Chicago Public Schools is demanding that teachers report to their classrooms starting on Monday after weeks of contentious negotiations between the school district and the city’s teachers union over the reopening of schools in the midst of the pandemic. coronavirus.
In an effort to reach an agreement with the union, the Chicago Public Schools proposed a staggered schedule for teachers and students to return for face-to-face learning starting on Tuesday with pre-primary and special education students and ending on March 1 with the return of students from sixth to eighth grade.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools officials said teachers in the first group who did not receive special accommodations are due to return to school buildings on Monday, adding that those who do not return will be considered absent without a license and their access. school district systems will be closed.
Lightfoot and officials from the country’s third largest school district – with more than 350,000 students in more than 640 schools – have come back for these comments several times in the past few weeks, but there is still a chance that they will move forward with such warnings, a move that some say that could trigger a teachers union strike.
“Despite making significant concessions in an effort to reach an agreement with the CTU leadership, we do not yet have an agreement,” Chicago Public Schools tweeted Friday.
Access to staff vaccinations, remote learning accommodations in the event of an outbreak, and concerns about teachers who may expose vulnerable family members to Covid-19 are some of the key issues on which Chicago officials and the Teachers’ Union still disagree. as negotiations to reopen schools safely continue.
Chicago public schools said that while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines state that staff vaccination is not mandatory to reopen schools safely with mitigation measures planning to vaccinate 1,500 school district employees every week. In a press release on Friday, the union responded by saying that educators, staff and other school district officials are already struggling to get vaccinated “under the mayor’s ‘Hunger Games’ vaccine delivery system.”
The Chicago Public Schools “will commit to vaccinating only about 1,500 workers a week, without giving priority to employees who must return first or to those who live or work in the most affected communities – while refusing to increase their dose share. of vaccine as supply to the city of Chicago increases, “said the union.
Under the proposal of the Chicago Public Schools, the district will revert to remote learning for at least two weeks if “the positivity rate of the CPS surveillance test program reaches 2.5 percent or 50 percent of the school is on a 14-day operational break. “
This means that Covid-19 cases “in more than 200 schools would not be a reason to consider reinstating remote learning in the view of the mayor or CPS leadership,” said the Chicago Teachers Union.
The school district added that teachers who live with medically vulnerable family members will have access to a Covid-19 vaccine from Monday. If they decide to get the vaccine, they can work at home for two weeks after receiving the first dose. Those who refuse to get the vaccine while wanting to stay at home can take an unpaid leave with all the benefits, the Chicago Public Schools said.
The union said this proposal “denies remote work accommodations to 75 percent of educators with family members at high risk for COVID-19.”
