Chalkbeat

Chicago Public Schools is in new era for negotiations with the CTU. What could it mean for schools?

2024-03-06T22:24:06+00:00

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When former Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey thinks about the dynamics between City Hall and the union, he flashes back to 2011. That’s when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended a decision to cancel pay raises for teachers by saying they got other types of salary boosts, while “our children got the shaft.”

The stinging quip illustrates how contentious contract negotiations and the relationship between the CTU and city officials were back then, ultimately leading to a weeklong teachers strike in 2012, said Sharkey, who currently sits on the union’s executive board.

After years of thorny relationships with district officials and mayors who did not align with the union on how to improve or support schools, the CTU is expected to begin bargaining this spring over a new contract with a district that now answers to Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher who rose to power as a CTU organizer.

“This is going to be a struggle because the culture in Chicago with the public schools and the teachers union is a culture of ‘No,’ and ‘Make me,’ and ‘OK,’” current CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said during a City Club speech Tuesday. “That’s different from what we are embarking on this time. We’re saying, ‘How might we?’ That’s a different question.”

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Damen Alexander said the district “looks forward to negotiating a fair contract that balances both the interests of the District’s hard-working educators and our duty to be fiscally responsible.”

A City Hall spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

The latest contract talks will come amid massive change for Chicago Public Schools. The first-ever school board elections will take place this fall and a 21-member partially elected board will take office next January. And bargaining will happen as the district attempts to fill a projected $391 million budget deficit for next year, after four years of being buoyed by $2.8 billion in federal COVID relief dollars that will soon run out.

Amid those challenges, the union has a strong ally in office.

The CTU was Johnson’s largest campaign donor, and Davis Gates introduced him at his victory party.

Before the union propelled one of its own into the mayor’s office, the teachers union regained some bargaining power in 2021 when state legislators passed a law that restored its right to bargain over a broader set of issues — such as class size or the length of the school day — which had been restricted since 1995.

Still, Johnson signaled on the campaign trail that he would face “tough decisions” as mayor in negotiations with the CTU and wouldn’t be able to meet all of the union’s demands.

“So who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?” he said during a mayoral forum last year.

But the Johnson administration has already overseen policy changes the union counts as victories, including expanded parental leave for CTU members, a promise to remove school resource officers by next school year, and a commitment to rethink school choice policies.

The union’s House of Delegates, made up of hundreds of educators across the city, is scheduled to vote Wednesday on proposals crafted by the union’s various committees and developed as a response to what CTU members said they wanted to see in the next contract, according to the union.

Those proposals include a wide range of ideas, from pay raises and housing assistance for teachers to providing affordable housing and support for homeless students and their families.

While union officials acknowledge that things are different this time around, they have also emphasized that Johnson does not “have a magic wand” and pushed back against the idea that the union will get everything it asks for.

“I think it is ridiculous for anyone to think that the Black man on the fifth floor who comes from the progressive movement has fairy dust to sprinkle to end this quickly,” Davis Gates said in an interview with Chalkbeat last month. “There is an entire bureaucracy that has been hired and trained to tell the Chicago Teachers Union, ‘No.’”

Joe Ferguson, president of Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said the mayor can’t meet all of the union’s demands because “the money isn’t there for it.” He said the public deserves to hear from the board and the mayor on where they’ll draw the line.

“Where those boundaries are, nobody can say,” Ferguson said.

Past tensions between CTU and City Hall prompted strikes

Over the past decade, contract negotiations between CPS and the CTU have resulted in two strikes that garnered national attention and inspired education labor fights around the country.

In 2012, after months of simmering disagreement and the city skipping a raise for teachers, the union went on strike for seven days at the start of the school year. Emanuel had pushed for a longer school day and embraced education reform ideas sweeping the country at the time, including a new way to evaluate teachers, which the union strongly opposed. He also refused to bargain over issues like class size, which at the time, state law did not require CPS to do.

An 11-day strike happened in 2019 under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who the union had initially expected to align with more than Emanuel. The union was fighting for “common good” ideas that exceeded the scope of a teacher’s daily duties but were meant to improve students’ and families’ lives, such as ensuring that every school had a nurse, social worker, and librarian. The contract ultimately locked in some of those demands, as well as other wins, such as a $35 million fund to help reduce class sizes, but ultimately, the long strike left many teachers and families frustrated.

Those sour dynamics appear to be gone with Johnson’s election, said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who co-wrote a book about CTU’s 2012 strike.

“Both parties believe that the other party understands and would be respectful of each other’s perspectives, which certainly wasn’t the case with the two previous mayors or even the previous CEOs — and we’ve gone through a few of them in Chicago,” he said.

Sharkey noted that Johnson’s priorities include many ideas the union agrees with and gave rise to, such as creating more sustainable community schools that provide wraparound services to families. His campaign platform also closely mirrored a document CTU first put out in 2012 titled “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve,” which was updated in 2018 and most recently, in 2022.

In general, the union has found that working with the district has been easier and more receptive since Johnson has taken office, according to Sharkey and Davis Gates.

But Davis Gates said she expects plenty of disagreement because she still feels that the agency has a bureaucracy “that cannot collaborate, that does not say yes, and has a difficult time understanding how to partner with us.”

Union again pushing ‘common good’ demands

The union is expected to push for cost-of-living raises that keep up with or exceed inflation and a more uniform overtime pay policy, according to proposals leaked to conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute, which a CTU spokesperson confirmed are real. The union also wants changes to the teacher evaluation process, including to codify that evaluations cannot be used for layoffs.

Proposals also include codifying health care policies, such as gender-affirming care, paid parental leave for employees, abortion coverage, and access to weight loss medical care, such as bariatric surgery.

In a more novel demand, the union will also push for housing assistance for its members, but the leaked proposal doesn’t include more details on how that would be done. Under Emanuel, the city offered assistance to police officers who wanted to buy homes in the areas they worked in, but few officers took advantage of the program.

In the classroom, the union is expected to renew a push to give elementary school teachers more preparation and collaboration time during the school day, Sharkey said. That was a major demand in the 2019 contract negotiations that largely did not come to fruition – and could again be difficult to secure this time around given the complicated logistics of tweaking a school day.

Union officials also expect proposals around bilingual services for students, including on attracting staff and expanding access to bilingual training for teachers, and retaining more special education staff. Both bilingual and special education are teacher shortage areas.

Davis Gates said they’ll continue demanding a librarian and nurse be staffed at every school.

Separately, union officials are expecting to push for more common good items, Davis Gates said. This will include creating a career and technical education program that would involve building houses for homeless students and their families, according to the leaked proposals.

Common good proposals will also include creating more sustainable community schools, Davis Gates said. The union is also interested in pushing for more “green” – or energy efficient – schools, such as by installing more solar panels. The district is already planning to purchase 50 electric school buses.

CPS’s budget deficit could complicate negotiations

Contract talks will begin as the district plans for its budget next year, which is projected to be $391 million in the hole. That could make costly union proposals a tough sell for the district.

District officials have for months publicized the budget deficit as federal COVID relief dollars run out. The district can either cut programming or find more money, which officials want to do by demanding more funding from the state.

Bruno, the labor expert, said it is a good sign the union agrees that Springfield should provide more money, because that means all negotiating parties agree on a solution to a significant problem.

However, Ferguson, from the Civic Federation, has little hope that more money is coming, in part because of what appears to be a “frayed” relationship between City Hall and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office. Pritzker recently proposed a budget that provides the same increase to K-12 funding as last year. And because CPS’s deficit is driven by the loss of COVID relief dollars, this year’s negotiations are “a fairly unique stew,” he said.

“There have been deficits being faced in the past [and] constraints on funding sources, but none that have come in this particular context, where not only is there a question of, where is more money coming from, but it also comes at a moment when we all know that recent existing streams are going to end,” Ferguson said. “And it has also been made abundantly clear by Springfield, by the governor, that there is no money to be gotten from the state.”

Union officials said they don’t yet know the price tag of their proposals, and they don’t expect to propose “money-saving” ideas. But Sharkey said they’ll have ideas on how the district can fund their proposals “and would expect the board to try to work with us on that.”

Asked how the district’s financial picture will impact its approach to negotiations, a CPS spokesperson pointed to the district’s budget deficit and said the district must be “fiscally responsible.”

Even with financial challenges, Sharkey said he expects the union and the district to work out disagreements in a more timely manner, unlike past negotiations that were “unproductive for months.”

Davis Gates said CTU continues to see its contract as “leverage for the common good,” has “high expectations” for upcoming negotiations, and is hoping for more agreement that will finally deliver on the CTU’s push to get schools more resources.

At the City Club speech this week, in a room full of business leaders, educators, and philanthropists, Davis Gates said she expects people to be skeptical that the mayor is going to “give CTU everything it’s asking for.”

“I hope he does,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Who’s the boss? Chicago principals report to many different people.

2024-02-27T20:48:12+00:00

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During Femi Skanes’ 10 years as a Chicago principal, her boss was primarily a district official known as a network chief, she said. Alan Mather, who was also a principal for a decade, says he answered to then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan.

Many principals in Chicago also feel their Local School Council, or LSC, is a boss, while others view the council as more of a partner.

Principals are the leaders of their schools and staff. But in Chicago, multiple entities have power over principals. Later this year, Chicagoans will begin electing school board members, marking another shift in control over the city’s school system, which has been run by the mayor and a hand-picked CEO since 1995 and by a decentralized system of elected LSCs since 1988.

The city’s principals have unionized in hopes of creating more job protections for a role that has seen high turnover in recent years.

“Right now it’s kind of the wild wild west,” said Cynthia Barron, program coordinator and assistant professor with UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program. “We’re kinda all waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Barron, who spent more than three decades at CPS, said she doesn’t foresee immediate changes as a result of unionization or an elected school board. But, given that details around the future principals union contract and the elected school board are still being ironed out, she said there are “so many unknowns.”

How Chicago principals ended up with many bosses

Those unknowns — as the principals union takes root and the city moves to an elected school board — may disrupt an already complicated hierarchy.

As it stands now, a Chicago principal’s direct supervisor is the head of their network — the geographic area their school is organized under — and they are also accountable to their Local School Council, or LSC, a unique-to-Chicago elected body at most schools made up of parents, teachers, students, and community members, that can hire principals. Both have different hiring and firing powers.

Local School Councils were created in 1988 under the state’s Chicago School Reform Act, which gave LSCs the power to hire principals, approve school budgets, and approve annual school improvement plans.

