Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is one of two finalists to become Chicago Public Schools’ next CEO, WBEZ Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.
The Chicago district has not publicly identified its two finalists, but the news organizations reported that Marrero and Meisha Ross Porter, who led New York City’s public schools in 2021, will interview with the school board next week, citing two sources with knowledge of the search process.
Neither Marrero nor DPS explicitly denied that he was a finalist for the Chicago job, despite repeated questions from The Denver Post.
“While I have great respect for Chicago Public Schools and appreciate the professional recognition implied by recent speculation about my potential candidacy for superintendent, I want to be clear that my dedication remains firmly with Denver Public Schools, where I am proud to continue serving as superintendent,” Marrero said in a statement released Friday evening.
Bill Good, a spokesman for DPS, said the superintendent “has no plans to leave the district. Currently, he is attending the Global Cities Symposium representing DPS, in Asia, and will be extending his trip for a brief, but well-deserved, vacation prior to returning to Denver.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and members of a community panel are interviewing the two finalists on Monday, the Chicago news organizations reported. The Chicago Board of Education will also hold a special session Thursday to decide who they want to hire before voting on a contract in December, they reported.
Chicago Public Schools representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
The DPS Board of Education hired Marrero in 2021 to replace Susana Cordova as the leader of Colorado’s largest K-12 district. Cordova, now the state’s education commissioner, resigned from DPS after two contentious years at the helm.
Marrero’s contract with DPS runs through 2028. The school board extended the contract earlier this year and made it harder to fire the superintendent by requiring a supermajority — at least five votes — to fire Marrero without cause.
The move, board members said at the time, was an effort to maintain consistent leadership for DPS at a time when K-12 education is facing funding threats from the Trump administration.
As superintendent, Marrero has taken on the administration by suing to prevent federal immigration raids in schools and has defied the U.S. Education Department’s order to convert gender-neutral bathrooms into restrooms for girls.
But now, DPS could be facing a change in leadership at both the superintendent level and with new school board members who were voted in Tuesday.
“I was always concerned about new school board members coming in at a moment when we are under assault by the Trump administration,” said board member Scott Esserman, who this week lost his bid to switch seats on the board. “…There are going to be some problems with the new board trying to hire somebody new and who they are going to attract and who is interested.”
Marrero is Afro-Latino and bilingual, which DPS school board members have touted as a positive for the district.
But a group of Latino leaders expressed concern when Marrero was hired, including whether he understood western Chicano culture — and, ever since, some community members have never accepted the superintendent, Esserman said.
“I don’t blame him,” he said “The fact that he has done outstanding nationally reorganized work in Denver and yet has received nothing but critique and attack.”
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