The current board members and the six people Mayor Brandon Johnson announced as their replacements are invited to testify. So far, no one has responded.
"We think it would be appropriate to have the board members there, at least, to allow the body to ask them questions around what their vision is," said 36th Ward Ald. Gil Villegas.
Villegas says some council members are eager to vet the proposed appointees to find out if there are conflicts of interest, especially regarding the Chicago Teachers Union.
"We have vacancies on boards and commissions throughout the city that have been vacant for months. But yet, miraculously, he finds six members in 48 hours," Villegas said.
One of the mayor's picks, Deborah Pope, was recently a CTU employee who participated in contract talks with CPS.
The mayor named a new board after the current one announced its resignation last week. The board was not willing to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez or secure a short-term high-interest loan to help pay for a teachers' contract.
"So, the first order of business is not giving the CTU a contract that you don't have the money to pay for," said former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, who was also a mayoral candidate.
Vallas weighed in after Johnson on Monday blamed him and former CEO Arne Duncan for being fiscally irresponsible years ago, which the mayor says is why CPS is in a crisis now. That's a claim Duncan and Vallas say is false.
"I left a school district with a billion dollars in cash balances, 100,000 more children, 12 bond rating upgrades and six years of improved test scores," Vallas said.
In the meantime, Johnson's supporters say regardless of what he says or who he appoints, since 1995, mayors have power over the school board, rather than the City Council.
"I've always acquiesced to them, allow then to appoint who they want to appoint, allow them to fire who they want to fire, and we hope for the best of it," said 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett.