Classes were canceled for some 400,000 students as close to 25,000 teachers began a strike in Chicago.
The strike started Thursday after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot rejected demands from the Chicago Teachers Union. The talks broke down over disagreements on a variety of issues including pay, benefits, and class sizes, according to USA Today.
Lightfoot, a Democrat elected this year, said the city had offered the union a 16% pay raise for teachers and a 38% raise for the average support staff worker over the duration of the proposed contract. She said that the city has “bent over backwards” to meet the union demands, including making more than 80 changes to the proposal.
The union, which represents teachers in the country’s third-largest school district, said that certain requests were not met in the proposal, including committing a nurse to every school. The union also wants the city to address issues affecting students, like affordable housing.
But Lightfoot, 57, said that the union’s demands were not tenable and would amount to an additional $2.5 billion added to the district’s annual budget, an amount she called “completely irresponsible.”
“Since Friday, we’ve discussed a framework that puts enforceable targets on class sizes in high-poverty schools and staffing level supports for personnel in the contract,” Lightfoot said Wednesday. “The union said that these were its two most important issues. They wanted us to put it in writing, and that’s exactly what we did.”
Some of the schools in Chicago have classes with more than 40 students.
“I’m striking because class size does matter,” said Victoria Winslow, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher. “Our support staff deserves a livable wage, and we only have a nurse one day a week — are we supposed to stop teaching and become nurses?”
The strike marks the first major walkout by teachers in the city since 2012. It is unclear how long it will last.
