Troy LaRaviere Ousted: Expected Step, Or 'Slap In The Face' To Free Speech?

Troy LaRaviere (c.), an outspoken Mayor Rahm Emanuel critic, was ousted this week as principal of Blaine Elementary.

DNAinfo/Serena Dai

LAKEVIEW — If CPS officials hoped spring break would help hush up the removal of Principal Troy LaRaviere from Blaine Elementary, they couldn't have been more wrong.

Everyone from Bernie Sanders to the head of the principals' association has weighed in on the sudden reassignment, which Chicago Public Schools announced to parents late Wednesday in an email.

The move has launched furious opposition from some — a hashtag movement has LaRaviere supporters calling on the community to #StandWithTroy — particularly as Chicago principals prepare to vote for their new leader in May.

"Principals don't want to feel they've lost their constitutional right to free speech," said Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. LaRaviere is running for Berry's seat next month, and she believes his reassignment is "a retaliatory reaction."

"I really feel this is a deliberate insertion into our election due to the fact they don't wish to see one of our candidates elected," Berry said Thursday. "This does not have a good smell to us."

In an unprecedented move, the association's board of directors will vote in early May to decide whether LaRaviere's removal as principal makes him ineligible to run.

"Most likely, I'm thinking it won't," Berry said. "My sense is the board will be placing Troy on the ballot as a candidate."

The group's constitution and bylaws don't address the situation, leaving it up the board, Berry said. Members are eligible if they've been in the association for at least three years and are active or recently retired or resigned administrators at CPS, the constitution reads.

LaRaviere was nominated to run in February and has one competitor: Kenneth Hunter, vice president for high school principals and former head of Prosser Career Academy High School in Belmont Cragin.

Hunter has his own strained history with CPS. In 2013, he received a warning resolution similar to LaRaviere's reprimand in August. He also pushed his teachers toward extreme rating gains on the CPS 5 Essentials survey in 2014.

While the election has "two strong candidates, CPS may have driven the very person they were trying to get out of it into the job," Berry said. "It may backfire."

"Before this, the election might have been very hard to call," Berry said. "But the principals are pretty disgusted with just about everything CPS has done. It's a slap in the face, and I think they're tired of it."

Others said LaRaviere has become a distraction from a principal's purpose — helping his students.

"He's using his role as principal to advance what seems to be his own political agenda," said one longtime principal. "It's distracting from his real role."

While LaRaviere has publicly criticized CPS and Mayor Rahm Emanuel for years, his efforts have grown over the last year, since his support of Jesus "Chuy" Garcia in the 2015 mayoral race.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also featured LaRaviere in a March commerical ahead of the Illinois primary and named him an at-large delegate for the upcoming Democratic convention in July.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that a school principal is facing politically motivated retaliation because he dared to stand up to the mayor of Chicago," Sanders said Thursday, chalking up the reassignment to Emanuel's "unhealthy obsession with taking revenge."

But that willingness to speak out "sets up an unreal expectation" that other administrators can do the same, said the principal, who asked not to be named.

"It sets up a dynamic that interferes with what we are selected to do," she said. "This role should be about educating kids, and it's generally frustrating he's so vocal."

Emanuel and CPS both deny that the mayor had any hand in LaRaviere's reassignment, although CEO Forrest Claypool is Emanuel's former chief of staff.

"We did not consult the mayor in making this decision," said Janice Jackson, CPS chief education officer. The district said LaRaviere's removal stems from "alleged acts of misconduct, including violations of a previous warning resolution."

Dozens of readers have debated whether LaRaviere overstepped and should have foreseen his removal after a warning last year from the Chicago Board of Education.

"I don't know how so many people are surprised by this move," user @Besttwins wrote on Neighborhood Square, DNAinfo's community platform. "I know of no employees who would keep their job by blatantly disregarding their superiors ... even if they're not so superior."

Others said LaRaviere's political work distracted from Blaine Elementary.

"Mr. LaRaviere could do something about the Blaine middle school, but chose to pursue fighting CPS instead," wrote @SouthportParent. "Advocacy better fits his skills and interests; Blaine needs someone to focus on Blaine."

Others commended LaRaviere for being "a great leader" and felt his removal was a vindictive move by the district.

"CPS only keeps subservient puppets to run its schools," wrote @deborah-rudnicki. "Mr. LaRaviere will take his intelligence, competency, and integrity somewhere else. Only wish I could go with him."

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