NEAR WEST SIDE — After failing to approve a principal contract last week, Andrew Jackson Language Academy's Local School Council has called a special meeting to address the issue.
The LSC, which previously split their vote between two candidates, will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the grade school, 1340 W. Harrison St.
At the meeting, the Local School Council is expected to vote to extend a four-year principal contract to either Ginger Hiltz or Marilou Rebolledo.
At a meeting Friday, the group deadlocked. Six LSC members voted in favor of appointing Hiltz to the post; two opposed the appointment and two abstained from voting. In a separate vote, three LSC members voted in favor of Rebolledo, six opposed and one abstained, Jackson Local School Council Chairwoman Angela Bryant wrote on an online forum.
The LSC is required to have seven votes to select a candidate.
Some Jackson parents have said in Facebook posts that they are angry that the board didn't issue a contract last week.
Hiltz is a teacher who served as resident principal at Phillip Rogers Elementary School, a principal-in-training post, this past school year. She previously worked at Andrew Jackson. Hiltz is also one of three finalists being considered for the principal role at at Helen C. Pierce Elementary School in Andersonville.
Many parents supported Rebolledo, the interim principal at Andrew Jackson. She previously served as Jackson's resident principal, a principal-in-training post, and also taught for years at the school.
In January, CPS officials announced that Andrew Jackson Principal Mathew Ditto would be leaving the post that month for an administrative role within the district.
Ditto, who led the school for nine years, previously planned to leave when his contract expired in July.
The former principal first announced he would step down at the end of his term at an local school council meeting in October 2013. The announcement came after he admitted he didn't get required approval from the council before buying new laptops for teachers.
In November 2014, Andrew Jackson Language Academy was at the center of a CPS controversy after racy sex ed slides were displayed at a school meeting.
In response to parent concerns, Ditto said the materials were "mistakenly downloaded" and displayed in a binder labeled as curriculum for fifth-grade students. CPS officials said that the slides were meant to be used as teacher reference materials and promised to "scrub" all CPS sex ed materials, removing questionable slides in the process.
In August 2013, Ditto was one of 134 principals to win a $5,000 bonus from CPS for "excellent" performance — money he then donated to the school.
Andrew Jackson Language Academy, a lottery-admission school, is one of the toughest for a student to get into and has long posted some of the top test scores in the city.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
