s orders on some key issues — at least for the next two months.

The board is now scheduled to hold its monthly Agenda Review Committee meeting on Thursday, where its members and the public will get a first look at the district’s proposals, followed by its first full board meeting on Nov. 1.

Rafael Yáñez is the newly appointed board member. He is a Chicago Police Department hate crimes and civil rights investigator who previously ran for City Council in the 15th District and described himself as a “progressive voice” in that heated race against incumbent Ald. Ray Lopez. Yáñez was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union and allied unions and groups.

The Rev. Mitchell Johnson, one of six candidates Johnson introduced at a news conference earlier this month, is expected to be named president of the Board of Education. And Mary Gardner, another of those appointees, will become vice president.

The other new board members are Olga Bautista, Michilla Blaise, Debby Pope and Frank Thomas.

It’s unclear how many of those seven will remain on the board in January, when the new 21-member, part-appointed, part-elect school board takes its seat. Voters will elect 10 members on Election Day, Nov. 5, and the mayor will appoint 10 more, as well as the board president, shortly thereafter. By law, elected and appointed members must live on different sides of their district.

The chief executive can live anywhere in the city, so Mitchell Johnson, who is not related to the mayor, could remain in office if he and the mayor agree.

For now, the new board will likely be asked to do what the old board didn’t: strike a deal with the Chicago Teachers Union, fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and find a solution to the school system’s budget deficit , be it a short-term loan proposed by the mayor or something else.