With the first week of the fall term more than half over, the Chicago Teachers Union on Thursday accused Chicago Public Schools of “duct-taping” together COVID-19 safety measures.
The union told reporters that there are major problems with everything from the rollout of testing in schools to managing crowds in buildings to replacing “filthy” air filters.
“We were promised last Friday that about 50 schools would be able to [have] testing on Monday. We have yet to hear [about] those 50 schools,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said outside Barton Elementary School on the South Side. “We know, because parents are blowing up our switchboard, that they have very little information about testing as well. This has, quite frankly, been one of the worst rollouts at the worst possible time with one of the most serious things we’ve ever encountered.”
The union says that there are about 300 students and school employees across the district who are in quarantine but the district has not said what it might take to close an individual school or the entire district.
“As of today, in this moment, we don’t have an agreement on that,” Gates said.
“The expectation should not be that we are duct-taping layered mitigation in our schools,” she said.
Gates is calling for better cooperation between the CTU and the district on COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
A CPS comment wasn’t immediately available.
