Chicago Teachers Union Approves Tentative Deal, Students To Return To Classrooms

“Chicago Teachers Union members have voted two-to-one in favor of a reopening deal with Chicago Public Schools, signaling that in-person classes can resume Thursday as planned,” the outlet reported. “The union’s 25,000 members had through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to vote on the proposed framework after its 600-member House of Delegates on Monday decided to put the decision in members’ hands. Now ratified, it is a binding agreement between CTU and CPS.”

The deal will allow those students currently scheduled to be in classrooms — preschool and prekindergarten students, moderate to severe special education students, and many of the district’s K-8 students — to return to in-person instruction, and creates a path forward for students and teachers looking to return to high school classrooms, a process set to begin in early March.

As the Daily Wire reported earlier this week, CPS and CTU have been at odds since early January over a plan to have most Chicago students return to classrooms on February 1st.

“CPS insisted that it spent hundreds of thousands readying classrooms for mid-pandemic instruction and encouraged teachers to ‘follow the science,’ as noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which claims returning to in-person learning is largely safe,” the Daily Wire noted. “CTU demanded that all teachers be vaccinated before CPS was allowed to reopen and that teachers who had contact with ‘vulnerable individuals’ be allowed to work from home in perpetuity.”

At one point, teachers even suggested that schools could remain closed until the pandemic ended — a timeline that could have kept virtual learning alive for the next several years.

Chicago Public Schools and Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, insisted, though, that in-person learning had to resume. In a fiery speech last week, Lightfoot declared that “enough is enough” and demanded that teachers return to classrooms and the union return to the bargaining table. At that point, the union threatened to strike, something that might have costs its members dearly, given that the CTU has a contract in place and a strike, at this point, would have been illegal.

CPS also threatened to lock teachers who refused to return to work out of their virtual learning software.

Tuesday’s deal seemed to fall short of CTU’s expectations.

“We did not get what we wanted or what we deserved,” CTU president Jesse Sharkey said in a statement. “We got what we were able to take. CTU members fought hard and sacrificed for this, so we have to protect and use it.”

“Although Sharkey acknowledged some wins for the CTU bargaining team, including a delayed reopening, enforceable safety commitments, vaccine promises, and additional remote work accommodations, he called it a ‘disgrace’ that CPS would not delay reopening a few more weeks to allow more time for vaccinations and preparations,” the Tribune reported.

“This vote reaffirms the strength and fairness of our plan, which provides families and employees certainty about returning to schools and guarantees the best possible health and safety protocols. Our schools are fully prepared to safely welcome back students beginning [Thursday], and we are eager to provide additional support for the families who need more than remote learning can provide,” Lightfoot said in her own statement.

Related: ‘Enough Is Enough’: Chicago Mayor Demands Teachers Return To Work In Fiery Speech

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