Teachers reach deal at art-focused school

The teachers union and the board of directors at the Chicago High School for the Arts in Humboldt Park have reached an agreement on a new four-year contract to avert a threatened strike.

Educators represented by the Chicago Teachers Union had planned to walk out Wednesday after negotiations dragged on for more than a year without much progress. But after the union called off its strike at the last minute due to “major breakthroughs” in negotiations late Tuesday night, the two sides finalized a deal Wednesday.

ChiArts is a privately managed contract school, similar to a charter, that is funded by public and donor dollars. It’s Chicago’s only arts-focused public high school and enrolls 594 students.

The new four-year deal covers all 103 arts and academic teachers at the school and guarantees the hiring of a full-time social worker by next year, a better student-tocounselor ratio, a full-time nursing assistant, more robust special education and bilingual supports and more time for teachers to prepare for classes. The union also reported “a considerable increase in educator salaries and benefits.”

“Getting to this historic agreement wasn’t easy, but when we started this process we knew what we were fighting for,” science teacher Jennifer Peppers said in a statement. “Through this agreement, our classroom can become a place for students to learn, aspire, dream and achieve.”

Duffie Adelson, the interim board chair at ChiArts, said the school was “very pleased to be able to offer meaningful improvements in salaries and benefits to our dedicated teachers.”