Chicago Schools Inch Closer to Strike Over Reopening Plan
By: Joe Barrett (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
CHICAGO—Chicago schools inched closer to a potential strike over a plan to reopen elementary schools this week as talks stalled with the teachers union over the plan's safety.
The district on Sunday evening ordered teachers of kindergarten through eighth grade to return to their school buildings on Monday and threatened to cut off their access to remote-learning software if they didn't. The union said late Sunday that it would consider any such move an illegal lockout and its leadership would consider next steps, which it has said in the past could include a strike.
The nation's third largest school system had planned to relaunch in-person learning for kindergarten through eighth-grade students on Monday, but delayed the call for students to return to Tuesday. Teachers, though, were told they needed to return to classrooms to prepare, despite heavy snowfall Sunday that made travel difficult.
The city has had only limited in-person teaching since last spring at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The city and union officials said they had made progress on Saturday, but on Sunday each side blamed the other for failing to show up for talks.
“I know we can get a deal done, I still think we can get a deal done today,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a briefing, while saying that the union had failed to show up at a virtual meeting. “We’ve got to make progress every day.”
The Chicago Teachers Union said it was the school system team that didn’t show up for negotiations. “Today, we sat by ourselves on zoom because we were told that concessions had to be major,” said CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates.
Both the city and the union hailed tentative agreements on Saturday over four key areas, including health and safety protocols, ventilation, contact tracing and health and safety committees.
But the sides remain divided over union demands that more educators be vaccinated before returning to school, more teachers be granted accommodations to work from home because they live with someone with a pre-existing condition and that reopening be phased in, with some schools remaining closed in areas where Covid-19 cases are most prevalent.
City leaders said students had been falling behind during the lengthy period of remote learning, with absenteeism and poor performance particularly hitting minority students.
“Remote learning is failing too many of our kids,” Ms. Lightfoot said.
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