Chicago Teachers Union Votes Not to Return to Schools as Parents Beg Teachers to Reconsider
“My children have always loved school but I’m heartbroken to say that after 10 months of nothing but e-learning, the spark my children have for school has faded.”
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted not to return to classes on Monday, January 25, citing safety issues despite the fact that schools around the state and nation have opened without too many problems.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) said that 130 private and parochial schools along with 2,000 learning centers returned to classrooms in the fall.
As if we needed more proof that the CTU only cares about causing trouble and not the kids.
Preschool and special education teachers and 6,500 students returned to the classrooms on January 11.
The second wave with 70,000 elementary kids should have gone back on Monday, January 25.
From WGN:
About 10,000 kindergarten through eighth grade teachers were supposed to be back in the classrooms Monday.
A week ahead of in-person learning returning for their students on Feb. 1. However, that in-person date for teachers has now been pushed to Wednesday.
CTU says 86% of its 25,000 members participated in a vote, and 71% of those who voted opted to stay remote for the time being.
In response, CPS pushed their start date by a couple of days — but that means things could come to a head on Wednesday.
The CTU and CPS have these unresolved issues:
The key unresolved issues are: which teachers and staff who have a household member with a vulnerable medical condition are eligible for accommodations for remote work; the public health metrics that determine the reopening or closing of individual schools and the district as a whole; how vaccines factor in to requiring staff to work in person; and the scope of districtwide testing of staff and students.
The CTU shot back that only 19% of eligible students for in-person instruction returned in the first wave. They don’t want the teachers to go back if only 20% of the students return.
I do not know what will happen to the teachers who returned in the first wave. The union doesn’t want them to show up while the district expects them to teach on Monday.
What About the Parents and Students?
What do the parents have to say?
Block Club Chicago reported that some parents showed up outside the CTU building on Saturday to ask the teachers to please return to the classrooms.
One mother, Michelle, has an autistic son in pre-K. He returned last week, but “he’s already waited too long for in-person learning to return.”
Luckily, Michelle has seen her son improve. She wants other kids to have that chance to improve as well:
Holding a green sign that read, “Our kids are falling through the cracks,” Michelle said she thinks the CPS plan is safe and has already seen improvements in her son’s learning in the last two weeks. She does not want to see a teacher strike that could affect her son’s progress.
“When they started school two Mondays ago to Friday, he has shown great improvements. That’s why he needs school,” Michelle said. “I feel bad for these teachers because I know how it is to be in this predicament and I want to support them but I have to look out for my son because he really needs to be social.”
Albert Molina has two children in CPS. Unfortunately, remote learning affected their love for learning:
“My children have always loved school but I’m heartbroken to say that after 10 months of nothing but e-learning, the spark my children have for school has faded,” Molina said, also an educator and administrator.
The parents said they respect and support the teachers but also want to make sure their children receive a quality education in-person.
“We value and so greatly appreciate their tremendous efforts during this difficult time,” Molina said. “I’m confident that they wish to return to in-person learning just as much as our students and parents.”
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Comments
Albert Molina is “confident” the teachers want to return?
What is he smoking?
I, and every teacher in my school with whom I have talked about virtual school, absolutely HATE virtual teaching. My school gave parents the option for their students to be virtual or in the classroom and almost all chose classroom. Which is great. Except I probably spend as much time on the 5% of virtual kids as I do on the 95% of the rest. Trying to simultaneously teach in-person and virtual really doesn’t work. My solution was for everybody to get their ass back to school, but my state disagrees.
I would rather be virtual than have to manage virtual and classroom at the same time. I would much rather have no virtual students at all. Hell, most of the kids that went virtual in my neck of the woods don’t even have a damn internet connection.
Teachers need an incentive to return, as in unpaid leave until they return, and school districts returning all that money to taxpayers.
How about clawing back money they were paid to screw off?
I would go a step further, every teacher should be tested for competency, and those who cannot pass, terminated.
Fire them
And whos going to give them the PATCO treatment? You still have a union to deal with.
Yup – let’s get those recently laid off pipeline workers to teach school instead. Don’t be surprised when test scores improve either!
Better to get them to teach both school administrators and teachers.
Time to step up would have been when we had an administration that would have done something. Now you have a regime that 100% behind the greedy union.
Refusing to do their job? Don’t pay them for a job not done. Fire them and get people actually willing to do the job.
Dear educators: Shut up and teach.
Your lives are no more important than the lives of millions of essential workers who have shown up every day since this nonsense started.
The checkers at my grocery store have been on duty throughout the pandemic. Are we seriously to believe that teaching school is more dangerous??