The state amended that law in 1995 in an effort to centralize and improve the city’s school system. Lawmakers voted to keep LSCs but mandated training for them. The changes also gave the mayor sole authority over appointing the school board and replaced the superintendent title with “chief executive officer” — which stands today.

Today, LSCs can hire a principal and offer them a four-year contract. They can decide to keep the principal or fire them when their contract is up for renewal.

Network chiefs, on the other hand, work for the district and are tasked with ensuring that schools are complying with district policies and meeting academic and instructional goals, according to interviews with school leaders. Network chiefs answer to district leaders who report to the CEO, the Board of Education president, and the mayor. School leaders can also turn to their chiefs when they need extra support.

Both chiefs and LSCs use a similar rubric to evaluate principals annually. Only network chiefs can fire principals at any time for just cause.

Though LSCs hold power over principals, they do not have the same connection to district officials and the school board that a network chief does. It’s also not clear how they’ll interact with the school board once it expands and includes elected members.

Froy Jimenez is a member of the city’s Local School Council Advisory Board, which the state created to advise the Board of Education. Jimenez, a teacher and LSC member at Hancock College Preparatory High School, said he believes that LSCs and principals are “co-leaders” with the shared goal of supporting students.

“When we look at [the] budget, when we look at curriculum, when we look at any specific need of our school,” Jimenez said, “we’re doing it like we’re collaborating.”

Principals balance multiple interests

Principals’ responsibilities have grown over the past two decades and especially since the pandemic. Today, in addition to being instructional leaders, they’re expected to maintain relationships with students, families, staff, and sometimes elected officials, said Jasmine Thurmond, director of Local School Council principal support at CPS.

Some school leaders appreciate the variety of voices, but others often feel torn between conflicting demands.

One principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, was asked by parents who attended LSC meetings to “publicize or encourage things like picketing or public demonstrations” over a district decision this year to suspend bus service for 5,500 general education students, largely those at selective enrollment and gifted schools.

The principal agreed that the lack of busing has been challenging for many of her students. But she explained to parents and the LSC that publicly protesting the busing decision could put her in hot water with her other boss: the district.

“I have to figure out how I can advocate for the needs of my students and the needs of my families,” she told Chalkbeat, “but in a way that is very respectful of the people that are making these decisions — and that is a really difficult balance to strike.”

She has a good relationship with her LSC, which she said is “fair and reasonable” but also demanding. The council requests a lot of data and presentations. Meeting those needs and building personal relationships can be difficult along with all of her other responsibilities as a school leader, she said.

Ryan Belville, principal of McAuliffe Elementary School, said he has a close bond with his LSC that grew during the pandemic, when they worked hand-in-hand to make sure students and families had what they needed. Belville said the LSC has also held him accountable “to serve the school community effectively.”

“I really see why LSCs were developed and why they were put into action,” Belville said. “It’s something we’re very fortunate to have in Chicago.”

Sometimes the LSC wields its power, as Hancock College Preparatory High School did last year when it decided not to renew its principal’s contract in the face of student and teacher opposition.

But there are limits to an LSC’s authority.

At Jones College Prep, the LSC voted in 2022 to recommend the district fire then-principal Joseph Powers based on various allegations, including that he was ignoring problematic teachers and was not addressing issues around gender and racial discrimination. His contract was not up for renewal at the time, so the LSC could not fire him outright.

CEO Pedro Martinez declined to fire Powers, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence. Later that year, CPS put Powers on leave after a student dressed in a Nazi uniform was seen goose-stepping in the school’s Halloween parade. Powers then retired.

One Chicago elementary school principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said that contract renewal time can sometimes feel political. She must ensure that she’s keeping “these X number of people happy or satisfied” so that she can keep her job. At the same time, she wishes she had “more robust” feedback from her LSC, which she thinks is lacking at her school because people often don’t have time to participate — an issue many LSCs face.

On Chicago’s West Side, the LSC at Oscar DePriest Elementary School is working on ensuring enough participation on its council. It is also figuring out how it will work with the school’s new principal, whom it hired in November after interviews and a candidate forum, said Wallace Wilbourn, a teacher and LSC member.

He wants the LSC to have a greater voice on the school’s curriculum, its culture, and how it approaches assessments.

But he’s already seen that many people are trying to hold the principal accountable. Ever since being hired, Wilbourn said, his principal has had to spend a lot of time in meetings with the network.

Network chiefs, top CPS officials hold power

Barron, with UIC, said the relationship between a network chief and principal more closely resembles a typical employee-manager relationship: The two work together on a leadership plan that has goals to hit throughout the year.

Skanes, who was the principal of Morgan Park High School until 2022, always viewed her network chief as her main supervisor. Feedback from the network chief was sometimes “attached to next steps, even in terms of promotion and opportunities,” she said.

The Chicago elementary school principal said the network chief is looking for things at the school that parents or community members may not have expertise in, such as best teaching practices, she said. Her LSC is more interested in school uniform policies or community events for families, she said.

“I think both of those perspectives are super important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be all one or another.”

A former Chicago principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said most of his network chiefs were good listeners and open to his ideas of how to improve his school. But he also felt pressure from the network to boost certain metrics, such as raising attendance by 10 percentage points, including by visiting student homes.

Those efforts resulted in a lot of pressure on staff and kids at his school who were already experiencing “so much trauma,” he said. After hitting the network’s goal, the principal eased up those efforts, saying it didn’t feel “worth the squeeze and my time and emotional energy.” Attendance rates dropped.

In that case, he decided to “take the heat from the network” because it meant more “sanity” for his school, he said.

A small share of schools have Appointed Local School Councils, or ALSCs, which don’t have the power to hire or fire principals but can provide nonbinding input on who they want to lead their schools. In those cases, the CEO gets final say on hiring a principal.

That was the case for Alan Mather, now the president of the Golden Apple Foundation. He became the principal of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2005 when the school was reopened as a selective enrollment high school. Mather was appointed by then-CEO Arne Duncan and the new school, which drew high-performing students from across the city, did not have an LSC. It wasn’t until his last year at Lindblom that an ALSC was formed, Mather said.

Mather considered Duncan to be his boss and was given a lot of autonomy to craft Lindblom’s culture and academics, such as adopting a year-round schedule during his time.

“It was the CEO who could have removed me at any time,” Mather said. “I was not working under a contract.”

As principals unionize, a question about management

When the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, or CPAA, decided to unionize last year, its president Troy LaRaviere promised to fight for better pay, less focus on bureaucratic tasks, more job security – including the ability to voice opinions publicly without punishment – and more due process when principals face accusations of misconduct.

LaRaviere did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. Another CPAA representative declined to comment, including to confirm whether the union has started bargaining, and deferred to LaRaviere.

The unionization effort could impact how network chiefs discipline and evaluate principals. But huge questions remain.

“We don’t know what is to come,” said Thurmond, from the district. She added that they’re “looking forward to deepening the collaboration” with CPAA to make sure principals are supported, versus the district “being perceived as an enemy.”

Some observers have wondered how a union contract might impact the authority of a network chief or LSC. For instance, will it be tougher for the LSC not to renew a principal’s contract?

Changes to an LSC’s powers, however, would likely require a change to the state law that created them, said Barron, the expert from UIC.

For the district’s part, Thurmond said CPS will continue “empowering LSCs and ALSCs” so that “communities continue to have control of their schools.”

One former principal thinks an elected school board could make LSCs feel redundant or powerless, since board members will represent different parts of the city.

LSCs were created when there wasn’t an elected board and are seen by some as mini-school boards at individual schools. But come January 2025, the Chicago Board of Education will be made up of 10 members elected by their communities and 11 members appointed by the mayor.

“If we have an elected school board of 21 and you have them passing resolutions saying we’re doing this, this and this,” he wondered, “then what does the LSC have the autonomy to say and do if it’s all coming from downtown?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s school support staff have been working without a new contract. Union leaders say talks have stalled.

2024-02-20T23:11:14+00:00

During Aaron Jemison’s 35 years as a custodian for Chicago Public Schools, he has had to work overtime or pick up other part-time jobs such as driving an Uber or Lyft to make ends meet.

As a member of the bargaining committee for SEIU Local 73, the union representing school support staff, Jemison said he is fighting to get more retirement benefits, higher wages, and better working conditions under the next contract between the union and Chicago Public Schools.

However, it’s unclear when the next contract will be finalized since the union contract expired on June 30, 2023 and negotiations have been ongoing since May. Union leaders say contract negotiations have stalled.

Jemison, who said he makes a good salary, worries about other custodians whose pay starts off around $16 an hour. “We’re being treated like we’re nobody,” he said.

Union leaders say only one bargaining session is scheduled for February and the district has not provided them with economic proposals. SEIU Local 73 is hoping a new four-year contract will be finalized as soon as possible — or at least by the end of the school year.

SEIU has a powerful ally in the mayor’s office. The union endorsed Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, during his run for office in 2023. SEIU affiliates donated more than $2 million to Johnson’s campaign, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat Chicago.

A spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools said the district is working with SEIU to reach an agreement, with the goal of finalizing a contract before the end of this school year.

SEIU Local 73 represents about 11,000 support workers, including custodians, special education classroom assistants, bus aides, security officers, crossing guards, and parent-workers. These workers are often paid lower in comparison to educators and school administrators. On average, many of these school employees make about $40,000 a year. The average Chicago teacher’s salary is over $88,000,

In addition to waiting for economic proposals from the district, the union says it is waiting for responses from the district on proposals already talked about across the table.

Here are some of the key issues SEIU is bargaining for in its non-economic proposals:

Getting a centralized new hire orientation for school-based employees to understand their job responsibilities.
Allow special education classroom assistants to attend Individualized Education Program meetings to support students with disabilities and their families.
Prevent schools from using special education classroom assistants for other jobs such as teaching assistant or school clerk.
Transparency on how the district uses evaluation for school support staff. Evaluations determine layoffs and the amount of time a school employee works during the day.

Stacia Scott Kennedy, executive vice president of SEIU Local 73, said the union proposals come directly from rank-and-file members.

“Most of our proposals have come from our members; issues that they face in the workplace and then solutions that would help them to be able to better do their jobs,” said Scott Kennedy. “but to, ultimately, be able to better serve students.”

Shirley Shelton, who has been a special education classroom assistant for 11 years, said her experience working with students has been the most rewarding. She said she can see the fruits of her labor in the development of her students.

