CHICAGO — In what’s become a recurring scene since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Chicago Public Schools reopened their buildings Wednesday to receive students — most of whom had spent only two days inside a classroom since winter break began more than three weeks ago.
Outside Kenwood Academy High School early Wednesday, a number of parents expressed relief their kids were back in class.
But one mom saw the school stoppage — five days of canceled classes after teachers refused in-person work — as a wasted opportunity to improve safety for students.
“No, I’m not happy that school is back in place because I feel that (CPS) didn’t do anything to guarantee the safety for the health of the students,” Kenwood Academy parent Kimberly Jones said after dropping off her daughter off.
Chicago Teachers Union leaders have said their work action — though it didn’t force a temporary return to remote learning as a large majority of members wanted — resulted in an agreement that provides enhanced COVID-19 safeguards like more masks and testing and a specific metric for when a school will pause in-person learning.
The union’s membership is voting Wednesday on that agreement. Its passage would bring an end to the latest labor dispute between the union and the school district amid the most recent surge in COVID-19, driven by the omicron variant.
CTU’s House of Delegates, its 600-member governing body, voted to suspend its temporary remote work action after the tentative deal with Chicago Public Schools was reached Monday.
In Jones’ view, the unexpected school break was counterproductive.
“All they did was have more days off,” she said. “A lot of the children were probably mingling, doing other things, so there was no reason for them to be out of school if you weren’t going to make sure that there was going to be testing before coming back to school.”
Jones added: “I do not feel that it was time (return to class) because kids are germy. Right now it’s flu season. It’s pneumonia season.”
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