CTU releases list of demands for reopening CPS

The
Chicago Teachers Union — which waged an 11-day strike last fall
—�has released a list of demands it wants met before it agrees to
a return to in-person learning. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Some of the demands are likely to face immediate rejection by
city officials who have been adamant that it’s up to them to
decide how and when the nation’s third largest school district
will return to classrooms for the first time since March.

As the fight continues over the safe reopening of Chicago Public
Schools in the midst of a raging public health crisis, the Chicago
Teachers Union has released for the first time a list of demands it
wants met before members return to schools, including lower
COVID-19 test positivity rates, testing and vaccination protocols
and changes to both hybrid and remote learning.

Some of the demands are likely to face strong and immediate
rejection by city officials who have been adamant that it’s up to
them to decide how and when the nation’s third largest school
district will return to classrooms for the first time since
March.

The district and the union have maintained an increasingly
abrasive and hostile relationship, perhaps the least collaborative
of any major public school system in the nation, as the standoff
over reopening schools continues. The CTU’s public release of
demands after months of inaction at the bargaining table — which
includes about a dozen unproductive meetings in the past month —
hearkens back to the weeks leading up to last fall’s 11-day
strike that was the union’s longest in three decades.

After the union threatened a strike vote in August when Mayor
Lori Lightfoot was planning to send teachers and students back to
schools to start the fall, the table appears set once again for the
threat of a work stoppage, an option the CTU is considering. There
does not appear to be enough time for agreements to be reached on
all of these demands before preschool and special education cluster
program staffers are scheduled to return Jan. 4.

“The CTU is putting forward a safe reopening plan that
undercuts CPS’ ability to lie about us being the people who are
hurting education,†reads a preliminary document that the CTU
plans to publicize this week. “We will go back to in-person
school when CPS can demonstrate that they have taken our concerns
seriously.â€

CPS spokesman James Gherardi said in a statement that district
representatives will continue meeting with the union, “but
proposals that contradict public health guidance and reduce
instructional time will not be accepted.†He said that after 43
meetings since June, this is the first written proposal related to
in-person instruction that the CTU has submitted.

Ashlee
Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times The union’s House of Delegates (pictured
meeting during last’s year’s strike) met Wednesday to discuss
demands for returning to schools next month.

The union’s demands, approved by the 800-member House of
Delegates Wednesday evening, all fall under one of three
categories: Safety, equity and trust.

Among the equity demands that could be the least agreeable for
CPS are the CTU’s rejection of simultaneous teaching — in which
teachers instruct students in classrooms and remotely at the same
time — and a proposed reduction of remote learning screen time by
one hour each day. CPS’ current plan only works with simultaneous
teaching and would otherwise need a redesign. And schools chief
Janice Jackson said this week that a reduction in online
instruction would be a non-starter, despite complaints by families
all fall.

The CTU is also demanding clear public health criteria for
opening and closing schools and is proposing a 3% test positivity
threshold. Schools would reopen citywide for all students and staff
if the rate is lower, and would close if it’s higher, the union
said, with community-by-community decisions also possible if rates
vary. The city’s seven-day rolling average stood at 13.1%
Thursday.

City health officials have previously said they would look to a
case doubling metric, closing schools if total cases citywide were
doubling in less than 18 days. Gherardi, the CPS spokesman, called
the union’s proposed metrics “arbitrary standards that are not
based on actual public health recommendations,†and said “no
public health leaders have endorsed the positivity rate threshold
[of 3%] requested by the CTU.â€

New York City, home of the country’s largest school district,
used a 3% threshold when it closed schools last month — though
officials have since reopened while the city sits above that
benchmark. Case totals and test positivity have been the most
widely used metrics across the country.

Other safety proposals by the CTU include enforceable protocols
on masks, cleaning, health screening, PPE, social distancing and
ventilation. CPS has said it would implement policies on all of
those issues, but the union has said there need to be tighter rules
for when policies aren’t followed.

On testing, the union wants to target a quarter of district
staff on a weekly basis, rotating each week and focusing on
communities that have the highest positivity rates. CPS has said
it’s developing a plan for regular rapid testing of asymptomatic
workers but has released few details. The CTU is also demanding
comprehensive contact tracing and, once a vaccine is available,
access to a vaccine starting with the neighborhoods that have been
hardest hit by the virus.

In its “trust†category, the union is calling for a CPS-CTU
joint committee on COVID-19 that would include independent experts
who could conduct inspections, investigations and issue directives,
and is asking for parents, community members, principals and
building engineers to be brought to the bargaining table. The CTU
is also looking for safety committees to be established at each
school.

“The pandemic has closed schools. By not meeting these needs,
CPS is keeping them shut,†the CTU document reads.

CTU leaders in recent days have tried to preempt any blame the
union might receive for a delay in reopening by redirecting the
onus to City Hall. CTU President Jesse Sharkey said in a
livestreamed update to members Tuesday that he didn’t want
Lightfoot pushing a narrative that schools are closed because of
the union. He instead wanted to make clear that the pandemic forced
school closures and poor public health conditions have kept them
from reopening.

The CTU earlier this week filed a challenge with the Illinois
Educational Labor Relations Board seeking an injunction against
CPS’ planned reopening in January. If the board sides with the
union, the plans to return to classrooms would almost certainly be
delayed.

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