Shelton said she often sees her co-workers are struggling to make ends meet.

“My co-workers, some of them are single parents working two jobs. That’s taking them away from their families,” said Shelton. “In this next contract, I’m looking forward to a nice pay raise, where they could be able to spend more time with their families in the afternoons and evenings.”

Scott Kennedy said the union has secured tentative agreements for proposals regarding custodians, bus aides, and custodians.

Last week, Chicago Public Schools announced it does not plan to renew a multi-million dollar contract with Aramark for custodial services and management. The district has contracted with Aramark for a decade. For the past three years, school janitors have voiced concerns about the lack of cleaning supplies and families have complained about the lack of cleanliness in school for years.

Chicago’s Board of Education will vote on seven new contracts to help manage school custodians on Thursday at the monthly board meeting.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools plans to end Aramark cleaning contract

2024-02-13T01:41:10+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools said Monday it is not planning to renew a multi-million dollar deal with Aramark for the management of school janitors and cleaning services after a decade.

The move comes after years of concerns and complaints over school cleanliness from staff, parents, and students.

The school board’s latest agreement with the Philadelphia-based company is set to end June 30, 2024. According to a school board committee agenda posted Monday, the district is asking board members to increase the current contract, which started Aug. 2021, from $369 million to $391 million “due to unforeseen expenditures associated with overtime, custodial supplies and custodial equipment.”

A district spokesperson confirmed Monday the district is not renewing the contract with Aramark and the school board will vote on seven new contracts at its Feb. 22 meeting.

Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer at CPS, said the district is looking forward to more direct oversight of janitorial services and supplies and allowing principals to have more say on school cleaniness. Mayfield said the district will contract with seven vendors for custodial services. He said he doesn’t anticipate any job losses with this change.

CPS employs more than 1,000 custodians, according to staffing records updated at the end of December.

“We had an opportunity to renew at Aramark and we opted not to,” said Mayfield. “There were some challenges there, but they’ve also been great partners over a number of years. Sometimes change happens.”

A spokesperson for Aramark wrote in a statement that the company was disappointed to not be selected to continue providing facility services for CPS.

“We are proud of the efforts of our dedicated employees and are committed to ensuring a smooth transition to the school district’s new provider,” said Chris Collom, Aramark’s vice president of corporate communications.

Chicago Public Schools first contracted with Aramark in 2014. Budget officials at the time promised that outsourcing the management of school cleaning would save money and ease the burden on school principals.

But the deal backfired in the first school year when staff returned from summer break to dirty classrooms and, in some buildings, fewer custodians. Then-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett admitted the shift to privatized management of custodians was not going smoothly and the board reversed nearly 500 planned layoffs. By the spring of 2015, the contract with Aramark had gone millions of dollars over budget, WBEZ reported.

The union representing school janitors called the move a victory for its members. SEIU Local 73 — the union that also represents school employees such as special education classroom assistants, bus aides, and crossing guards — has been meeting with the district’s facilities department for almost three years to raise concerns about Aramark’s management of equipment and supplies for custodial staff.

Stacia Scott Kennedy, executive vice president of SEIU, said she is thrilled the contract is over.

“I feel hopeful that this change in management will improve the outcomes of cleanliness,” said Scott Kennedy. “I also feel hopeful that it’ll improve the working conditions of our members who have suffered under private contract with management for the last 10 years.”

SEIU Local 73 has been in contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools since its contract ended June 30, 2023. One of the union’s economic proposals was to ask the district to get rid of the contract with Aramark. Scott Kennedy said they will keep the proposal as negotiations continue.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools reverses policy that docked pay from teachers taking religious holidays

2023-08-31T18:42:54+00:00

Chicago Public Schools teachers will no longer be docked pay when taking a religious holiday.

The Board of Education approved the change last week, overturning a yearslong policy that deducted the cost of hiring a substitute from the teacher’s salary. Different types of substitutes are paid at different daily rates, ranging between $170 to $264, according to the teachers union contract.

“I have friends who couldn’t afford to take off for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur because they couldn’t afford to lose that money,” said Wendy Weingarten, a physical education teacher at Lasalle II Magnet School, who’s advocated for a change since 2016.

Teachers will still get three paid days off for religious holidays, such as the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. But now, they must provide seven days advance notice before taking their holiday, instead of the previously required two days.

In a statement, district spokesperson Samantha Hart said the change was the result of feedback from teachers, school leaders, families, and others in the community.

“This is an important first step in ensuring that CPS’ holiday pay policy better reflects the values and diversity of the District and our staff,” Hart said.

During the board meeting, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates said it was “shameful” that the policy had remained unchanged for so long.

Chicago’s public schools are off on seven federal holidays, including Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day and Memorial Day, according to the calendar.

Weingarten and Davis Gates noted that the district’s holiday schedule aligns with Christian holidays. While not denoted as an official holiday, Christmas is included in the district’s two-week winter break. Good Friday is typically included at the end of the weeklong spring break.

The district said the old religious holiday policy for teachers stretches back at least a decade. Weingarten, who has worked for CPS for 25 years, said she’s always been docked pay for taking off on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

Eliminating that requirement will cost the district about $250,000 a year, a spokesperson said.

Weingarten said she began formally pressing the board for a change in 2021, when the start of the school year clashed with Rosh Hashanah. But she didn’t receive an explanation for why the district didn’t want to change the policy.

The next year, Weingarten said she filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates employee discrimination. She does not know the status of that complaint. She mentioned it to district officials during a joint meeting this April with the teachers union and CPS over the school calendar, after getting pushback about changing the religious holiday policy.

A district spokesperson did not directly say whether the policy change was sparked by the federal complaint. However, they said the change was a “preliminary step in remediating the inequities related to pay,” and that the district will review other board rules “to ensure our policies reflect the values of our diverse workforce.”

Correction: Sept. 1, 2023: A previous version of this story said Wendy Weingarten began advocating for a policy change in 2014. She began advocating for the change in 2016.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

First day of school: Chicago Public Schools reopens under a new era of leadership

2023-08-21T21:28:02+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is officially back in session.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, the first Chicago mayor in recent history to send his children to public schools, kicked off the first day of classes by joining educators, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates outside Beidler Elementary School on the West Side.

Under a sweltering sun at 8:30 a.m., Johnson greeted parents and children in front of a chorus of reporters and cameras, before ringing the ceremonial bell to start the school year.

The joint appearance with Davis Gates, Martinez, and other district and union officials was unsurprising for the union-friendly mayor who came up through the CTU’s ranks, but still a break from the past when the union and City Hall officials would visit schools separately.

Despite the district facing a number of challenges ahead, including unreliable bus transportation, ongoing enrollment shifts, and an influx of immigrant students, Johnson focused on a new era of collaboration at the city’s public schools.

Later in the morning, after touring two other campuses, Johnson visited Kenwood Academy, where his son is now a sophomore.

Speaking to a history class, he likened the first-day icebreakers the teacher was doing to what he’s doing as the city’s new mayor.

“I hope that you will lean into the collaborative approach that your teacher is taking, because that is what we’re doing as a city,” Johnson told the students. “We’re building relationships, we’re collaborating so that we can make collective decisions together that ultimately can help transform people’s lives.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, and other city hall, school district, and union officials pose for a photo inside a classroom at Kenwood Academy on the South Side.

CPS claws back from enrollment losses

Visiting Beidler was a symbolic choice for the mayor. The school narrowly escaped closure about a decade ago and is now part of a program Johnson wishes to expand: the Sustainable Community Schools initiative, which aims to provide wraparound services and more programming for students and families.

But Beidler is among several other schools in the program that have lost at least a quarter of their enrollment since the initiative started.

The official enrollment count will not be known until after the 20th day of school in September. But last year, 80,000 fewer students were enrolled in Chicago Public Schools than there were a decade ago and it is now the nation’s fourth largest school district. Chicago’s declining enrollment predated the emergence of COVID-19, but continued during the pandemic.

And for many parents and kids arriving at Beidler Monday morning, more pressing thoughts — like wishing for a great year — were at the forefront. Dondneja Wilson hoped that her daughter, who started preschool, would “grow, and learn, and have fun.”

“She likes kids a lot, so I feel like that’s going to be her favorite part,” Wilson said.

Dondneja Wilson and her daughter pose for a picture outside of Beidler Elementary School.

Last year, data from the last day of school in June obtained by Chalkbeat showed little change in overall enrollment. However, the number of English learners grew by more than 5,000 students. District officials have pointed to the increase as an approximation of how many migrant students have arrived on buses in the past year.

Chicago is seeing an influx of newcomers, many of whom are seeking asylum, arriving by bus from the southern border in Texas.

The number of bilingual teachers in CPS has dipped since 2015, even as the English learner population has grown, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis. While 6,900 teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements — more than ever before, according to the district — it’s unclear how many are actually assigned to teach bilingual education.

Educators and immigrant advocates have expressed concerns about whether schools can properly support these new students. Jianan Shi, president of the Board of Education, said the city’s new welcome center for migrant students on the West Side has enrolled “hundreds” of newcomer students. He’s requested more information on the system’s overall strategy for supporting newcomers.

A classroom door welcomes students in Spanish at Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park.

Outside Beidler, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters that “the biggest challenge” is ensuring that all newcomers are registered in school, but he said the district is well-positioned to serve them, noting that Chicago has one of the largest bilingual and dual language programs in the nation. About one-fifth of the city’s students are English language learners.

“The challenge we have right now is, again, keeping up with all the new asylum-seekers that are coming in, going to them, making sure that we’re able to register them, assess them,” Martinez said. “But we’re doing that as we speak now.”

Transportation woes continue on first day

Transportation woes that have plagued the district for the last few years also cropped up on the first day, as parents reported problems with bus routes and trips that took more than an hour.

Laurie Viets, a CPS parent of three children – two of whom have transportation written into an Individualized Education Program – said the district promised to have all transportation issues resolved by last Friday.

However, Viets found out on Friday that one of her children, a seventh grader, was not going to have transportation and another child, a first-year high school student, would have a long bus route. Today, it took 70 minutes to get to school; it’s normally a 12-minute car ride, Viets said.

Viets said she wished Chicago Public Schools would have given her more time to prepare for changes in the transportation plans. Now, she won’t have transportation for one of her children for up to two weeks and she is concerned that her other child will be on the bus without air conditioning in extreme heat until they shorten his route.

