USA TODAY International Edition
Teacher strike could idle 400,000 Chicago students
Union seeks more support staff, class limits
CHICAGO – The next major teacher strike in the USA – which could affect 35,000 public workers and about 400,000 students and their families – could disrupt life in the nation’s thirdlargest city, starting Thursday.
Members of the Chicago Teachers Union are poised to strike after a failure to agree on a contract with Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Members of the union that represents school support staff, as well as Chicago Park District workers, plan to walk out the same day – leaving the schools and the city’s recreational facilities without many of the adults who could care for kids while teachers picket.
Question: Why did Chicago teachers vote to strike?
Answer: The union, which represents educators in the nation’s third- largest school district, wants CPS and the mayor’s office to commit to hiring more support staff. The union wants more specific limits on class sizes, which have swelled to the high 30s and mid- 40s in some schools, teachers said. It’s pushing for higher salaries for lower- wage workers such as school secretaries and classroom aides.
Q: What is the district offering the teachers?
A: The CPS offer includes a 16% raise for teachers over five years, which officials said would bring the average Chicago teacher’s salary to nearly $ 100,000. The teachers’ union has contested that math, arguing that in five years, the average teacher would make closer to $ 85,000.
The city’s offer includes raises for support staff such as classroom aides, but not as high as the unions want. It would require a bump in the contribution that teachers would make toward their benefits – but an increase that’s less than what was recommended by an independent reviewer. The district promised not to privatize certain support staff positions and to provide relief for overcrowded classrooms.
Q: Will the two sides come to an agreement before Thursday?
A: “The board is talking to us now about class sizes and staffing,” union President Jesse Sharkey said late Monday night. “There’s a lot of ground that we have to make up, and the hour’s getting late.”
As of 10: 45 p. m. Monday, Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson said in a joint statement that no measurable progress had been made on negotiations.
Q: Why are Chicago teachers striking over support staff and class sizes?
A: At a rally and march Monday afternoon, hundreds of union members took to the streets, putting pressure on City Hall to strike a deal before Thursday.
Tyrone Hayes, 49, a security officer at John Marshall High School, has worked for CPS for 19 years. He said he hopes to see higher pay for bus aides, janitors and security officers, but the strike is driven by concern for students.
“It’s not for the money – it’s more for the kids,” Hayes said.
Jesse McAdoo, 32, teaches a split first and second grade classroom. He said two of his students are supposed to have one- on- one assistants but do not.
“When I have 30 kids in the classroom, a lot of them 6- or 7- year- olds, 14 with IEPs ( individual education plans to address their disabilities), it’s very hard to give them my best when I’m playing whack- a- mole with trying to keep their attention,” McAdoo said.
CPS social worker Mary Difino, 27, who works at two schools on the city’s west side, said her students need more support staff. Several people have been shot near Difino’s school in Lawndale.
“Those kids cannot come to school after seeing shootings and only have a nurse or social worker once a week,” she said. “Those schools need a social worker five days a week.”
Q: What do Chicago Public Schools leaders say?
A: That the offer is generous. And that they mean what they say – they don’t need to put their commitments to hire more support staff in the teachers’ contract.
“It’s indisputably the richest and best offer in CTU history,” said Michael Frisch, legal counsel to Lightfoot.
Q: What’s at stake as Chicago teachers weigh a strike?
A: Sharkey said this is the best opportunity the union has had in a generation to improve the quality of schools.
Union leaders press for more resources for underserved children – such as more wraparound services and more affordable housing, considering about 17,000 CPS students are homeless, the teachers union said.
Q: If Chicago teachers strike, where will students go?
A: CPS leaders said that if a strike happens, all buildings will remain open and students can attend their normal school or any other school that’s age- appropriate. They said administrators and principals will watch the students. District transportation will not be available. Regular instruction will not occur, but meals will be served in the school buildings.