No Deal Between Chicago Schools, Union Could Lead to Lockout or Strike
Lightfoot moved to reopen on Tuesday, but that might not even happen.
The talks between Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) fell apart on Sunday, leaving the kids without a deal and sets up a potential teacher strike and lockout.
Students have not been in the classroom since March 2020 when everything shut down due to COVID-19.
Lightfoot told teachers those without permission to stay home must return to the classrooms on Monday, and students K-8th grade will report on Tuesday.
Medical officials have said the schools are safe for teachers and students. Chicago Catholic and charter schools opened in August with minimal problems.
Preschool and special education classes opened on January 11 with 3,300 students.
Lightfoot wanted 62,000 K-8th grade students and about 10,000 teachers to report on Monday. But that looks like it will happen on Tuesday.
From The Chicago Tribune:
“We expect all of our teachers who have not received a specific accommodation to come to school tomorrow,” Lightfoot said Sunday evening.
CPS CEO Janice Jackson said teachers who fail to report to buildings Monday “will have their access to Google Suite cut off at the end of the business day,” an action that Chicago Teachers Union leaders said would lead to a strike.
Asked what she would tell the 70% of parents who are keeping their children remote about why their teachers are being locked out, Lightfoot said, “I think the question is … what do we tell those parents about the teachers who are refusing to show up to class? That’s really the question.”
Lightfoot reminded the CTU that the Chicago schools are safe and that “remote learning is failing too many of our kids.”
The Democratic mayor has tried to maintain composure when it comes to the union. Lightfoot got a little testy when she said her side needs “a renewed sense of urgency on the part of CTU leadership.”
Lightfoot told the media the city is “practically begging CTU to come to the table to get a deal done.” The statement contradicted the union:
The union alleged earlier Sunday that the district’s bargaining team was told not to negotiate unless CTU’s members were willing to offer “major” concessions.
“The CPS bargaining team was instructed not to attend negotiations today unless our teachers, clinicians, PSRPs, nurses, librarians and other rank-and-file educators were prepared to make major concessions,” the union said in a tweet.
In a response, CPS posted to Twitter: “Fact check: Our bargaining team was told by CTU leadership that they were unavailable to meet until they could develop a response to our most recent offer. Our team has been standing by all day.”
Lightfoot has also tried to keep things cordial between the sides, but Jackson slammed the CTU for interfering with the students:
Jackson said the union “has stood in the way” of a safe and sensible reopening.
“Tomorrow will be the fourth consecutive day where teachers have been directed to remain home, and that makes 15 days in the past year and a half where CTU leadership has disrupted student learning,” Jackson said. “No one should be OK with that.”
Jackson said she’s incredibly frustrated, not just as the leader of this school system but “as a parent.”
The schools promised:
- Health screenings
- Temperature checks
- Mandatory face masks
- Social distancing
- Access to hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes
- Constant cleaning and disinfection
- Proper ventilation
- New air filters
Parents protested in front of the CTU building, begging the teachers to return because their children fell out of love with learning.
Bridgett White’s children have not been in a classroom since March 2020. She told CBS News she is “very frustrated” by the current situation because everyday parents wonder, “Is this the day my child won’t have any learning at all?”
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Comments
If we had real leaders this would be handled like PATCO.
Unions for government employees. Thanks, JFK.
They are going on strike to prove they are non-essential.
I am sympathetic to the desire for once because I have had principles genuinely think the “and other duties” clause in our contract makes it okay to add 20-30 unpaid hours a week to our workload. That’s bull and nobody should be okay with it.
Also, I’m sympathetic because of the legal representation should any type of accusation get made. If I fail a student and they allege any type of inappropriate behavior on my part, then I’m screwed and there is nothing I can do about it. A few years ago it was discovered that four girls had colluded to accuse a new teacher of just that. The danger is very real, so I can appreciate any provided legal support. We are also always having to fend off the police/firefighters unions trying to raid our retirement fund.
Sadly, all of the unions in my area are far more concerned with goofy politics than with the business of education. I don’t object to the idea of a union, but to the absolutely insanity/corruption they fall into. I don’t know if it was always that way, or just another failed institution like all of the other institutions that have failed in my adult life.
“Sadly, all of the unions in my area are far more concerned with goofy politics than with the business of education….”
It’s all about money. The unions merely bribe the very easily bribed democrats in the area, and the circle is perpetuated.
The only upside about this strike is that children are less exposed to the poison of the rabid leftist teachers infesting the schools that are closed.
I just pre-ordered copy of Ayn Rand’s latest book:
“Three Weeks to Flatten the Curve.”
‘No Deal Between Chicago Schools, Union Could Lead to Lockout or Strike’
Teachers – working harder to convince all they’re non-essential.
Yes, teachers, the rank & file. JANUS is pointing in your face, and yet you still feed the monster!