The district’s bus problems stem back to 2021, the first year back to full-time, in-person school after COVID forced CPS to close buildings in March 2020. Students were left waiting on the first day and beyond for buses that never showed. In emergency mode at that time, the district began offering $1,000 stipends for rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber. But the transportation troubles continued well into the school year.

Last year, some 365 students were waiting for bus routes the first week of school and in September, district officials said they were still working to reduce 90-minute rides for some students.

The district has blamed and continues to point to a nationwide bus driver shortage as causing the transportation troubles. It signed a $4 million contract with a longtime vendor and bus-routing software company to try to fix the issues.

But last month, on July 31, district officials announced that it would not be able to transport roughly 8,000 students on the first day of school. They offered $500 monthly stipends to families of CPS students with disabilities or those in temporary living situations. Both groups are legally entitled to transportation. The district said at the time that 3,000 students had chosen the stipend option.

Davis Gates called the transportation troubles “a disaster” and a “failure of privatization.” CPS contracts with private bus companies to provide students with transportation. Davis Gates said she would like to see the district bring busing “in-house” and experiment with having its own fleet of buses that could start small by covering field trips and sporting events and then grow.

“These are Band-Aid approaches. I have not seen anything transformative or revolutionary in this space. And again, three strikes you’re out,” she said. “This isn’t a good way to start the school year with respect to transportation.”

The district has previously increased pay rates for bus driver companies, and is hoping to do so again this year. Martinez said he hopes that will help fill the driver shortage.

Viets, the parent worrying about her children’s transportation, said more needs to be done.

“Next year, if CPS is going to start by Aug. 21, by Aug. 1 they should know what the routes are,” said Viets.

If Chicago finalizes plans the Friday before the start of school, she said, the district is “not giving parents any kind of respect at all. They’re not giving us an opportunity to make other plans when they mess up.”

As Viets noted, the extreme heat also adds to worries about long bus rides. The weather also raises concerns about conditions inside buildings once students arrive.

Air-conditioning, aging buildings prompt push for green schools

With temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees this week, Martinez said his team worked “around the clock” to ensure classrooms are equipped with air conditioning this week.

Martinez said every classroom has at least a window unit, a key union demand during the CTU’s 2012 strike that was implemented a couple of years later by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Still, in some cases, hallways are not air-conditioned, Martinez said.

Johnson has touted “climate justice” as a key focus of his administration and reiterated Monday that includes schools.

“Having buildings that are retrofitted, as well as an economy that’s built around green technology, some of that is top of mind,” he said.

Davis Gates used this week’s weather forecast to illustrate climate change’s impact on the city and why it underscores the urgent need for a new CPS facilities master plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2018. She added that building greener schools will be one issue the union will bargain over ahead of its contract expiration in 2024.

The school calendar’s pre-Labor Day start is an issue Davis Gates would immediately bargain over, she said. The late August start date began in 2021, matching up with many suburban districts.

The union was not able to bargain over the school calendar in 2019, Davis Gates said. But the passage of a 2021 state law reinstating some of the CTU’s bargaining rights could allow the calendar to be back on the table. The union’s contract expires next June and it’s likely the district and new mayor will begin negotiations with the teachers this winter.

The larger issues that officials highlighted were likely not top of mind for many students, such as 5-year-old Pierre, who started kindergarten at Beidler.

Asked what he was most excited about this school year, Pierre replied, “Playing.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools staff to get 12 weeks paid parental leave

2023-06-08T21:42:42+00:00

Chicago Public Schools employees will soon have 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave — putting the district in line with city policy and well ahead of most other school systems across the country.

Parental leave became a campaign issue in January during the mayoral election, when the Chicago Teachers Union accused former Mayor Lori Lightfoot of reneging on plans to extend the city policy to teachers. A CPS spokesperson at the time said the union and district were “actively working” to update the policy.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer and teacher, announced the new leave policy on Thursday standing alongside CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.

“It will ensure that once they return from leave, they come back refreshed, energized and ready to lead the next generation of young Chicagoans into success,” Johnson said.

Martinez said the exact details are still being worked out, but the plan is to roll out the new policy before the start of the 2023-24 school year. A working group has begun meeting, according to the mayor’s office. Once finalized, the policy will go before the Chicago Board of Education for a vote. All new and revised policies must be posted online for public comment for 30 days.

Currently, teachers have two weeks of leave with the ability to use short-term disability if they are the birthing parent. Davis Gates told Chalkbeat in January that teachers usually cobble together leaves using those benefits, sick and personal days, and unpaid time off allowed under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. They also try to time pregnancies so they give birth when school is not in session.

“There are a lot of summer birthdays if you have teacher friends and that’s for a reason,” Davis Gates said Thursday.

Chicago will become an outlier nationally in providing teachers paid leave. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality, less than a quarter of nearly 150 school districts they reviewed, including the 100 largest, offer paid parental leave, but most offer fewer than 30 days.

While the details of the policy are still being worked out, Martinez estimated it could cost an additional $10 million annually. The district’s most recent budget was $9.5 billion.

“I think it’s a worthwhile investment,” Martinez said. “Because the reality is we lose teachers when they start having children, and that creates other challenges for us.”

Tiffany Childress Price, a teacher and mom of two, said the new policy is critical for retaining and recruiting high-quality educators.

“Becoming a parent was the best thing to happen to my teaching practice,” Childress Price said. “The way that I have seen other people’s children has transformed my empathy for struggling children and struggling families.”

Parental leave has historically been negotiated during contract talks in Chicago and elsewhere. Today’s announcement signals the policy will no longer be used as a bargaining chip. But Johnson bristled when asked what this says about how he might negotiate with his friends and former colleagues.

“This is not a gift to the CTU, this is a policy for the people of the city of Chicago,” Johnson said.

The union’s current contract is set to expire on June 30, 2024. Davis Gates and Martinez both said paid parental leave is no longer something that should be negotiated.

“It really is more of a policy for how we treat all of our employees,” Martinez said.

“When it is at the negotiating table, it gets crowded out by other things,” Davis Gates added. “We shouldn’t be trading parental leave for class size or class size for parental leave.”

All three touted today’s announcement as evidence of a more collaborative relationship between the mayor, the school district, and the teachers union. The energy is a stark contrast to the fraught labor relations under Chicago’s previous two mayors. Tensions between CTU and Lightfoot prompted an 11-day strike in 2019 and two actions during the height of the COVID pandemic.

The union also went on strike in 2012 for seven days after then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel rescinded a contractually-promised raise and pushed to unilaterally lengthen the school day and year.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

From middle school teacher to Chicago mayor: Brandon Johnson sworn in to city’s top office

2023-05-15T20:30:33+00:00

Brandon Johnson, a public school parent, teachers union organizer, and former middle school teacher, has been officially sworn in as Chicago’s 57th mayor.

Johnson defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in a runoff election on April 4 after both candidates surpassed incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot during a Feb. 28 general election, dashing her hopes of a second term.

“We get to write the story of our children’s and our grandchildren’s future,” Johnson said during his inaugural address Monday at the Credit Union 1 Arena at University of Illinois at Chicago on the city’s Near West Side. “What will that story say?”

As the last mayor with control of Chicago Public Schools, Johnson will oversee the city’s transition to an elected school board, which he lobbied for as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. In his speech Monday, he once again promised to double the number of youth jobs, provide “child care for all,” and partner with school district leadership to “provide every single child with a world class education that meets their needs.”

“Let’s create a public education system that resources children based on need and not just on numbers,” Johnson said.

“Let’s have a system that respects its parents, educators and school employees,” he said. “Where the president of the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73 and the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools can work together to advocate for more resources for all of our children.”

Roughly three hours after taking the oath of office, Johnson signed four executive orders — one which directs the budget office to find available money to pay for youth employment this summer and year-round. It also tasks his new Deputy Mayor of Education Jen Johnson to identify entry-level jobs “suitable for young people” within city departments and agencies. Chicago’s youth unemployment rates increased during the pandemic, hitting Black young women particularly hard, according to a new report released last week.

Johnson’s own story from middle school teacher to mayor began more than a decade ago. He left the classroom in 2012 to join a grassroots effort by the Chicago Teachers Union to build political power in order to improve the conditions beyond the classroom walls that impact students and their families, such as housing affordability, poverty, crime, and environmental racism.

“I’m struck by how much work it took to bring us to this moment,” Johnson said, with CTU president, Stacy Davis Gates, and vice president, Jackson Potter, seated behind him on the stage.

While running for mayor, Johnson promised free public transit for students, an expansion of child care programs and health clinics in schools with available space, and an increase in support staff, such as social workers and counselors.

Johnson’s election signals a national shift on education within Democratic politics away from an emphasis on high-stakes accountability and market-based school choice. That view of reform, at times, also vilified teachers and their unions and came with legislation that stripped teachers of their bargaining rights and tried to tie job security to student test scores.

The Chicago Teachers Union began to push back on that thinking in 2010 with the election of the late Karen Lewis as CTU president. Their movement gained momentum and national attention going on strike in 2012, protesting mass school closures in 2013, and electing the first teacher to City Council in 2015. The CTU’s activism galvanized unions in other cities.

In a narrow election in 2018, Johnson upset an incumbent to win a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners, a position he officially resigned on Friday.

Mayor Brandon Johnson shakes hands outside Michele Clark Magnet High School in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood hours before taking the oath of office.

Prior to taking the oath of office on Monday, Johnson stopped at several schools on Chicago’s West Side, including DePriest Elementary, Michele Clark Magnet High School, and Leland Elementary. A drumline and crowd of students, teachers, and elected officials greeted him outside Michele Clark.

Torrence Bell, 15, held up a poster congratulating the new mayor and stood along a fence outside the front entrance, where dozens of elected officials gathered, including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, City Clerk Anna Valencia, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

“He’s a Black male, you know, I’m a Black male, so it’s really very inspiring for me,” Bell said.

Up the street, outside Leland Elementary students cheered and chanted for the new mayor, shaking his hand as he walked through the playground before getting in a black SUV to head to the inauguration ceremony.

“He’s one of our own,” said Alesia Franklin-Allen, acting principal at Leland. “That’s a great asset to have in a leader. He knows the needs of the schools.”

Speaking outside Michele Clark Magnet High School, current union president Davis Gates said she felt like the “personification of joy.”

“We deserve a mayor who’s going to invest in our children, who is going to practice justice and equity, not just as a value, but as a policy imperative,” Davis Gates said. “I am so very happy for us right now.”

