Chicago Public Schools canceled classes Wednesday after the city’s teachers union voted to work remotely amid an omicron variant-fueled surge in COVID-19 cases.
On Tuesday, members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted 73% against in-person learning in favor of “remote-work only job action,” which Mayor Lori Lightfoot and school leaders said would trigger a closure the following day and possibly longer.
“Due to the Chicago Teachers Union voting to not report to schools tomorrow, there will be no in-person or remote instruction for CPS students tomorrow, January 5th. All after school programs, athletic practices, and other events are also canceled,” the CPS Twitter account said after the union vote.
In a tweet thread announcing the final tally of the vote late Tuesday, the union said the action will only end if the surge in COVID-19 cases “substantially subsides” or the mayor’s team at CPS signs an agreement establishing conditions for return that are voted on and approved by the CTU House of Delegates.
UPDATE ON 1/5 CLASSES: Due to the Chicago Teachers Union voting to not report to schools tomorrow, there will be no in-person or remote instruction for CPS students tomorrow, January 5th. All after school programs, athletic practices, and other events are also canceled. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/pOf3lznyUM
— CPS – Chicago Public Schools (@ChiPubSchools) January 5, 2022
The CTU had been threatening to go on strike for several days amid a dispute with city officials over what they see as insufficient COVID-19 protocols.
Chicago school officials said that if the teachers union refuses in-person classes, the action will be considered an illegal strike and disrupt plans for the roughly 290,000 students at noncharter schools.
NEW SEMESTER BRINGS SCHOOL CLOSINGS AND ANGRY TEACHERS UNIONS
“If they do take a vote to do a walkout tomorrow, I have to cancel classes,” CPS chief executive officer Pedro Martinez said before the vote was finalized. “I am not closing the schools. The schools are going to be open. And so again, all staff will be welcome to come to school because we are going to have a plan for our families. I am not going to let our parents down.”
The results of tonight’s citywide electronic ballot are in. Starting tomorrow, all CTU members at CPS schools should be working remotely. The result of tonight’s vote was 73 percent in favor of the remote-work-only job action.
— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) January 5, 2022
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Lightfoot held a press conference Tuesday evening in which Martinez thanked the staff who showed up, “came in, and [greeted] our children,” even amid “misinformation about schools not being safe.”
Lightfoot, a Democrat, lamented how the situation feels “like Groundhog Day” after everything the city has dealt with “over the last two years” during the pandemic, including a tense standoff with teachers that ended 11 months ago with an agreement to get students back into classrooms in the nation’s third-largest school district.
“We asked CTU leadership, ‘Take a moment, review the plan, come back to us with a response at the bargaining table, delay the vote, do not do an illegal work stoppage,'” Lightfoot said. “To that, the answer was, ‘No, sorry, we’re moving ahead.'”
