The first wave of students, in pre-K and special education, should return Thursday. Other K-8 students will return in the coming weeks for limited classroom instruction. No plan has been defined for high school students, who will continue with online learning.
Talks about resuming classroom teaching since it became totally remote last March have been heated. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned teachers that they would be excluded from district systems if they did not report for service. The union responded by threatening to strike.
Chicago Public Schools officials insisted that it is safe to take face-to-face classes with protocols in place, such as wearing face covers and a $ 100 million safety plan that includes thousands of classroom air filters. District officials and Lightfoot said remote education is leaving many behind, mainly black and Latino students, who make up the majority of the district’s approximately 340,000 students.
The union says the district’s plans are insufficient to protect teachers and that there are not enough students interested in returning to the full picture of more than 600 schools. The union previously voted to challenge back-to-school orders and continued to teach remotely.
The first surveys with parents showed that about 77,000 students were interested in going back to school. When face-to-face classes were briefly resumed last month for special and pre-K education students, students attended approximately 19% of eligible students.