CHICAGO _ The strike by Chicago Public Schools teachers and support staff has prompted classes to be canceled again Friday _ despite assurances by both sides that they're trying to reach a deal to end the walkout.
The cancellation of Friday classes means the strike has now tied the last major CTU walkout of 2012 in duration. That work stoppage lasted seven school days.
The strike also claimed another casualty Thursday as ACT college entrance exams, which were to be given to hundreds of CPS high school students on Saturday, have been postponed.
After talks ended Wednesday evening, the teachers union said tentative agreements had been reached on about 80 individual issues but not on its top priorities. The Chicago Board of Education has offered teachers a 16% raise over five years, while the union has asked for 15% in a three-year contract instead. The reports of progress came after a day of marches that shut down traffic in the Loop and a rally outside the Thompson Center.
No large-scale demonstrations were planned for Thursday as teachers headed back to morning picket lines.
But in another indication that the strike might not be over before the school week ends, the CTU as of early Thursday was already planning a rally for Saturday morning at Union Park, at the intersection of Ogden Avenue and Washington Boulevard in West Town near union headquarters.
In a communication to members, the union contended that its pressure on the city is working, and reminded members that "every news story about the mayor's first budget address became a story about our schools, our unions and our allies pushing back."
After a downtown rally early Thursday afternoon contrasting tax subsidies for developers with Mayor Lori Lightfoot's assertion that the school system has no more money available than what's been offered, the union planned to put on nonviolent civil disobedience training for its members, a tactic CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said was sometimes necessary "to have a voice in this country."
In comments made before 10 a.m. outside Malcolm X College, where negotiations have been ongoing, CPS Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade laid out some of the remaining sticking points, which include class sizes, staffing issues and preparation time.
"We still have really big issues on the table and we're waiting on CTU to counter on both class size and staffing," she said. "We are taking this very seriously at the table. We are bargaining in good faith, and CPS has given on a lot of key issues."
Echoing comments Lightfoot made Thursday, McDade suggested it is the union that isn't operating with a sense of urgency.
"This cannot go into next week," she said, but when asked whether she was issuing an ultimatum, she said she was not.
"We're not making ultimatums here. We understand what bargaining is, we understand that we're negotiating. But we also understand that as a district, we have to be financially or fiscally responsible.
Lightfoot on Thursday continued to criticize union leaders for what she said was their lack of urgency in negotiations, a point she has brought up repeatedly in her public remarks since the strike started.
"I wouldn't say bargaining has stalled, I don't think that's accurate, but we certainly aren't making the level of progress on a day-to-day basis that we need to," Lightfoot said while appearing at a clinic in Hyde Park to discuss her mental health services plan.
Lightfoot also stood firm on offering the union a five-year contract, rather than the three-year deal some in the CTU would prefer. "That's not going to be possible. Five years. Five years. That's what the fact-finder found, that's what we proposed, and it will be five years," she said.
As for the union starting civil disobedience training for its striking members, the mayor said she hopes it doesn't further slow negotiations.
"When parents hear that, they ask, and they've been asking, 'Wait, what does that mean? Does that mean they're not going to be at the bargaining table?' and I hope that's not the case," Lightfoot said.
During a Thursday morning news conference, Larry Alcoff, lead negotiator for SEIU Local 73, said the union has not had "any meaningful negotiations" with CPS since the strike began.
"Unfortunately, right now there is no one from the city and CPS that's interested in bargaining in good faith with us," Alcoff said.
Since the strike began, SEIU has had one informal session that lasted about an hour and last Monday, the two sides had a 12-minute bargaining session where management walked out on the union, Alcoff said.
"We're making a request to the mayor ... to come in the room with us, stay in the room with us, and roll up our sleeves together, and see if we can't work through the remaining issues that are open on the table between SEIU Local 73 and CPS," Alcoff said.
Earlier, union President Jesse Sharkey provided an update to reporters at a picket line outside Simeon Career Academy High School beginning about 7:20 a.m. Thursday.
"I think the public not only massively supports the strike ... but I think, more importantly, the public supports the demands."
Sharkey likened hammering out a deal to assembling a jigsaw puzzle, and said it's impossible to do so when Lightfoot has put some of the pieces in her pocket.
With the continued strike, he said teachers "who don't want to be on strike" aren't able to help students fill out college applications. Some sports teams that had qualified for state playoffs have been unable to participate, and Sharkey said, "From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry for those things."
But he said a sense of remorse is not a reason to "take the inadequate offer" from Lightfoot "and pretend it's adequate."
At Thursday's morning briefing, teachers from Simeon also shared their experience with class sizes there. Gabrielle Green, a second-year educator, said in her first year, two of her music appreciation classes had more than 55 students each.
"This is an outrage," Green said.
"I felt terrible at the end of the day" because students sat on the floor, lining the walls because there weren't enough chairs to accommodate them.
As the sun rose Thursday morning, teachers at Hamilton Elementary School in Lakeview began to gather for the sixth day of the strike.
Ian Ransdell, a physical education teacher at Hamilton, said they got a later start than past days.
"It's really long, but it sounds like negotiations are moving forward," he said.
Hamilton relies on parent fundraising to close gaps in funding, but Ransdell said other schools are not so lucky and that the strike is happening in part because of a show of support for them.
"It's 'cause it's what's right," he said.
Adam Loredo, a middle school English teacher, arrived at Hamilton a few minutes later. He serves as a school delegate, district strike organizer and a member of the bargaining team. As a third-generation CPS educator, Loredo said he understands the need for quality education across the city.
"Investing in our children is not a bailout, it's an investment in the future," he said. "Right now the ball is in the mayor's court."
He added that teachers are used to working in conditions far worse than Thursday morning's chilly weather.
"Teachers are good at teaching lessons and understanding lessons," Loredo said. "The lesson the city has taught us is that we have to take to the streets."
He said he missed his students and that being away from them has been "painful," but he has run into some of the them on the picket line.
"Naturally the first thing I ask is how their independent reading is going and what they've been doing in their spare time," he said.
Teachers, parents and a few dogs and children marched up and down Armitage Avenue in front of Lincoln Park High School on Thursday morning. A few stopped to make signs and decorate a large banner at a table labeled "pop-up art club," against the school's black wrought iron fence.
"There's a lot of uncertainty, but you just keep showing up," said Philip Kendall, a music teacher at Lincoln Park High School, as he reached the end of the block with his boyfriend, who is not a CPS teacher. Kendall was a CPS teacher during the 2012 strike but said that he feels more strongly about the communal issues this time around. Though class sizes don't affect his choir classes _ the more students who are in choir the better _ teaching beginner-level students instruments can be extremely challenging in a packed classroom.
"I really believe in what we're doing," he said.
