By SOPHIA TAREEN
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Cheri Warner, left, stands with her daughter, Brea, and speaks calling for the Chicago school district and teacher's union to focus on getting students back in the classroom Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, in Chicago. Hundreds of thousands of Chicago students remained out of school for a fourth day Monday, after leaders of the nation's third-largest school district failed to resolve a deepening clash with the influential teachers union over COVID-19 safety protocols. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
CHICAGO (AP) — Students are poised to return to Chicago Public Schools after leaders of the teachers union approved a plan with the nation’s third-largest district over COVID-19 safety protocols, ending a bitter standoff that canceled classes for five days.
While school districts nationwide have faced similar concerns amid skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, the labor fight in union-friendly Chicago amplified concerns over remote learning and other pandemic issues.
The deal approved late Monday would have students in class Wednesday and teachers back a day earlier. It still requires approval with a vote of the union’s roughly 25,000 members. Issues on the table have been metrics to close schools amid outbreaks and expanded COVID-19 testing
Neither side immediately disclosed full details of the proposal Monday evening, but leaders generally said the agreement included metrics to close individual schools and plans to boost district COVID-19 testing. The district notified parents in the largely low-income Black and Latino school district of about 350,000 students that classes would resume Wednesday.
“We know this has been very difficult for students and families,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at an evening news conference. “Some will ask who won and who lost. No one wins when our students are out of the place where they can learn the best and where they’re safest.”
In a dueling news conference, union leaders acknowledged it wasn’t a “home run” but teachers wanted to be back in class with students.
“It was not an agreement that had everything, it’s not a perfect agreement, but it’s certainly something we can hold our heads up about, partly because it was so difficult to get,” Union President Jesse Sharkey said.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s house of delegates voted Monday evening to suspend their work action from last week calling for districtwide online learning until a safety plan had been negotiated or the latest COVID-19 surge subsided. The district, which has rejected districtwide remote instruction, responded by locking teachers out of remote teaching systems two days after students returned from winter break.
While there has was some progress on smaller issues like masks, negotiations over the weekend on a safety plan failed to produce a deal and rhetoric about negotiations became increasingly sharp. Some principals canceled class Tuesday preemptively and warned of further closures throughout the week.
Earlier Monday, Union President Jesse Sharkey said the union and district remained “apart on a number of key features, accusing Lightfoot of refusing to compromise on teachers’ main priorities.
“The mayor is being relentless, but she’s being relentlessly stupid, she’s being relentlessly stubborn,” Sharkey said, playing on a reference the former prosecutor mayor made about refusing to “relent” in negotiations. “She’s relentlessly refusing to seek accommodation and we’re trying to find a way to get people back in school.”
CHICAGO (AP) — Students are poised to return to Chicago Public Schools after leaders of the teachers union approved a plan with the nation’s third-largest district over COVID-19 safety protocols, ending a bitter standoff that canceled classes for five days.
While school districts nationwide have faced similar concerns amid skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, the labor fight in union-friendly Chicago amplified concerns over remote learning and other pandemic issues.
The deal approved late Monday would have students in class Wednesday and teachers back a day earlier. It still requires approval with a vote of the union’s roughly 25,000 members. Issues on the table have been metrics to close schools amid outbreaks and expanded COVID-19 testing
Neither side immediately disclosed full details of the proposal Monday evening, but leaders generally said the agreement included metrics to close individual schools and plans to boost district COVID-19 testing. The district notified parents in the largely low-income Black and Latino school district of about 350,000 students that classes would resume Wednesday.
“We know this has been very difficult for students and families,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at an evening news conference. “Some will ask who won and who lost. No one wins when our students are out of the place where they can learn the best and where they’re safest.”
In a dueling news conference, union leaders acknowledged it wasn’t a “home run” but teachers wanted to be back in class with students.
“It was not an agreement that had everything, it’s not a perfect agreement, but it’s certainly something we can hold our heads up about, partly because it was so difficult to get,” Union President Jesse Sharkey said.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s house of delegates voted Monday evening to suspend their work action from last week calling for districtwide online learning until a safety plan had been negotiated or the latest COVID-19 surge subsided. The district, which has rejected districtwide remote instruction, responded by locking teachers out of remote teaching systems two days after students returned from winter break.
While there has was some progress on smaller issues like masks, negotiations over the weekend on a safety plan failed to produce a deal and rhetoric about negotiations became increasingly sharp. Some principals canceled class Tuesday preemptively and warned of further closures throughout the week.
Earlier Monday, Union President Jesse Sharkey said the union and district remained “apart on a number of key features, accusing Lightfoot of refusing to compromise on teachers’ main priorities.
“The mayor is being relentless, but she’s being relentlessly stupid, she’s being relentlessly stubborn,” Sharkey said, playing on a reference the former prosecutor mayor made about refusing to “relent” in negotiations. “She’s relentlessly refusing to seek accommodation and we’re trying to find a way to get people back in school.”
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