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CHICAGO (CBS) — As a school showdown drags on for a second week, there is definitely no class for Chicago Public Schools on Monday.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has made it clear that she does not agree with the Chicago Teachers Union and wants teachers and students back in the classroom.
We will continue to negotiate through the night and will provide an update if we have made substantial progress.
— Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) January 10, 2022
While Lightfoot disputes the union’s remote learning request, her office is quietly allowing its employees to continue temporarily working from home.
But the mayor’s office said this is not an apples to apples comparison, going on to say it’s disingenuous to compare the City of Chicago’s telework policy to the Chicago Teacher’s Union leadership’s attempt to unilaterally impose system-wide remote schooling on hundreds of thousands of families through an illegal work stoppage. The city goes on to say its work arrangement has been in place since March 2020 and recently department heads were given the discretion to provide flexibility in ways that don’t impact the delivery of essential services.
The city considers teachers essential workers, though teachers worked remotely for more than a year.
The Chicago Teachers Union responded to CBS 2, saying it remains in bargaining for the safety of the students and school communities.
The CTU says this battle between it, CPS and Lightfoot has been a bargaining table for the past six months.
CPS Parent Megan Hasse sides with the mayor and wants kids back in the classroom but also says there should be options for parents to choose in-person learning or to stay remote.
“I think that there has to be an option for both sides of this argument,” she said. “Those that want to go in person who, for there kid that is the best option, they should be able to do that. And for those that want remote, we need to be able to provide options for them as well.”
Sunday night, the Chicago Department of Public Health hosted a forum to answer questions to give clarity to CPS parents about returnig kids to school during the Omicron surge.
“The rate of child hospitalizations is broadly similiar to what we would see in a bad flu year,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Arwady says that’s not true for adults, especially for unvaccinated adults.
“But luckily for kids, it is unusual for them to get serioulsy ill,” she said.
Arwady said since the beginning of this school year, CPS has had 53 outbreaks across 51 schools, which is out of 500 CPS schools. She said most of the outbreaks were students, which was about 64%.
Source: ChicagoCBS
