Chicago union approves plan to resume in-person classes
CHICAGO — Students are poised to return to Chicago Public Schools after leaders of the teachers union approved a plan with the nation’s third-largest district over COVID-19 safety protocols, ending a bitter standoff that canceled classes for five days.
While school districts nationwide have faced similar concerns due to skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, the labor fight in union-friendly Chicago amplified concerns over remote learning and other pandemic issues.
The deal approved late Monday would have students back in class on Wednesday and teachers back a day earlier. It still requires approval from the union’s roughly 25,000 members, with voting scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Chicago Teachers Union spokesperson Ronnie Reese confirmed the goal to bring students back on Wednesday, even as the vote proceeds.
Neither side disclosed full details of the proposal Monday evening, but leaders generally said the agreement included metrics to close individual schools during outbreaks and plans to boost COVID-19 testing in the largely low-income Black and Latino school district of about 350,000 students.
“We know this has been very difficult for students and families,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a news conference. “Some will ask who won and who lost. No one wins when our students are out of the place where they can learn the best and where they’re safest.”
Union leaders acknowledged it wasn’t a “home run” but said teachers wanted to be back in class with students.
“It was not an agreement that had everything, it’s not a perfect agreement, but it’s certainly something we can hold our heads up about, partly because it was so difficult to get,” Union President Jesse Sharkey said at a separate news conference.
The union last week called for districtwide online learning until a safety plan could be negotiated or the latest COVID-19 surge subsided. The district, which has rejected districtwide remote instruction, responded by locking teachers out of remote teaching systems two days after students returned from winter break. The union’s house of delegates voted Monday evening to suspend their work action.
While there has was some progress on smaller issues such as masks, weekend negotiations on a safety plan failed to produce a deal and rhetoric about negotiations became increasingly sharp. Some principals canceled class Tuesday preemptively and warned of more closures to come.
Earlier Monday, Sharkey said the union and district remained “apart on a number of key features,” and accused Lightfoot of refusing to compromise on teachers’ main priorities.
“The mayor is being relentless, but she’s being relentlessly stupid, she’s being relentlessly stubborn,” Sharkey said, referencing an earlier comment Lightfoot made about refusing to “relent” in negotiations.
Lightfoot accused teachers of “abandoning” students and shot back at the union president.
“If I had a dollar for every time some privileged, clouted white guy called me stupid, I’d be a bazillionaire,” Lightfoot, who is Black, told WLS-TV.
Developments in the fight made international headlines. White Housepress secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that President Joe Biden remained in touch with Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker during negotiations.
Several families represented by the conservative Liberty Justice Center in Chicago filed a lawsuit over the closures, while more than 5,000 others signed a petition urging a return to in-person instruction.