Place yer bets and take yer chances in Lightfoot’s h3llscape: Up by 50%, Chicago ends 2020 with 769 homicides, surpassing NY & LA by hundreds.
Teachers know like science and stuff. So if they say opening the schools isn’t safe, then we have to listen to the science and keep the schools closed. Of course, teachers need to be paid to keep them available for when the science tells us the schools can be safely opened. I’m sorry is this costs the City of Chicago a couple of billion extra dollars. But if even one teacher’s life is saved, then it is all worth it.
P.S. I don’t live in Chicago. If I lived there, I might have slightly different opinion.
LeftWingLock,
Warning: If Chairman Joe gets his way, Uncle Sam will be picking up the tab.
I had to do a hell of a lot more work when the governor closed us down last March. Thankfully, we haven’t been forced to go full virtual this school year.
I have no idea if the teachers are working or not, but putting everything online all at once was a nightmare I hope to never repeat. All I can say is the teachers around here sure as hell did a lot of work, but it wasn’t work that did the kids any good. It was our super wonderful always awesome D governor that set that up.
Given the quality of Chicago schools and teachers, is it not possible that keeping the kids out may improve their education?
Subotai Bahadur
Hell, almost one in four students in CPS is at grade level for math. Around one in three for English. What kind of success you expecting here? /s
“Health screenings
Temperature checks
Mandatory face masks
Social distancing
Access to hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes
Constant cleaning and disinfection
Proper ventilation
New air filters”
I think they just want more money. All that other stuff is a waste of time. Just send the checks to their beach condos. Maybe after the winter is over, they can come back and teach, and heal the sunburns.
Bingo.
George Conway and the Lincoln Project will probably urge adoption of China’s covid anal probes on the kiddies for the entertainment of Project members and funders.
Hollywood Heavyweights, Including Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Among Top Donors to Lincoln Project:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/02/01/jason-bateman-jennifer-aniston-jeffrey-katzenberg-among-top-donors-to-lincoln-project/
How could they tell if the teachers went on strike?
Ms. Lightfoot lacks credibility to stare down the CTU, and the union knows it. She got into office on the backs of progressive unions, and the CTU is one of the most militant progressive unions in the country. They rallied and voted for her, so she belongs to them. Most folks in Chicago know that. So talking tough right now isn’t going to work, because all the CTU has to do is endorse her opponent in the next election and she’s done.
The interesting thing is that if you talk with average folks in Chicago, few really support the CTU. Then again few support the school board, and few support Ms. Lightfoot. They all have public approval ratings lower than that of the Congress.
Ms. Lightfoot will cave, but it won’t be all at once. Trying to get the CTU into the schools will be next month’s headline, and we won’t be any closer.
Lightfoot is an imbecile. Literally.
Imbeciles like Lightfoot (and di blasio and new LA DA gacon) are put in place to destroy, so her left/swamp handlers can fill the chaos with their fascism.
Bring back the CPS of the 1950’s, where all high school graduates were educate!
No! It’d be too hard to enslave them with leftist drivel.
This is kinda fun to watch but I’d be sadder for the kids and parents if the city wasn’t a liberal cesspool that probably voted almost in lock step for exactly what they got.
Deranged coked out looking bull dyke mayor vs Union mafia…undercard starts at 11.
healthyguy — This is like the old Iran / Iraq war — you want to root for both of them to lose.
Temperature checks, mandatory face masks, and social distancing: exactly the kind of cruelty we should all subject our children to.
As a retired research chemist I thought I would give back to the community and teach high school chemistry at our local high school when the teacher they had decided to take a job elsewhere. It was a great school, but the school superintendent as amazingly incompetent.
I was also told that I had to obtain a teaching certificate in order to teach more than a year or so and that the easiest way to do that was to get a four year degree or a Masters degree. (The university’s decision, not the school’s.) All my years teaching at the university level and HazMat to firemen and such allowed me no credit or leeway. I had to learn how to teach correctly.
I talked to the people at the university about their Master’s program and I was informed that I had to take the GRE to get accepted. I asked why and was informed that by getting an acceptable grade on the GRE it would show I had the capacity to handle the Masters of Education material. I asked if my Ph.D. in Chemistry did reflect my ability to handle their program and was told how they would run this by the dean, but probably not.
Then there was the teacher’s union. What an arrogant bunch of self absorbed egocentric fools.
Fortunately, the teacher I would be replacing decided against the move so I was never forced to go through this nightmare. While I respect teachers, I have zero respect for the university, their teaching program or the union. As far as I am concerned, they are a waste of time and have no reason for existing.
That’s fine if they don’t want to return. We don’t want to force anyone if they’re uncomfortable. Just cut off their paycheck and hire someone else. Shouldn’t be too difficult.