Chicago officials canceled classes citywide on Monday as they failed to reach a new agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
Union members voted last week to abruptly shift to virtual teaching, a move rejected by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Mayor Lori Lightfoot. City officials instead canceled classes and have been seeking to convince teachers to get back in classrooms.
So far, they have not been successful, leading to the fourth day of canceled classes.
“Although we have been negotiating hard throughout the day, there has not been sufficient progress for us to predict a return to class tomorrow,” Pedro Martinez, the CPS CEO, told parents in a letter late Sunday.
“We appreciate your patience and will continue providing you with updates as soon as they become available,” he added later.
Martinez and Lightfoot, a Democrat, say the union’s actions amount to an illegal work stoppage because they cannot under state law and the current collective bargaining agreement unilaterally decide not to teach in-person.
“What the Chicago Teachers Union did was an illegal walk-out. They abandoned their posts and they abandoned kids and their families,” Lightfoot said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The union argues the move was necessary because of the spike in COVID-19 cases and because there are allegedly not sufficient safety measures in place at schools.
“The Chicago Teachers Union has been at the bargaining table for the past six months—before the discovery and spread of the Omicron variant—with CPS and Mayor Lightfoot asking for collaboration and well-thought-out mitigation strategies to keep students, families and educators safe. Regrettably, these requests have fallen upon deaf ears, resulting in attacks on teachers and a five-day lockout that has disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of students and families,” the union said in a statement on Monday.
“The Union wants to reassure the parents and guardians of Chicago that we will remain at the bargaining table until we reach an agreement that will return us all to in-person learning safely and equitably,” it added.
Over the weekend, the union floated holding classes virtually through mid-January, a proposal that was quickly rejected by Lightfoot.
The union is facing an unfair labor practices complaint from the city and a lawsuit from a group of parents, who also allege the union is conducting an illegal strike.
“Parents are outraged. And they are making their outrage known to the teachers union,” Lightfoot said.
Union members planned on Monday to go to various neighborhoods to sign up students for COVID-19 testing before launching “car caravans” that would converge on City Hall as part of their effort to pressure the city into acquiescing to their demands.
From The Epoch Times
