The leadership of Urban Prep Academies, a widely-lauded and academically successful network of all-male Chicago charter high schools serving mostly Black students, says in a new lawsuit that Chicago Public Schools is violating state law by seeking to force them out, and assume operational control of the charter schools.
On April 18, Urban Prep filed a complaint in Cook County Circuit Court, asserting Illinois state law does not allow the Chicago Board of Education to simply evict the leadership of the charter schools and then essentially make it just another CPS school.
Further, Urban Prep asserted the decision to take over the Urban Prep schools amounts to a violation of a different state law, which forbids CPS from closing schools until 2025, when an elected Chicago Board of Education can be seated.
The lawsuit came just in advance of a vote by the Illinois State Board of Education to deny Urban Prep’s appeal of the Chicago Board’s decision to not renew Urban Prep’s charter.
In deciding not to renew the charter, the Chicago Board of Education accused Urban Prep’s leadership of mismanaging the charter schools’ finances and of failing to properly respond to accusations of sexual misconduct against Urban Preps’ former CEO and founder, Timothy King.
King resigned in August 2021, after the CPS Inspector General issued a report purportedly corroborating accusations against King by a former Urban Prep student and employee.
King has also sued CPS, asserting the investigation was a sham, conducted purely to railroad him out of his position and help to facilitate a takeover at the schools. That lawsuit remains pending in Cook County court.
King founded Urban Prep in 2003, growing the network from one public charter school in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood to three campuses. The Urban Prep curriculum and programs have been nationally recognized for success in helping young males, predominantly from the Black communities on Chicago’s South Side, to succeed academically. The Urban Prep schools have consistently been recognized for sending 100% of their students to college.
As of 2022, Urban Prep had about 1,500 students. Its high schools in Englewood and Bronzeville were chartered through CPS.
However, following King’s resignation, CPS moved to strip Urban Prep’s charters. CPS has said it does not intend to close the schools, but rather to assume operational control.
According to statements and plans discussed publicly by CPS, the Chicago Board of Education would combine the Englewood and Bronzeville campuses into a single school under direct CPS control.
Urban Prep leadership told Chicago and Illinois state education board members that the decision would eviscerate a longstanding avenue to academic success for hundreds of young Black males in Chicago.
The appeals, however, have failed to persuade the education officials to allow Urban Prep to continue its programs.
Urban Prep has turned to the courts, seeking an order declaring the Chicago Board of Education is breaking the law in attempting to take over the charter schools.
The complaint asserts the law only allows CPS to either renew or not renew the schools’ charters. If charters are not renewed, the school must be closed, the complaint said.
The law does not allow CPS the option of simply removing the current leadership and assuming control.
In the complaint, Urban Prep said a transition to CPS control would make it all but impossible for its current students to continue to learn through Urban Preps’ current programs, because the educational independence under which those programs were developed would be stripped, and the curriculum and teachers would be required to comply with CPS standards and policies.
While the school buildings would remain open, the schools that operated within them would all but close, effectively a violation of the state’s moratorium on school closings, in place until 2025, Urban Prep said.
Urban Prep is seeking court orders requiring CPS to scrap its plans to assume control of Urban Prep for the upcoming school year, and instead “negotiate Renewal Agreements in good faith with Urban Prep Academies for the period of July 1, 2023, through at least June 30, 2025.”
Urban Prep is represented in the action by attorneys Eric Grodksy and Eric B. Bernard, of the firm of Petrarca Gleason Boyle & Izzo, of Flossmoor.