Chicago Board of Education appoints Dr. Macquline King as permanent CPS CEO

The Chicago Board of Education on Monday approved the appointment of Dr. Macquline King as the permanent chief executive officer for Chicago Public Schools.

King has been serving as interim CEO since June 2025, following the firing of her predecessor, Pedro Martinez.

She said she was "honored and humbled" to take on the position on a permanent basis. Her three-year term as permanent CEO will begin on July 1.

"It is a responsibility I carry with the weight of every student's future in mind," King said.

Although she won't officially become permanent CEO until July, King will need to get down to business right away to figure out the CPS budget before the next school year. The district now faces a shortfall of more of between $524 million and $1 billion, according to King.

King said no options are off the table, and she will be asking for at least some of that money from Springfield.

"We are 100 percent committed to being in Springfield to obtain additional resources needed," she said.

King is a lifelong Chicagoan who has spent 32 years with CPS as a student, teacher, and principal. A single mother, her child is also a CPS student.

"My life has been a series of chapters written within the walls of Chicago Public Schools," King said. "Seeing the district from all of these angles has given me a unique perspective on the importance of this work, and also appreciation of the challenge that lies ahead."

Before she was named interim CEO at CPS, King was senior director of educational policy for Mayor Brandon Johnson.

The partially elected, partially appointed school board voted 18-1 to approve a three-year contract for King, with only Jennifer Custer, who was elected from Chicago's Northwest Side, voting against King's appointment.

Custer said people in her community did not believe King spoke to them as often as they wanted, and frequently only came to them at the last minute.

"A lot of the community talked a little bit about the communication style, about showing up, about being present, about supporting their schools," she said.

The Board of Ed named King as one of three finalists for the position earlier this month. She beat out more than 100 candidates for the role.

Board members said they'd considered other candidates with administrative experience, but they all came from outside the city.

"If you have a lot of superintendent experience, you're not from Chicago," said board member Michilla Blaise.

"When you sit back and you look at the person who's leading the current district, it just kept coming back to Dr. King," said board member Angel Gutierrez.

Sources said, at one point, the mayor took Dr. King out of contention for the permanent job, but King said she never wavered in her commitment to serving the district. In a statement on Monday, Johnson congratulated King on landing the gig.

CBS News Chicago interviewed King last summer, when she first took over as interim CEO. She talked about her commitment to transparency, accountability, and equity.

"I'm excited to be in a position where I can support students who were like me, that are like me when I was a little girl going through Chicago Public Schools," King said last year.

King told CBS News Chicago this past summer about her commitment to transparency and accountability.

"I'm trying to build and re-establish trust with our stakeholders — whether that's from CPS to the parents, parents to CPS, CPS to City Hall, City Hall to CPS, [Chicago Teachers Union], [Chicago Principals & Administrators Association]," King said. "We just need to reestablish trust. I think our students deserve it."

Trust took a beating thanks to the drama surrounding former CEO Pedro Martinez. The entire school board stepped down in October 2024 after pressure from the mayor to fire Martinez.

The mayor was known to disagree with former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, especially over school funding. The clash between the two over Johnson's plan to take out a high-interest short-term loan to pay for pensions for some CPS staff eventually led to Martinez being fired.

With half of the board members and the school board president appointed by the mayor, some had raised concerns that Martinez's replacement would be little more than an extension of Johnson's office.

But the CPS budget passed under King's tenure after Martinez's ouster did not include the loan Johnson had demanded.

"Now, what that relationship looks like with a disentanglement, I'm not sure, but it's not just with the mayor, it's with the fully elected school board as well, and I believe this entire team is committed to ensuring that we have strong relationship across government, but across the communities as well," King said.