CHICAGO – The tentative agreement to reopen Chicago public high schools Monday has passed another hurdle and is heading to a full vote by the Chicago Teachers Union.
The pending deal was approved “overwhelmingly” by CTU’s House of Delegates late Thursday, and now needs a majority vote from the 25,000 rank-and-file members to be finalized, according to an email to members from union President Jesse Sharkey. That vote is expected this weekend.
The green light from the House of Delegates ended CTU’s work action this week in which high school staff members refused to report to buildings or staged “teach-outs” outside. It followed the rank-and-file high school steering committee unanimously recommending the delegates approve CPS’s offer.
“Our fight is anchored in the struggle to create the schools our students deserve,” Sharkey wrote in the email. “Our students are at the heart of that fight. They need us now more than ever.”
Among the last sticking points, according to the union, were accommodations for teachers with health challenges and the difficulties of limiting close contacts in high schools where students switch classes regularly.
One big win for the union in the proposed plan was CPS’s agreement to open the district’s four vaccination sites to students 16 and older and their families.
Ava Thompson, a senior at Jones College Prep, said a “good amount” of her classmates have already received their first vaccine doses. Some qualified because they have high-risk medical conditions or because they work in restaurants or in other eligible jobs. Others have traveled elsewhere in Illinois or to other states where anyone 16 and older qualifies. Thompson herself said she went to Springfield for her vaccine.
“What makes me feel more comfortable (about returning to school) is I know my peers are being vaccinated,” said Thompson, who spoke at a rally this week in favor of reopening CPS high schools, prior to the announcement of the tentative deal with the teachers union. “I understand some people might not feel comfortable, and that’s their choice.”
Roughly 36% of high school students had indicated they want to return to buildings during survey results CPS released in late March. Among those grades, 62% of white students opted in, compared with 54% of multiracial students, 36% of Black students, 29% of Asian students and 28% of Hispanic and Latino students.
Under the proposal’s terms, any plan to expand a school’s attendance model — which spells out the number of days students will attend classes in person and is based on a school building’s capacity to do so safely — would first require a review from the union through the districtwide safety committee.
The proposal would allow high school principals or supervisors to grant teachers or clinicians the option to work remotely on a given day of the week if their work or instructional environment is not “safe or conducive to instruction” and if they have no in-person students that day. The districtwide safety committee also would have the ability to review a high school teacher’s or clinician’s remote work approvals.