Students from Leland Elementary on Chicago’s West Side wait to meet Mayor Brandon Johnson Monday morning before he took the oath of office.

Ten years ago this month, Davis Gates said, she and Johnson were in Springfield lobbying lawmakers to stop then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed Chicago Board of Education from closing 50 schools. Ultimately, the board voted to close those schools, which became a galvanizing moment for the CTU. After the May 22, 2013 vote, then-CTU president Karen Lewis said the union would start training people to run for office.

“Clearly, we have to change the political landscape in this city,” Lewis said at the time.

Davis Gates choked back tears Monday morning as she recalled that moment.

“I’m so happy that teachers and clinicians and paraprofessionals believed their union who said that we could bargain for the common good, that we could be in coalition with the community, that we could transform Chicago,” Davis Gates said standing outside Michele Clark High School before heading downtown for the inauguration. “This is so amazing. And my only regret is that Karen is not here.”

A few hours later in his inaugural address, Johnson nodded to Lewis, calling her his “mentor and dear sister.”

“We all are here because of the work of giants who came before us and without whom this day would not be possible,” he said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Teachers Union chief of staff named city’s deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services

2023-05-11T18:55:11+00:00

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has named chief of staff at the Chicago Teachers Union and former high school history teacher Jennifer “Jen” Johnson to be the city’s next deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services.

Jen Johnson replaces Jaye Stapleton, who was appointed to the job last year after outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot promoted Sybil Madison from deputy mayor of education to chief of staff.

Johnson taught at Lincoln Park High School from 2003-2013 and left the classroom around the same time as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who will be sworn into office Monday. The two are not related.

Both were part of a grassroots movement led by the teachers union focused on social justice, community organizing, and pushing back against top-down school reform policies, including the closure of public schools and the expansion of privately-run, often non-unionized charter schools.

“These appointments reflect our policy priorities and strategic goals as we set a bold agenda for the next four years,” Mayor-elect Johnson said in a statement. “Together we can achieve our vision for sustainable, thriving communities, responsive services for our children and most vulnerable, and a budget that illustrates our values as a city.”

Chicago Teachers Union chief of staff Jennifer “Jen” Johnson has been appointed to be the city’s next deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services.

Jen Johnson’s appointment is a signal Chicago Public Schools could enter a period of labor peace with the teachers union for at least the next four years. At the bargaining table, she has sat across from past deputy mayors, who have historically served as the mayor’s representative in negotiations.

On the campaign trail, Brandon Johnson faced repeated questioning about how he would handle contract talks with his former employer, to which he replied during one debate: “Who better to deliver bad news to friends than a friend?” The current CTU contract expires in 2024.

A spokesperson for the mayor-elect declined Chalkbeat’s request to interview the new deputy mayor Thursday.

As CTU chief of staff, Jen Johnson supports and represents 30,000 rank-and-file educators and union leadership. Recently, she spoke with Chalkbeat about the district’s rollout of a universal curriculum bank called Skyline. She applauded the effort, but said the union does not believe it should be mandated as that would take away teacher autonomy.

Jen Johnson has been at the bargaining table multiple times over the past several years and gave updates to the press and the public during the negotiations over virtual and in-person learning in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and during an 11-day strike in 2019.

Chicago remained fully remote longer than many school districts, returning in-person on a hybrid basis in the spring of 2021.

During talks in the summer of 2020, Jen Johnson said the district’s proposal for a six-hour virtual school day was not age-appropriate for the youngest students and lacked an infrastructure to serve students with disabilities and English learners.

“You have too much screen time and not enough prep time,” she said at the time. “You can’t impose in-person school on at-home learning.”

In a speech at a labor conference in 2012, Jen Johnson called herself a “born Michigander” whose dad also taught high school history for 34 years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She said her grandfather taught high school English in Winnetka, a wealthy suburb north of Chicago, and mentioned that her mother wrote a book in 1970 “about her experience being the only white student in an all-Black public high school called Marshall on the West Side of Chicago in 1966.”

“I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a history teacher and that I wanted to work in public schools,” Jen Johnson said at the time.

According to a press release from the Mayor-elect’s transition team, Jen Johnson has sat on the boards of the Illinois Federation of Teachers Executive Board, Grow Your Own Illinois, and the Illinois State Board of Education State Educator Licensure and Preparation Board.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago mayoral election 2023: How Johnson, Vallas answered 10 important education questions

2023-03-01T18:23:38+00:00

Chicago voters will head to the polls once again on April 4 to vote for a new mayor, choosing between two candidates who are vastly different when it comes to public education.

Brandon Johnson is an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and Paul Vallas is the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Both are Democrats, but their views vary widely on everything from school choice to measuring academic performance to how campuses are funded.

Whoever wins will take office in late May and will get to appoint a school district CEO and seven school board members to oversee the nation’s fourth largest school district, its $9.5 billion budget, 635 schools, and the education of 322,000 children. They will also be the last mayor to have control of Chicago Public Schools before the district transitions to being governed by an elected school board.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked candidates 10 important questions about the city’s public schools in January — some of which came directly from our readers. Explore Johnson and Vallas’ answers below.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?
What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?
The Chicago Board of Education will expand from 7 appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?
The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?
Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?
What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?
The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?
During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?
Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?
Describe a high quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high quality school?

Chicago voters will now pick between former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas (left) and Cook County Commissioner and teachers union organizer Brandon Johnson (right) in the mayoral runoff election on April 4.

Chicago Public Schools is no longer the nation’s third largest school district after a decade of enrollment decline. The loss of students has had significant impacts on neighborhood high schools in particular. How will you address declining enrollment?

JOHNSON: If you recall, that decade began in 2013 with the greatest closure of Black and Latinx schools in Chicago’s history. If we can build sustainable community schools alongside quality affordable housing, we will reverse the trend. We must also tackle the violence epidemic with more holistic measures that provide resources and trauma intervention for students and families.

Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot have both presided over precipitous declines in pre-kindergarten enrollment. This is not simply a result of demographic change, but the district moving to an online, centralized application process for preschool that is elitist and prejudiced against families with little access to technology. Enrollment also decreases due to poor program design. This is also evident in a number of special education crises – from State monitor to transportation – over the last 10 years.

Schools communities need direct investment, guarantees of staffing and program offerings. Every school should have a library and librarian, adequate clinicians and counselors, thriving arts offerings and sports programs and teams. And the mayor of Chicago has an obligation to be actively fighting in partnership for the revenue required to fulfill those basic needs for every school in the city, not just some.

VALLAS: Making the schools more attractive to parents by allowing for schools to take on specialties as well as bring back the work study program for high school students. We must also make our schools safe, so students feel comfortable in their learning environment. We must also have the dollars make it down to the school level, right now only 60% of the budget makes it to the schools. In my career I have worked to make education meaningful to students allowing a greater trust in the system by not only the students but also their parents. I would also expand the alternative schools network to provide for the educational needs for high school students too old for the traditional high school program.

Reader question. What are your plans to address learning loss and social emotional gaps that have emerged during the past three years of the COVID pandemic?

JOHNSON: Let’s remember that students and families are still struggling with the pandemic, and there is much trauma and recovery that must occur – especially among Black and Brown students and families who make up the majority of CPS students (like my own).

First, we must address the trauma that existed pre-pandemic, and acknowledge that COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated conditions around cleanliness, bilingual education, access to technology, special education services and more, that city leaders left unaddressed for decades. Asking a student to catch up on math when they are still recovering from the death of a loved one, or a classmate, is inhumane.

Students and families must have trauma support, such as weekly cognitive behavioral therapy, and students need summer jobs and engaging programming. Support student and staff mental health by infusing schools with mental health professionals like counselors and clinicians so that unaddressed trauma is acknowledged, and treated, and learning is more of the focus from day to day. Teachers and staff need adequate time and professional development to help address student needs. And educators need to be empowered with planning time to reinvigorate curriculum and work with students to ensure instructional practices and pedagogy meet students’ needs and interests.

VALLAS: The loss of learning due to the COVID pandemic has been unprecedented. We must work to ensure that our children catch up and can be competitive in their future. In order to meet the gap our children are facing I will open all school buildings through the dinner hour, weekends and summers. We need to invite community organizations to provide enrichment to students in the CPS during these off hours as well as invite retired CPS Teachers to provide tutoring and academic support to the students.

The Chicago Board of Education will expand from seven appointed members to 21 elected officials over the next four years. How will you ensure parents, students, and teachers are fairly represented on the new school board? And how will you work with the elected board?

JOHNSON: I support a map that ensures all communities in this tremendously diverse city have the opportunity to have their voices heard. This is why I worked so closely with Illinois Senate President Don Harmon and community organizations on the legislation to create this vibrant model of democracy for the first time ever in the history of Chicago Public Schools.

We need campaign finance rules to prevent those with no stake in our public schools, or our communities, from controlling our democracy. We cannot have uber rich, arch-conservatives usurping the power that working people in Chicago fought so hard to win. We need candidates who are deeply invested and knowledgeable from the communities served to have a fair chance to win races to influence the education of their children.

Democratic governance requires partnership. The city doesn’t absolve itself of any responsibility to schools just because there are democratically elected school community leaders sitting at the Board of Education. As mayor, I will continue to fight for resources in our schools, and maintain and build upon the coordinated support and services that the city has to offer children and families.

VALLAS: Like I have done all my career I will work with the elected board of education with the respect that is due to them as an equally elected official that is representing the needs of the community that elected them. In all CPS work I will put the needs of the students first and advocated with the board for any necessary resources. Before this board takes office it is important that they do not inherit a broken system, I will push the dollars to the school level and ensure that schools have the resources they need.

Reader question. The Chicago Teachers Union’s contract ends next year. There was an 11-day strike in 2019, a rocky return to in-person learning in 2021, and five days of canceled classes in January 2022. How do you plan to avoid a strike in the next contract negotiation with CTU?

JOHNSON: We need a mayor who can reasonably work with labor. We cannot have the type of leader who will promise something like, say, an elected representative school board and then fight tooth and nail to stop it from being enacted. We cannot have a mayor who, on the campaign trail, calls for a nurse and social worker in every school, then puts teachers on strike for two weeks when they ask for exactly that in writing. We cannot have a mayor who grants expanded parental leave to city workers, but blocks educators from receiving the same.

Just a shift in consistency and keeping one’s word will more than allow for a much more rational and collaborative process.

As mayor, I will be a partner in working with Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union to remove obstacles in the way of achieving excellent schools, rather than contributing to constant friction. The stakes are too high for our students and families for labor and leadership not to have a positive working relationship. And I will openly advocate and build coalitions to identify revenue sources and structures that, over time, will deliver the fully funded schools that families and communities deserve.

VALLAS: The previous CTU strike could have been avoided and we see the cost of that strike in the already exacerbated loss of learning from the pandemic. Over the course of my career I have negotiated 6 teacher contracts with teachers unions in the largest district in 4 different states that led to no strikes and members getting a pay raise. If all parties work in good faith there should be no need for a teacher strike this year which only leads to a greater negative impact of the education on Chicago’s children who are already struggling to regain confidence in the classroom.

Chicago Public Schools stopped rating schools and holding students back during the pandemic. Both accountability policies are under review. How do you think schools should be measured, judged, or rated?

JOHNSON: We cannot continue to punish schools that have suffered from decades of divestment, violence and destabilization. When a school struggles, we often give them more accountability, yet fewer resources. So any school rating formula must bring greater equity, and greater support, to ensure greater success.

Chicago Public Schools does not need its own rating structure, as the state still has and requires one. CPS’ time is better spent identifying sources of revenue to fill the gaps identified in programs, staffing, and services that we know hold schools back from meeting student needs and increasing enrollment. I live in Austin. My wife and I drive two children to Portage Park and another to Hyde Park every day because there are few schools in our community to meet their extracurricular needs. Families should not have to leave their community to find a school with a music program, a sports program, a nurse in every school, or a library with a librarian. We have to use what we already know about the strengths, weaknesses, and assets in our schools to ensure that we are directing resources to where they are needed to make every school excellent.

VALLAS: We should aspire for high standards, we cannot embrace the bigotry of soft expectations. We must set high standards, we have to measure school’s base on their improvement as a school. We must take every school uniquely and see their growth from where they were to where they are.

Reader question. What are your thoughts about Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting model, which ties a school’s funding to how many students are enrolled?

JOHNSON: Student-based budgeting (SBB) and the former SQRP rating policy have had a devastating impact on our schools. SBB, in particular, has contributed to principals whose budgets are strapped to choose between keeping a veteran teacher or having a librarian and a functioning library. Schools struggling with enrollment need to have a process by which root causes are identified and resources are deployed to ensure students still have the richest possible education, and the school has an opportunity to grow its enrollment.

The state, in its evidence-based funding model, has recognized that student and community needs must drive school funding, and that all districts must be brought up to a certain level of resources to meet those needs. Yet CPS has not adopted that approach among its schools. We cannot keep supporting a system that favors choice, but does not provide schools with the same baseline resources and offerings – then punishes students who attend the less frequently chosen school.

VALLAS: The first priority is to push the funding down to the schools. We have to have the majority of the funding flow down to the local schools as of right now only 60% of the funds makes it to the local schools. My second priority is to make sure that the money that is allocated to the students encompasses the needs of the student, we need to make sure the school district is allocating Title I money directly to the school it is assigned too. This money needs to flow directly to the school with only minimal diversions because unfortunately funding due to poverty has been used as discretionary funds by the administration.

Reader question. The Illinois legislature created a tax-credit scholarship program in 2017 to expand school choice. After a one-year extension, the program is scheduled to sunset in 2025. Do you support continuing the state’s tax-credit scholarship program? Why or why not?

JOHNSON: I do not, because this is the kind of thinking that continues to reinforce unequal educational opportunities. Until every Chicago public school and big-city public school has the baseline of resources provided in suburban districts with high property tax bases, the idea of “choice” is a fallacy.

Parents with resources are able to navigate the system for their students, which I don’t begrudge. What is concerning is that families without the means, time, resources, and access to navigating these same systems have no choice at all.

I am not interested in continuing to shift unequal resources around. I am interested in leveling the playing field for all families.

VALLAS: The tax credit scholarship program is beneficial in empowering parents to pick the school that best suits their child’s needs. Whether the students attend private, parochial, public or public charter schools they are students of the City and we need to ensure quality education regardless of their zip code.

During the early days of the pandemic, students with disabilities had limited or no access to academic accommodations written in their Individualized Education Program. Many students were unable to receive or renew IEPs to meet their needs. What will you do to ensure that students with disabilities are being identified without delay and getting the resources they need to catch up in school?

JOHNSON: Teachers in Seattle last fall ratified a contract with a three adult (two teachers, one instructional assistant) to 10 student ratio to help address the needs of their special education population. Chicago must work toward something similar to address compensatory services and the particular needs of this incredibly vulnerable student population. We also need greater clinical support to properly diagnose and service the individualized education programs of these students. This includes the need to ramp up pipelines with state and local funding to hire many more teachers, special education classroom assistants, and teacher assistants to address the accumulated needs of students living with disabilities.

VALLAS: Students with disabilities are a priority even much more so after the loss of learning experienced due to the pandemic. The key to supporting these students is the availability of resources at the local school level. My administration will reallocate dollars in a way that the schools see the most benefit and allow principals to support all the students in their neighborhood schools.

Reader question. Are you for or against trade/vocational education? How would you reactivate trade school curriculum and would it be available in all schools?

JOHNSON: We need to do much better to train Chicagoans to fill the jobs that exist today. Businesses are hiring and manufacturers are hiring. There may be somewhere around 30,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs across the state, and a good number of them are here in Chicago. But we’ve abandoned vocational training in our schools. Modern manufacturing jobs require tech skills, and it is our job to give our students the skills necessary to succeed. So I am all for trade and vocational education, commonly known as Career and Technical Education (CTE), in Chicago Public Schools. CTE is essential to closing the gap between our district, and skilled trade industries and employers.

There is potential in some of the plans the district and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez have around this. With an aviator simulator in Dunbar, and making Tilden, Phillips, Chicago Vocational, and Fenger sustainable community schools with specialized and relevant trades training, we will have education and apprenticeship pipelines to create the skills and engagement necessary for a CTE corridor that will empower our Black and Latinx students to become the next generation of unionized trade workers.

VALLAS: Yes I support trade and vocational education. However I believe on a broader scale that we need to integrate a work study program into all of our high schools and make elective programs more meaningful. We need to reestablish our VocEd and occupational training programs that were in our high schools during my time at the CPS. My administration will do this by partnering with local trade unions and businesses in our city. We have to leverage these connections in ways that attract our students to take interest in these programs that offer amazing opportunities for success after high school.

Describe a high-quality school. (How many staff work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like? What is the schedule?) How many CPS schools meet your definition of a high-quality school?

JOHNSON: We have a model that works – the Sustainable Community School (SCS) model, which calls for collaborative and effective strategy for increasing educational equity. SCS builds on the traditional community school model to prioritize specific pillars and principles to make schools the anchors of their communities, and to share leadership around meeting student, family, educator, staff, and community needs.

We also have schools that have parent mentors, community programming, and partnerships to provide additional support for mental and physical health across the district. Neighborhood schools like Kelly High, National Teachers Academy, Hanson Park Elementary (despite a horrendous facility situation), Chavez Elementary, Beidler Elementary are all vibrant school communities using culturally relevant curriculum and community partnerships to advance the academic and social/emotional needs of countless children. However, we need to do more and better. That will require greater investments in addressing the needs of homeless children, students with disabilities and all the newcomers who do not speak English as their primary language. It also cannot continue to be the case that selective enrollment schools, which provide students with the most extensive course offerings, extracurriculars and sports opportunities, serve only the wealthiest students in the system.

VALLAS: A high quality is a medium sized neighborhood school that embraces high standards and offers the students a high quality curriculum that ensures students achieve a high level of proficiency in all core areas. The ideal quality school offers key enrichment opportunities in the academic year as well as continuing into the non-traditional school hours (weekends, evenings, summers and holidays) to support students in their growth. My ideal quality school offers key wrap-around services for students to ensure they are holistically growing. This school also needs a well trained and supported local school council that broadly represents the community and can provide a vehicle for community input in school governance and supplemental activities.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago principals a step closer to unionizing as bill moves to Illinois governor’s desk

2023-01-06T21:00:41+00:00

Chicago Public Schools may soon have to bargain with principals and assistant principals — if Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs a bill passed by the Illinois legislature Friday morning.

The bill, which will give Chicago principals and assistant principals collective bargaining rights but prohibit them from going on strike, passed the state Senate by a 45-7 and heads to the governor’s desk for approval. If the bill becomes law, Chicago will join school districts such as New York City , Los Angeles, and Newark.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office said in an email Pritzker “looks forward to reviewing the bill now that it’s headed to his desk.”

Chicago’s principals have been unable to unionize because they were considered managerial employees under state law. HB 5107 changes the definition of managerial employees to district employees who have a significant role in the negotiations of collective bargaining agreements or who create employer-wide management policies and practices.

The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, a professional membership organization that advocates for issues affecting principals and administrators, has fought for years for this change.

“We’ve gotten further than we’ve come before,” said Troy LaRaviere, president of the association and a former Chicago school principal, noting Friday in an interview that he’s worked on this for four years.

LaRaviere said his association is already part of the American Federation of School Administrators, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization, and members pay voluntary dues. If signed, the bill would give the group more teeth.

The association wants to make sure that they are protecting a principal’s time to focus on what impacts students, rather than dealing with one district mandate after another, LaRaviere said.

Chicago principals have said in the past that they often don’t have a say in their working conditions and have to pick up numerous tasks to keep their schools running. This means that principals’ responsibilities vary across the city depending on a school’s needs and resources, creating long days and uncertainty for some principals.

Principals assumed more responsibilities during the pandemic to ensure that their school’s communities were protected from COVID-19, including telling families about COVID mitigations, organizing vaccine clinics, and identifying close contacts.

The stress has caused some principals to leave the profession. Chalkbeat Chicago found retirements and resignations — especially among principals and assistant principals — increased since the pandemic began in March 2020. Staffing data shows that there are more than 1,100 principals and assistant principals in Chicago Public Schools, but 50 of those positions were vacant as of Sept. 30, 2022.

If the governor signs the bill, the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association will use “our place at the table to improve conditions for principals and their schools,” LaRaviere added.

Chicago Public Schools did not support the effort to unionize principals in the past, arguing that principals are classified as managers and not subject to unionization under state law.

But following the passage by the Senate, a district spokesperson said in an email statement that Chicago Public Schools would work with school leaders as they “become eligible for possible unionization.” She added the district is committed to collaborating with school leaders to meet the needs of students, families, teachers, and staff.

