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Mayor’s CPS team refuses to bargain Wednesday, after demanding that the Union bargain daily.

  • 4:00 p.m., Wednesday, August 11: Open bargaining update, La Villita Church, 2300 S. Millard, Chicago. This event will also be livestreamed to the CTU’s Facebook page; reporters remaining remote, please register via Zoom at this link.

CHICAGO — On Tuesday, the mayor’s CPS team told the CTU that it was breaking its days-old public promise to test all students and school staff weekly for COVID, and would instead test a fraction of unvaccinated students ‘as necessary’ this fall. CPS continues to stall in agreeing to even the most basic safety metrics in bargaining, essentially seeking instead to roll back even the basic protections won last spring.

Parents, students and educators are fed up with the endless gaslighting and indifference to safety and equity — and will hold an open bargaining meeting this Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. to lay out safety and equity concerns and challenge CPS’ foot-dragging at the bargaining table. News outlets can attend in person at La Villita Church, located at 2300 S. Millard in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. The event will also be livestreamed to the CTU’s Facebook page, and all but speakers and reporters are being encouraged to register and attend remotely given the growing risk of COVID locally. Reporters can also register via Zoom at this link.

Mayor Lightfoot’s administration has received $4 billion in federal recovery funding, about equally split between the City and CPS. For about 3% of CPS federal recovery funds — $70 million — CPS could make sure that every school has a nurse, a social worker, and a librarian.

Instead, in bargaining, Lightfoot’s CPS team continues to reject spending even a small fraction of those funds on desperately needed staff, capital improvements and long-term sustainability for students and school communities who confronted massive inequities long before the pandemic hammered their neighborhoods. Instead, Mayor Lightfoot’s CPS bargaining team has:

  • Failed to provide 100 schools with a full-time social worker this fall, and will force 180 schools to go without a fulltime nurse in the building every day — during COVID’s fourth and most sweeping surge;
  • Rejected any safety metrics of any kind that would guide the need to trigger remote learning in the face of a COVID outbreak at the classroom, school, or district level;
  • Refused to discuss hiring nurses, social workers and other vital school staff, even though federal money is in place to help fund this work now;
  • Restricted access to CPS’ ‘chaotic’ Virtual Academy ‘option’, and rejected any job security for educators who are being asked to teach our most vulnerable students remotely, even as a growing number of families are demanding real remote options;
  • Moved to deprive students and school communities of the services and resources they need now, because CPS doesn’t want to commit to sustaining those desperately needed equity investments going forward.

This fall, CPS will fail to provide 100 schools with a full-time social worker this fall, and will force 180 schools to go without a fulltime nurse in the building every day — during COVID’s fourth and most sweeping surge.

Reporters can register to attend virtually at this link: www.facebook.com/ctulocal1/videos/1466554520382317

The Chicago Teachers Union represents more than 25,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in Chicago Public Schools, and by extension, the nearly 400,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third-largest teachers local in the United States. For more information please visit the CTU website at www.ctulocal1.org.

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