{"id":18561,"date":"2021-01-05T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/chicago-teachers-strike-pandemic-school-reopening-covid"},"modified":"2021-01-05T20:25:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T20:25:00","slug":"chicago-teachers-are-considering-a-strike-amid-pandemic-surge-with-covid-cases-rising-the-chicago-teachers-union-and-its-allies-are-resisting-mayor-lightfoots-plan-to-force-educators-back-into-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/05\/chicago-teachers-are-considering-a-strike-amid-pandemic-surge-with-covid-cases-rising-the-chicago-teachers-union-and-its-allies-are-resisting-mayor-lightfoots-plan-to-force-educators-back-into-th\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Teachers Are Considering a Strike Amid Pandemic Surge – With Covid cases rising, the Chicago Teachers Union and its allies are resisting Mayor Lightfoot’s plan to force educators back into the classroom\u2014and could walk off the job."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t\t\t

As the coronavirus pandemic enters<\/a>\nits deadliest phase yet, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and its allies are resisting Mayor Lori Lightfoot\u2019s plan to reopen school buildings and resume in-person learning this month.<\/p>\n

Over 10,000 CTU members have pledged their opposition to the reopening plan put forward by the mayor and Chicago Public Schools (CPS), citing serious concerns over safety and transparency. <\/p>\n

In-person learning is set to resume for pre-K students on January 11, and for elementary school students on February 1. Mayor Lightfoot and CPS have not yet indicated when they plan to reopen high schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our members are not feeling safe at all, they\u2019re feeling more anxious and scared than ever,\u201d said CTU President Jesse Sharkey. He added that union members will hold meetings in the coming days and weeks and may consider holding a strike authorization vote.<\/p>\n

Lightfoot and CPS claim their determination to reopen schools at this time is a matter of equity for students of color who they say are falling behind under remote learning. But only<\/a>\n31 percent of Latino families and 33.9 percent of Black families feel comfortable sending their kids back to in-person learning. These are the same communities that have been hardest hit<\/a> by Covid-19. Across the country, other teachers\u2019 unions are similarly protesting<\/a>\nschool reopening plans that they deem unsafe. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest obstacle to reopening schools is the management of CPS, because they\u2019ve failed to reach the standards set by teachers and principals for our support of a reopening plan,\u201d said Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, which also opposes the rush to reopen. \u201cContrary to the words of our mayor and CEO, this reopening plan does not seek to address inequity, it is promoting inequity.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its members handpicked by the mayor, the Chicago Board of Education is the only unelected school board in Illinois. Meanwhile, 36 out of 50 elected alderpeople on the City Council have signed onto a letter<\/a>\nexpressing their concerns with the school reopening plan. Similarly, multiple local school councils\u2014elected bodies of parents, students and teachers\u2014have issued<\/a>\nresolutions<\/a>\nobjecting to the plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe the plan CPS has put forward is irresponsible. We don\u2019t think we are ready to send children back to the classroom, and neither should we send teachers and staff,\u201d said Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez. \u201cIt seems like every failure of this system ends up being the responsibility of teachers and staff to fix and we are always offering them in sacrifice when we can\u2019t make the systems work.\u201d<\/p>\n

CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates concurs. \u201cYou have a situation right now where principals, paraprofessionals, clinicians, classroom teachers, elected officials, students and their families are begging, demanding, asking for safety in the middle of a pandemic,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then the question comes to the Chicago Teachers Union, \u2018Are you all going on strike?\u2019 I actually think that\u2019s the wrong question. The right question has to be, \u2018Why aren\u2019t they\u2014the mayor and her team at CPS\u2014listening to everyone else?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, about 7,000 pre-K and special education teachers and staff were expected to return to school buildings, with their students set to return next week. Although CPS is threatening to discipline educators who refuse to return in-person, about 40 percent<\/a> did not reenter school buildings on Monday. <\/p>\n

At Brentano Math and Science Academy in Logan Square, teachers and staff who had been told to report inside the building on Monday instead set up tables and laptops in the school\u2019s outdoor courtyard, where they held remote learning sessions all day in below-freezing temperatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our biggest responsibilities is to protect, to guide and to advocate for our students at all times. This means we need to work to ensure their safety, the quality of their education and to set an example by standing up for our own health and safety too,\u201d said Annie Kellogg, a special education preschool teacher at Brentano.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work hard to attain our students\u2019 trust. This can take weeks and months,\u201d Claire Colt, a social worker at Brentano, explained. \u201cNow because of the anxiety and uncertainty caused by CPS reopening schools to in-person instruction at the height of the pandemic, there is a chance these relationships may be disrupted\u2026This means more losses for our students, precisely at a time when they need as much stability as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

According<\/a>\nto a CTU survey, 69 percent of educators who chose to return to school buildings on Monday reported<\/a>\npoor conditions, lack of PPE and inadequate air filters for classrooms. Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice K. Jackson posted photos on Twitter of their visit to two elementary schools\u2014but reporters were not invited<\/a> to these events, nor were they on the mayor\u2019s public schedule. <\/p>\n

The CTU is demanding<\/a>\nclear public health criteria for reopening schools, specifically that in-person learning only resume when Chicago\u2019s test positivity rate is below 3 percent. The city\u2019s current<\/a>\npositivity rate is over 10 percent and rising. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t go by any metrics or any data, they went by a date,\u201d Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said of CPS\u2019s reopening plan. \u201cAnd they picked a date that comes right after a period of time when people were gathering indoors and spreading coronavirus to each other during Christmas and New Year\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

A major point of contention between the union and CPS has been the school district\u2019s insistence that it can unilaterally impose a reopening plan without first reaching a negotiated agreement with the CTU. Last month, the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board denied the union\u2019s motion<\/a> for an injunction on the current reopening plan, but an administrative judge will hear the case<\/a> at the end of this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to work if the district simply continues dictating to us and doesn\u2019t sit at the table and listen to the people who are most on the ground, who know most about what the specific conditions are like in buildings,\u201d Sharkey explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more than what we are receiving in this moment,\u201d Davis Gates said. \u201cAnd it should not take a fight that shuts everything down to get those things.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n

This post was originally published on In These Times<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tAs the coronavirus pandemic enters
\nits deadliest phase yet, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and its allies are resisting Mayor Lori Lightfoot\u2019s plan to reopen school buildings and resume in-person learning this month.
\nOver 10,000 CTU members have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1096,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18562,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions\/18562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}