“We support statewide implementation of this legislation as the tenets hold true for all school districts,” the statement said.

In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Mayor Lori Lightfoot commended the passage of the bill and encouraged the expansion of collective bargaining rights to school leaders. “CPS will continue to work hand-in-hand with principals to achieve academic excellence — a goal that should be implemented statewide,” the mayor’s spokesperson said in the email statement.

Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, who championed the bill said in a statement on Friday that Chicago principals should have a voice in their working conditions, especially at a time when the district faces staff shortages.

“CPS is not only the largest school district in the state, but one of the largest in the nation,” Peters said. “With its size and staffing shortages come unique challenges that need to be addressed. I believe we should trust its principals to help create solutions to build a better work environment.”

The co-sponsor of the bill, Sen. Cristina Pacione-Zayas, D-Chicago, said in an interview with Chalkbeat that she is thrilled HB 5107 cleared the Senate Friday morning because being a principal is a thankless job and principals haven’t had much say in their workplace.

“The unionization bill now affords them some type of seat at the table, when policy is being formed,” said Pacione-Zayas. “It ensures that there’s some salary parity and representation when there are grievances. That is like a game-changer for our schools.”

Pacione-Zayas is also advocating for a companion bill that would give local school councils more transparency on who is eligible for a principal position. The councils are currently responsible for hiring and evaluating principals. Pacione-Zayas’ bill would give local school councils access to the entire eligible pool of candidates, make the rubric and scoring system from the district public, and allow due process for principal candidates who do not advance to the next stage of evaluations.

Becky Vevea contributed to this report.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Cook County commissioner, teachers union organizer announces bid for Chicago mayor

2022-10-27T11:00:00+00:00

Cook County commissioner and union organizer Brandon Johnson announced early Thursday he is running for Chicago mayor, entering the race with backing from the teachers union and independent political organizations.

Johnson, a former teacher at Jenner Academy and Westinghouse College Prep, is one of at least eight people challenging Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term. Three aldermen and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas are among the candidates. The union endorsement and Johnson’s union organizing background almost assures education issues will take center stage in the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.

“As a teacher, I experienced the painful impact of disinvestment on my students and their families,” Johnson said in a press release. “And this personal experience seeing children endure inequity fuels my commitment to building a stronger, safer, and more equitable Chicago.”

Before announcing his run, Johnson’s campaign saw an influx of donations.

Last week, the American Federation of Teachers announced a $1 million donation to Johnson’s campaign.

Earlier this month, the Illinois Federation of Teachers COPE donated $150,000 and the Chicago Teachers Union’s political action committee donated $60,000. At the end of September, Johnson’s campaign reported having just over $70,000 in the bank.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s governing body last month voted to endorse Johnson for the municipal election.

The union, which also endorsed rank-and-file educators Mueze Bawany and Leonor “Lori” Torres in their respective aldermanic races in the 50th and 36th wards, said the educators were “uniquely attuned to the needs of students and families.”

Johnson recently received endorsements from the 30th, 33rd, 35th, and 39th ward independent political groups.

“I continue to be humbled, and honored, by the outpouring of support I have received in coming to this decision,” he said.

The union is pushing to unseat Lightfoot, with whom it has clashed several times, including during an 11-day teacher strike in 2019 and in two actions amid COVID safety concerns in 2021 and 2022.

“Each of them believes strongly in partnership, and coalition, and is committed to representing educator values of nurture and care for children and community,” the union said of Johnson, Bawany, and Torres in a series of tweets last month.

Johnson has been a Cook County commissioner serving the city’s West Side since 2018. After teaching at Jenner and Westinghouse, he became an organizer for the CTU in 2011 and helped organize the 2012 strike, according to his campaign website.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Some Chicago schools in high-poverty areas lost 1 in 7 teachers to layoffs

2021-09-27T11:00:00+00:00

Laila McKinney was dreading senior year at Chicago’s King College Prep. Not just because of COVID-19. Not just because last year was disrupted by remote learning.

But because the 18-year-old’s long-term dance teacher, someone she considers a cherished mentor, and her journalism teacher wouldn’t be there. The two were among the 562 educators — 272 teachers and 290 non-teacher employees — laid off by Chicago Public Schools at the end of last school year.

The number of layoffs this past spring was the lowest in several years. Still, a Chalkbeat analysis found the layoffs hit small schools in high-poverty areas disproportionately hard. Most schools with clusters of three or more teacher layoffs were shrinking campuses, with at least seven of the 22 schools considered “underutilized” by the district, meaning their enrollment falls significantly short of the building capacity.

At least two schools, King and Christian Fenger Academy, laid off 15% of their staff, though Fenger was among the few schools on the list that has gained enrollment over the past two years and planned to add staff this year, according to budget documents. Representatives from King and Fenger did not respond to requests for comment before publication time.

Every spring brings a cycle of layoffs in Chicago in response to factors such as budget, enrollment, and programmatic changes. The district rehires the vast majority of laid-off staff each fall, usually at different campuses. When asked to provide the number of teachers rehired this fall, the district could not provide an updated tally by publication time, and instructed Chalkbeat to file a public records request.

Chicago’s teacher layoff numbers are under particular scrutiny this fall for two reasons. Advocates and the Chicago Teachers Union say the district should have used federal pandemic relief money to prevent the layoffs. They asserted the layoffs take a toll on school programming, resources, and communities, making it difficult to recruit new students when enrollment starts to fall.

The other reason is enrollment, and how continued enrollment declines could put pressure on some schools to retain staff. Last fall, after the pandemic’s onset, Chicago Public Schools reported its sharpest enrollment drop in two decades. If the decline continues, some schools likely will lose more students than others, potentially putting them in the position of losing funding to hire teachers and facing more layoffs.

Asked about this year’s numbers, a district spokesman, James Gherardi, said 59 teachers who were laid off had one-year positions related to the pandemic and that this fall, the district planned to hire for 2,000 open teaching and staffing positions. Gherardi said he expected many laid-off teachers to be rehired for other positions in the district. Last school year, the district laid off nearly 290 teachers and rehired 72% in full-time positions.

However, advocates say the cycle of layoffs and rehires causes uncertainty and upheaval for the schools that chart the highest layoff numbers. A 2013 study found New York City students in grade levels with higher teacher turnover scored lower in English and math, and that these effects were amplified in schools with more low-performing and Black students.

For students such as Laila, the layoffs strike a personal chord.

“I remember crying,” Laila said, recalling when she heard her dance teacher was laid off. “It broke my heart. You develop relationships with these teachers. Ms. Kahphira isn’t just my dance teacher. She helped me a lot through the pandemic, as well.”

Returning to an unfamiliar place

District officials argue that layoffs are a regular part of the business operations for a big district and that despite the pandemic’s impact, teacher staffing has been relatively stable (the district has, however, struggled to fill bus driver and substitute positions) Chicago touted a start to the school year with 97% of its teaching positions filled, and data obtained by Chalkbeat showed that resignations in the spring declined, following a trend of steady decreases.

Still, the pattern of layoffs troubles students and teachers at the schools most affected. They say the process is demoralizing and amplifies disruption in an already tumultuous year.

Christian Fenger Academy laid off five of its 29 teachers in spring. Among those laid off was Xochitl Infante, who taught social studies and other subjects at the school for more than a decade.

With clusters of layoffs, Infante said, “You’re fracturing what little community has been built.”

Infante started teaching in 2009, the year Fenger student Derrion Albert was killed on his way to a bus stop. Fights broke out in the school often in the months and years that followed; parents protested for days outside Fenger, and enrollment continued to drop.

“Every year that they see you come back, those kids gain a little bit more trust. You’ve got to earn those kids’ trust,” Infante said. “Those kids were responding to the city taking their community from them. That’s why we have so many discipline issues.”

It took years for the school to build back its community. Recently, Infante recalls going all-out to compete against Fenger’s music teacher in door-decorating contests, and battling students and teachers in the “Cupcake Wars” led by Fenger’s culinary teacher. Both of those teachers lost their jobs at Fenger this June, too.

Infante was not rehired for another full-time teaching job before the fall started but will stay with the district this year and is currently categorized as a reassigned teacher.

At Fenger, she was the school’s only Embarc teacher. Embarc is a district-wide three-year program that connects high schoolers from low-income families to community-based opportunities and provides college and career readiness training. Until school reopened in August, this year’s cohort had only experienced the program remotely.

After Infante left Fenger, a new teacher took her place to close out the sequence. But the program is not supposed to be implemented that way, Infante said, noting that long-term teacher-student relationships are Embarc’s foundation.

The cut has happened before: Her first Embarc group saw the school discontinue the program for their junior year. (It was later reinstated amid popular student demand.)

Senior Taqueria Halsey credits the program — specifically, Infante’s teaching — for strengthening her personal relationships and for teaching her how to assert herself. She used those skills this summer to connect with students at her dream college and navigate the application process.

“With her not being here, my senior year is going to be hard,” Taqueria said. “She was almost the only one that followed us. It’s going to be hard going back to new teachers … [and to] brand new classes that I’ve never seen before.”

Declining enrollment spurs tough decisions

Chicago Public Schools operates according to a student-based budgeting system, meaning funding ties largely to enrollment, and schools with declining enrollment can feel budget pressures. Since 2019, the district has given equity grants to schools with consistently declining enrollment to try to bolster program offerings for students.

But enrollment can fluctuate, and those equity funds are not a guarantee. When schools receiving equity grants see student count rebound, however, they can lose some or all of those additional funds. That could explain layoffs at some schools that have gained enrollment and even positions.

Little Village’s Multicultural Arts School and West Town’s Mancel Talcott School were also among schools with the highest layoff rates, with about 12% and 10% of teachers laid off, respectively.

These schools are small to mid-size: Multicultural Arts had an enrollment of 225 last fall, while Talcott served 425 students.

Politically, the district has faced considerable pressure to keep smaller schools open, and moving forward, a new law makes any sort of consolidation or closure in the next few years unlikely. The law that establishes school board elections for Chicago for the first time also contains a provision that, from 2022 on, blocks CPS officials from closing or consolidating schools until elected board members take their seats in 2025.

As federal pandemic relief dollars hit the district this fall, some education finance researchers say they’re wary that school districts could spread resources too thin across schools that are losing students. Marguerite Roza, who runs Edunomics Lab, a school finance think tank at Georgetown University, says declining enrollment trends are first triggered by demographic changes or competing school choices, not by cuts to staff.