So much for the Left’s fealty to almighty “science”
“As parents beg teachers to reconsider”.
See that’s you’re fucking problem right there.
You don’t ‘BEG’ them to do ANYTHING.
You tell them to get their asses back to work or they’re fucking fired. BEGGING them is how you got to the point they can do whatever the hell they want.
Like Ronald Reagan with PATCO. “Return to work or you’re fired!
Why even give them a chance to go back. Do you want them teaching your or anyone else’s kids. Just fire them and be done with it.
Understand the root causes here. The CTU is one of the most militant unions in the US; they are red through and through. Many in their leadership are hard-core socialists. This job action (that’s what it is) is designed to advance the socialist agenda. They have the idea that they can continue to push; after all, they haven’t yet met any effective push-back.
Plus, another important point — they’ve been getting paid all along. Not only have they not been working, but some have actually moonlighted elsewhere, in pod-teaching, and so on. To use the expression from the Depression, “nice work if you can get it.” So NOW we’re going to insist that they return to work? When they can stay at home and shop Amazon while getting paid?
Yes, they’ll go back eventually when political pressure is sufficient to cause the union leadership to understand that they’ve grabbed everything they can grab (this time).
But that hasn’t happened yet.
Alternative headline: Swarm of parasites bleed hosts dry as hosts suffer interminable consequences of inabilty to rid themselves of parasites.
Time to fumigate.
Parents are not part of the equation. It’s sad that students aren’t either. It’s teacher unions vs politicians. Wake up parents. Stop voting for this madness.
Darn good thing that this is “for the children”
Go to the superintendent and tell them that teachers that don’t teach shouldn’t get paid. If you can, pull you kids out of public school and send them to a private one.
Pro tip to all those parents in Chicago. Move!
I’m sure a lot of them wish they could.
All teachers and special needs students have been vaccinated in my county. All elderly parents of teachers are now eligible. There is something seriously wrong with these counties.
As they demand to be prioritized to get President Trump’s Warp Speed Vaccine.
And they are ‘teaching’ children?
Albert Shanker is rolling in his grave, surrounded by real teachers.
Private Academies should spring up, much like the reaction to Democrat education policies in simpler times.
Why would they return? They are getting paid now and they don’t have to work. Here is a better idea. They should have all been laid off a year ago.
Fire those who will not return to work and forfeit any teacher retirement they may have accrued. Allow temporary teaching certificate for any veteran with a 2 year degree for 4 years. Host classes in high schools for the vets to get their full teaching cert at an accelerated level.
The Chicago teachers are getting full salary and benefits for not teaching. Why on earth would they want to go back to work? That is the problem with their system. There is no incentive to do anything but sit back and collect their salary.
Teacher Unions must be broken. They are the leading reason our education system is failing with honors. They all need to go right up to state level administrators who approve the Anti-American, Marxist lack of true history in our schools and colleges.
No “public” employee – as in taxPAYER-paid – should be represented by a union. Even FDR decried that idea.
“The parents said they respect and support the teachers but also want to make sure their children receive a quality education in-person.”
It’s one or the other: those are mutually exclusive options, you can’t have both. As long as even the complaining parents say that they support the teachers, the teachers will not return. Either the parents flat-out stop supporting the teachers, or accept the fact that there will no longer be a public school – just endless negotiations while the teachers continue to draw salary.
Tell me again how “it’s for the children.” Even the kids know it’s all a game.
The “teachers” UNION has just provided an excellent advertisement for private and parochial/church schools! Unlike those who teach in private and parochial/church schools, these taxpayer-paid employees of the Chicago public school system get to play at some kind of worthless on-line classes – staying in their jammies, sitting at a kitchen table, etc. While “Rome burns” and the children of the public school system in Chicago suffer.
It’s important to be fair. So if the unbending authorities insist on in-person teaching, then they should agree to compensation if teachers then become infected with the virus. And appropriate compensation should be guaranteed, since it is the authorities who are violating proper pandemic protocols and requiring the teachers to expose themselves to possible illness and death. Let the school board assure teachers that they will receive compensation if infected. Say, $5,000 a week until they recover, and $5 Million to their heirs if they die from the virus or sequelae. That’s the capitalist way, isn’t it? Risk/reward.
If only there was some organization, like, say, a political party, that could go into Chicago and organize these parents to run against the current school board members, or run a recall effort (if that is possible in that jurisdiction), and apply political pressure on those who are making these decisions to allow these unions to run roughshod over education. If only.
Ask this question: What is the purpose of the government schools? Is it a jobs program, or are they supposed to prepare our youth for advancing in life?
Teachers not reporting to teach and conduct classes will not be paid. Attitudes will change immediately!