On Tuesday afternoon, a few hours after a rally outside of her school, embattled Chicago Public Schools clerk Judy Mahoney said she got a call from human resources offering to extend her position at Michael M. Byrne Elementary School for one more school year.
“It’s temporary again,” Mahoney told me Wednesday. “They haven’t really fixed anything.”
Mahoney, a CPS employee for close to 30 years, was left paralyzed in 2017 when a drunken driver hit her car. Mahoney worked as a clerk at Whittier Elementary School in Pilsen at the time, but that building wasn’t wheelchair accessible.
“CPS told me, ‘Ms. Mahoney, you may want to apply at other schools,’ ” Mahoney said. “I thought, ‘Why would I need to apply? I have a job. I just can’t get in there.’ “
She did apply for other jobs, and two days before she was cleared to return to work after the car crash, CPS told her she’d been hired as a clerk at Byrne, a school on a quiet, leafy block in Garfield Ridge.
Mahoney has been working at Byrne since 2018, but she was told from the get-go that the position would no longer be funded after June 2021. She took the job anyway and has been fighting to have the position funded permanently. She was hoping to remain there until she’s ready to retire from CPS, likely within four to five years.
“The only thing I retain from my previous life is my ability to work,” Mahoney said. “Everything else I do different. The way I get dressed, the way I drive, the way I get into bed, the way I shower. The only thing that remains the same is my ability to work.”
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Prior to Tuesday, Mahoney was told Byrne would reduce its staff to just one clerk after this school year, and she needed to apply for a new clerk job in order to remain employed. The district has been emailing her listings for open clerk positions, many of which are located in buildings that are not wheelchair accessible.
Now, CPS is still encouraging her to apply for other jobs, but with the caveat that if she doesn’t have a new position secured by fall, she can return to Byrne for one more year. She has an interview next week at a school about 30 minutes from her home.
“This is still far from a fair and just resolution for a hardworking, dedicated veteran CPS employee,” CPS parent Samantha Sokol told Chicago’s Board of Education at Wednesday’s meeting. “No other veteran employee is moved around like a pawn on a chess board like CPS is moving Judy.”
Sokol castigated CPS for not making more of its buildings wheelchair accessible, 31 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law.
“If Judy’s accident occurred while she was working in a wheelchair accessible school, Judy would not be fighting to stay at her school this year and in the years to come,” Sokol said. “She has been advocating for herself to stay at Byrne for the last 31/2 years, something other veteran CPS employees in good standing who are not in wheelchairs do not have to endure.”
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At the start of the 2019-2020 school year, 295 CPS school buildings, out of 642 total, were accessible to students and staff with mobility disabilities, according to an August 2020 report by Access Living, a disability rights advocacy group. The majority of accessible schools are high schools, Access Living found, and a significant number of CPS schools, mostly charter and option schools, are not rated for accessibility.
“Look at Judy and have compassion,” Sokol urged the board. “Picture her as a dear friend or family member. Is this the type of treatment you would want for them? As the board of the third largest school district in the nation who prides themselves on equity, care and compassion, consider if this is the example you want to set for students and employees.”
Teachers and staff from Whittier and Byrne attended Tuesday’s rally, as did Mahoney’s friends and family members. Her daughter and sisters wiped away tears as they spoke.
“I feel so devastated to see my sister going through this,” Ema Pineda, who also worked as a clerk at Whittier, told me. “I see her struggle. It’s not only physically, but mentally. She’s not asking for any pity. She’s asking for what she deserves.”
Mahoney said she was grateful for the support of the crowd, but she was hoping a rally wouldn’t be necessary.
“I didn’t want it to get to this point,” she said. “But it’s my life at stake. My livelihood. I have no way out. I’m exhausted. I’m drained. I have no more.”
Matt Lyons, chief talent officer at CPS, confirmed the one-year extension at Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting.
“The best outcome, which we have communicated throughout, is that Ms. Mahoney secure, as was discussed, a full-time permanent position in a school that needs and has in their budget a clerk role that is open, in a building, of course, that is accessible to her and that she’s able to travel to,” Lyons said. “We did notify her yesterday that we would be extending the Byrne position for another year if she is unable to find that kind of permanent placement, which we are supporting her in doing in an accessible workplace and will continue to support her.”
Mahoney sounded understandably drained when we spoke Wednesday evening, by the past few weeks and the uncertainty that still lies ahead.
“But I’m glad I spoke up,” she said. “Hopefully it opens eyes and causes CPS to treat people with more dignity.”
And, hopefully, pushes them to bring more school buildings into ADA compliance. A public school system the size of Chicago’s with more than half of its buildings inaccessible is failing far too many families.
Job No. 1 for CPS should be securing Mahoney a position she’s happy with through retirement. And job No. 2 should be doing everything in its power to minimize the chances of this happening to another CPS family — staff or student — ever again.
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