Chicago teachers’ strike causes parents hardship

Extra day care needs prove costly to many

CHICAGO — Chicago parents leaned on family, friends and community groups as 25,000 teachers in the nation’s third-largest school district went on strike this past week, canceling classes for more than 300,000 kids.

For some families, the Chicago Teachers Union walkout meant a day off and a bit of inconvenience for parents juggling work schedules. For the city’s most vulnerable families, though, the strike triggered a hasty search for a solution to help kids and let their parents make it to work.

Both Mayor Lori Lightfoot and union leaders said negotiators have several major disputes to resolve, including pay and benefits, class size and school staffing.

Classes were canceled Thursday and Friday, and it is not clear when the first major walkout since 2012 by the city’s teachers will end. The two sides were meeting Saturday.

The uncertainty of her five kids being out of school has weighed on Antenisha Dale. When she walked into a Salvation Army community center on the city’s West Side on Friday morning, Dale’s eyes widened when she learned they could all stay for the day, for no charge.

The 29-year-old took off from her job at a grocery store deli counter Thursday, forgoing a day’s pay when every dollar is essential for her family. Finding an affordable place for her kids to go if a strike drags on “takes a weight off my shoulders,” Dale said.

Striking teachers argue that students and families in similar situations are the motivation behind their “social justice” agenda, not their own pay or benefits. They’re demanding smaller class sizes and more resources for schools, including nurses and social workers, written into the contract along with ways to enforce those changes.

“What we really want is an improvement in our working conditions, which are the learning conditions for our students,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said Friday.

City and district officials, though, have called their offer of a 16 percent salary increase over five years for teachers “historic.” Meeting all of teachers’ demands including a 5 percent salary increase for three years would cost more than $2.5 billion each year, an amount the district cannot afford, Lightfoot has said.

“CPS is not flush with cash,” she said Friday, noting the district’s reliance on loans in its latest budget plan.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia The Associated Press A student pours milk on his breakfast cereal Friday at a Chicago Public Schools student contingency site.