With classes axed again, Chicago fight with teachers union stretches into 2nd week

Cancels were canceled for a fourth day Monday in the nation’s third-largest school district as weekend negotiations between Chicago district officials and the teachers union over remote learning and other COVID-19 safety protocols failed to produce an agreement.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said in a joint statement Sunday evening that there wasn’t “sufficient progress” in talks to resume in-person classes Monday, extending disruptions into a second school week. But they vowed that negotiations would continue “through the night.”

Disputed issues included coronavirus testing and metrics for closing schools. The Chicago Teachers Union wants the option to revert to districtwide remote instruction, and most members have refused to teach in person until there’s an agreement or the latest COVID-19 spike subsides. But officials reject districtwide remote learning, saying that it’s detrimental to students and that schools are safe.

Because of the impasse, Chicago district officials opted to cancel classes throughout the school system Wednesday, just two days after students returned from winter break.

Chicago faces the same pandemic issues as other districts nationwide, with more reverting to remote learning as infections soar and as staff members are sidelined by the coronavirus. But the situation in union-friendly Chicago has been amplified in a labor dispute that’s familiar to families in the mostly low-income Black and Latino district, who experienced disruptions during a similar safety protocol fight last year, a 2019 teachers strike and a one-day work stoppage in 2016.

The announcement for the roughly 350,000-student district came as the principals of some schools had already notified families that their campuses would be closed for instruction Monday because of staffing shortages.

The tone of Lightfoot and Martinez’s Sunday evening statement suggested more progress than a day earlier when, shortly after the union made its latest offer public, the mayor and schools chief said, “CTU leadership, you’re not listening,” and vowed not to “relent.” The offer Lightfoot rejected included teachers reporting to schools Monday to distribute laptops for remote learning to temporarily start Wednesday. Both sides have filed complaints to a state labor board.

Union leaders have accused Lightfoot of bullying, saying they agree that in-person instruction is better, but the pandemic is forcing difficult decisions. Attendance was down ahead of the class cancellations because of students and teachers in isolation from possible exposure to the coronavirus and families opting to keep children home voluntarily.

“Educators are not the enemy Mayor Lightfoot wants them to be,” the union said in a statement Sunday, adding that the desire to be in the classroom “must be balanced by ensuring those classrooms are safe, healthy and well-resourced, with the proper mitigation necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

Union leaders did not immediately have a response after the district’s Sunday evening announcement of the cancellation of Monday’s classes.

There appeared to be some headway over the weekend toward a deal.

The district, which deems the teachers’ absences an “illegal walkout,” said late Saturday that it would offer more incentives for substitute teachers and provide KN95 masks for all teachers and students. It also said that the state of Illinois would provide about 350,000 antigen tests.

But both sides remained at odds on key issues, including teacher compensation and the metrics that would prompt individual school closures. The district said it wouldn’t pay teachers failing to report to schools, even if they tried to log into remote teaching systems. The union doesn’t want any of its roughly 25,000 members to be disciplined or lose pay.