Chicago students are facing a potential strike by their teachers after Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the nation’s third-largest district will proceed with the reopening of elementary and middle schools.
Negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union soured on Friday after the two sides could not come to an agreement about in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students have worked online for nearly a year, prompting frustration among parents and hope that Chicago Public Schools would follow through with its reopening plan for Monday.
“Another day has passed, and the CTU has not agreed to anything,” Lightfoot said at a news conference, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “The CTU leadership has failed and left us with a big bag of nothing.”
Despite Lightfoot’s demand that elementary and middle schools must reopen on Monday, the Chicago Teachers Union vowed not to have its members return to classes without a deal with the city. If a deal is not reached in the next two days, students could face not just virtual classes, but no classes at all if the union decides to strike.
“Those teachers need to be there to greet their students and teach them in-person,” the Democratic mayor said. “If the CTU continues not to show up and fails to work toward an agreement in good faith, then we will have no choice but to take further action. Now, let me be clear. None of us want to go there. And we shouldn’t have to.”
While Lightfoot pointed her finger at the Chicago Teachers Union for not agreeing to the plan already put forward by Chicago Public Schools, the union blamed Lightfoot for the breakdown in negotiations.
“We were well on our way, working toward an agreement around all key components with the people who are actually at the bargaining table (much like what’s happening in other cities),” Chicago Public Schools said of Lightfoot’s press conference. “The educators in the room were working toward an agreement. The politician is blowing it all to pieces.”
Preschool and special education students had already returned to classrooms for the first time since March on Jan. 11, although the union then ordered its members who were already teaching those classes to work from home on Wednesday, pushing all students out of schools and back online.
This week, the Washington Examiner spoke with Jennifer, a parent of one of the preschoolers who returned to class and then was forced to revert back to virtual learning. She did not want her last name to be used in publication, but she said her preschooler was upset about not getting to go back to class.
“They’re not thriving through remote learning. All of my kids are really wanting to be back in school,” Jennifer explained. “My baby, the 4-year-old preschooler, this morning woke up and was ready at 6 a.m. and was trying to get ready for school, and I had to tell him, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re still not going back to school,’ and he was really heartbroken about it.”
Another parent, Sarah Sachen, also expressed frustration over the about-face from the union during a phone interview.
“I think it’s unconscionable that they’ve been in school for two weeks, and their educators are just walking away from them,” she said. “They’ve had routines. They’re establishing connections. … And to just rip that away, especially for our most vulnerable children, is just incomprehensible.”
Sachen, using war as a metaphor for the pandemic, said that children are bearing the “wounds” of isolation and lack of connection with classmates and that teachers play “a vital part” in helping the students to heal.
The main points of contention in the negotiations are whether teachers should be required to be vaccinated before a return to the classroom and the extent of remote-work accommodations for teachers who live with others who might be in COVID-19 risk groups, such as people with illnesses or the elderly.
Chicago Public Schools said this week that it provided the Chicago Teachers Union with a proposal that included safeguards such as giving teachers and staff in high-risk communities priority for vaccines, testing teachers and staff twice every month, expanding remote work accommodations, and testing students in 10 ZIP codes with high rates of COVID-19 every month.
