School canceled in Chicago after union pushes for online-learning shift
CHICAGO — Public school officials in Chicago canceled classes for today amid a dispute with the teachers union, whose members had threatened to stay home in a bid to force instruction online during a coronavirus surge.
Union members had criticized the district’s response to the omicron variant, which has pushed cases in the city to record levels, and said conditions in classrooms were unsafe. They voted Tuesday to refuse to report to school buildings, just two days after returning from winter break.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said reverting to online schooling was unacceptable and unnecessary, and her administration decided to call off classes altogether — while keeping the buildings open for emergency child care — rather than return to virtual instruction.
“Nobody signs up for being a home-schooler at the last minute,” Lightfoot said. “We can’t forget about how disruptive that remote process is to individual parents who have to work, who can’t afford the luxury of staying home.”
Lightfoot urged teachers to report to work and suggested that they were considering an illegal work stoppage. The Chicago Teachers Union said late Tuesday night that 73% of members who voted had favored pausing in-person instruction.
Coronavirus cases have skyrocketed in Chicago to their highest level since the pandemic began. But as in the rest of the country, vaccinated adults have had lower rates of hospitalization and death, while children of all ages — regardless of vaccination status — have overwhelmingly been spared severe outcomes.
In addition, data from Chicago and elsewhere shows that in-school transmission of covid-19 has been limited, with a majority of teacher and student cases originating outside school buildings.
Still, members of the Chicago Teachers Union have accused the district of failing to adjust to omicron and the growing threat of breakthrough infections. During the holiday break, members had asked for either universal PCR testing of students and staff members or a two-week transition to remote learning.
Pedro Martinez, the district’s chief executive, said Tuesday that he would be more aggressive about shutting down school buildings if large numbers of staff members and students had coronavirus infections. But he pushed back against a districtwide shutdown.
He spoke of the district’s $100 million investment in improving building ventilation, as well as efforts to monitor air quality in each classroom. He said he had continued “to plead, including with CTU leadership, to keep the schools open, to keep the classes going.”
Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s public health commissioner, said Tuesday that she remained “extremely comfortable” with students learning inside schools.
“We’ve got to do risk-benefit analysis here, and at least among children, we have to think of this as similar to flu,” Arwady said, adding that Chicago is averaging seven child hospitalizations per day because of covid-19.