“A case could be made that there’s a lot going on right now and losing staff in the middle of this jumble — especially if we think enrollment will return — may not be the greatest idea,” Roza said. “At the same time, if you’re going to use one-time federal money for staffing and the kids aren’t going to return, you just push out that pain.”

“It’s not going to be there.”

At King, six teachers were laid off in June — about 15% of the school’s teaching roster at the time. Students there said returning to a new slate of educators shook their sense of stability and made them feel less connected to their classrooms.

Laila, the King senior, has taken classes with former King dance teacher Kahphira Palmer for three years. She calls dancing with Palmer “a lunch break, but not a lunch break.” It was a space where she could express herself and process life: Palmer led Laila and her classmates to choreograph pieces that affirmed their identities and reckoned with ongoing injustices, such as police brutality.

“I wanted to go out big this year — like, with a bang,” Laila said. “I wanted Ms. Kahphira to teach me all she knew this year, and choreograph my senior piece.”

Over the course of the pandemic, Laila also found herself going to Palmer for support in other courses.

Laila started her junior year with D’s and F’s and ended it with A’s, B’s, and C’s. She said she owes much of her success to Palmer’s mentorship. Palmer sharpened her own math skills to help Laila pass algebra, and connected the student with resources online so she could pass the class.

“One thing people need to understand about students and their dance teachers is that it’s like having another parent,” Palmer, who was hired this summer to teach at Carver Military Academy this year, said. “When you’re a dance teacher, you’re molding your students into something.”

In the last week of summer, Laila didn’t even know what would happen in her classes this fall. Less than a week before the start of school, her schedule still hadn’t been posted.

“I signed up for Dance 4. It’s not going to be there. I signed up for Journalism 2. It’s not going to be there,” Laila said before the year started. “I didn’t even go to registration. I didn’t know how things were going to go down.”

Soon, it will be time for Laila to start sending in college applications. But with both her dance teacher and her journalism teacher gone, Laila is no longer sure where to turn for teacher letters of recommendation.

Talks between Chicago and its teachers union are stalled — but teachers will still return for first day of school

2021-08-18T21:44:33+00:00

With less than two weeks left before the school year starts, negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union are stalled. But whether or not the two groups can negotiate a reopening deal, teachers will still return to classrooms for the first day of school on Aug. 30, CTU president Jesse Sharkey said at a Wednesday press conference.

“We’re going into the school year, but we’re going into it without the safety provisions that would give us the confidence that we really feel like we need,” Sharkey said. “So we’re going to continue fighting.”

The union this summer has pressed the district to grow its vaccination program, expand social distancing guidelines from three feet back to six feet, clarify rules for student testing, and increase testing availability. The union also wants metrics for pandemic spread that would trigger school closures, among other safety measures to protect against the highly contagious delta variant.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson James Gherardi called the CTU’s demands “unscientific” and said the district is committed to the “health and safety of our students and staff.”

“All of the district’s health and safety protocols are in alignment with the health and safety guidelines recommended by the CDC, IDPH and CDPH, and in some cases go beyond them,” Gherardi said.

Nearly all CPS students will return to full-time in-person learning this fall, in line with a state board of education resolution. The district is offering a Virtual Academy for students with specific medical conditions, but signups are low, in part due to a lack of communication about the Virtual Academy’s setup. Some parents are organizing to advocate for expanded remote learning options, but the district has doubled down on its plan to limit virtual learning.

Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner Allison Arwady insisted last week that it is safe for students to return to classrooms, even as the city’s case count hits its highest level in months, most recently seeing a 4.5% positivity rate and 444 daily confirmed cases.

Chicago last Friday announced that all Board of Education employees who don’t have a medical exception must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15 or be ineligible for work until they submit proof of inoculation or exemption. The CTU said that it welcomed the mandate and urged the district to commit to additional safety and recovery measures before schools reopen. The district has also committed to universal masking in school buildings and three feet of social distancing whenever possible.

Previous efforts to reach pandemic reopening deals have brought the district and the union to heated stalemates before.

Tense negotiations between the union and the district stretched for weeks last winter, delaying reopening for elementary and middle schoolers and establishing what experts called the most detailed, comprehensive framework for reopening nationally.

Teachers also refused to report to classrooms for two days in April before reaching a high school reopening deal that included a student vaccination plan, limits on the amount of time students spent in-person at the district’s biggest high schools, and accommodations for staff members who are medically unable to work in person or are caregivers for at-risk relatives.

But right now, teachers aren’t gearing up for an action that would delay the start of school, Sharkey said.

“If this winds up being a runaway surge where people are getting sick, being hospitalized, and dying … we’re not going to simply sit there and participate in mass spreader events inside of our schools,” he said. “We will take action before that happens.”

Amid stalemate with teachers union, Chicago mayor vows to press ahead with reopening schools

2021-01-30T03:57:52+00:00

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that Chicago plans to forge ahead with reopening prekindergarten through eighth grade classrooms Monday, even as the city failed to reach an agreement with its teachers union.

If the two sides don't come to a deal over the weekend, the district will expect teachers to report to work in person next week — likely setting the stage for a teacher strike.

District and union leaders said they have made substantial headway toward reaching an agreement this week, but it wasn’t enough to get a deal. The dispute has thrown Chicago’s second wave of reopening schools into disarray, thrusting families into uncertainty about what school will look like next week. Elementary school teachers, who were to set up their classrooms this week, instead continued to work remotely.

“Another day has passed, and the [Chicago Teachers Union] has not agreed to anything,” a visibly frustrated Lightfoot said Friday night. “We can get it done tonight, tomorrow, Sunday — but we need to get it done.”

Lightfoot said the district asked the union to put in writing issues on which the two sides have agreed in principle by 9 p.m. Friday, but it did not receive such a document. But the teachers union shot back on social media and in a statement, saying that it was the mayor who had “wrecked” a fledgling agreement Friday night.

“The educators in the room were close to reaching an agreement,” the union’s statement said. “The boss stepped in at the 11th hour and blew it to pieces.”

But the union also said it will stay at the bargaining table, noting it has a “willing partner” in the district’s negotiations team.

Last weekend, 61% of the union’s members voted against returning to campus in person — and to go on strike if the district moves to lock them out of their virtual classrooms. The district has said such a walkout, which would come 15 months after the union went on strike during the most recent contract talks, would be illegal. With no agreement within reach Tuesday night, the district suspended in-person learning for about 3,200 preschool and special education students who had returned to their classrooms Jan. 11.

Lightfoot said the district will take “further action” if educators do not report to work on Monday, but she declined to offer specifics or confirm the district intends to lock out educators and dock their pay.

“I will not speculate on what might happen when I am focused very intensely on getting a deal done,” she said.

Lightfoot acknowledged she and district CEO Janice Jackson have not attended the negotiations, saying they have to see progress to join the talks. Jackson said “thousands” of teachers have been coming into schools this week to set up their classrooms.

Back in December, about 70,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or about a third of students in those grades, indicated they wanted to return to school buildings for a blend of in-person and virtual instruction. Based on student turnout during the first wave of reopening — only about 60% of students expected to return actually showed up — that number likely will be smaller.

District leaders said earlier this week that they presented to the union a comprehensive new proposal that could serve as the cornerstone of a deal. That includes doubling the frequency of COVID-19 testing for school-based staff to twice a month, offering surveillance testing for students learning in person, prioritizing vaccinations for educators and support staff in neighborhoods with the highest rates of the coronavirus, and suspending in-person learning should the positivity rate of school-based tests reach 3%.

The union has said gaps remain on some key issues, such as exactly which employees should receive work-from-home accommodations because they or a family member is at elevated risk for serious coronavirus complications. The district has said it will grant some accommodations to educators and support staff who are caregivers of people at a higher risk of becoming seriously ill. But the union is pushing to expand the number of work-from-home permissions, including for staff members who live with immunocompromised family members.

The two sides are also at odds about what testing positivity rate should be used to revert the entire district to remote learning: The union wants school closed if the city hits a 3% coronavirus positivity rate, while the district wants to use the test positivity rate of its own surveillance testing.

The city’s COVID-19 positivity rate, which has dipped in recent weeks, remains at 6.4%.

Lightfoot again cited a decline in district enrollment and an increase in failing grades and absenteeism this school year as arguments for moving swiftly to reopen schools. She argued again that the district has taken extensive safety measures to rein in coronavirus transmission on its campuses.

“We will not abandon negotiations,” she said. “We will stay at the table as long as it takes.”

Chicago cancels in-person classes Wednesday as teachers announce walkout

2021-01-27T01:32:12+00:00

With hopes dashed for a late-night deal, Chicago teachers will defy district orders to report to campuses Wednesday, forcing the school district to suspend in-person learning for 3,200 prekindergarten and special education students.

The move throws Chicago’s efforts to reopen schools to more students into disarray. If the district responds with disciplinary action against teachers, it would trigger a strike in the nation’s third largest school district, canceling school for 340,000 students.

Chicago Public Schools said the district “had no choice” but to ask all students to return to remote learning beginning Wednesday. Officials said that earlier in the day, they proposed a new round of health and safety measures, including doubling testing frequency for school-based staff to twice a month, offering surveillance testing for in-school students, prioritizing vaccinations for in-person teaching staff in neighborhoods with the highest COVID-19 rates, and suspending in-person learning should the positivity rate of school-based tests reach 3%.

But it wasn’t enough to reach a deal. Major gaps remain on vaccination timelines, the amount of surveillance testing of school staff, and which educators should get accommodations for health and family reasons.

For now, officials said they still planned to reopen schools to a broader group of kindergarten through eighth graders next Monday. But with multiple issues unresolved, hope appeared to dim for the 70,000 students who expect to resume in-person learning.

In a statement, the union called for a mediator to help resolve months of gridlocked negotiations.

Two strikes in two years?

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was disappointed that an agreement with the city’s teachers union remained elusive and warned of profound disruption to the district brewing for the second time in two years. The Chicago Teachers Union staged an 11-day strike in 2019 just months after Lightfoot took office.

“This instability and chaos serves no one, and least of all our children,” Lightfoot said. “Least of all our families.”

She cited “three weeks of daily evidence that our schools are safe.” City leaders acknowledged that there have been about 60 cases of students and employees testing positive for the coronavirus since the district started its phased reopening earlier this month. But they said in the overwhelming majority of cases, the district’s safety protocols had prevented in-school transmission of the virus.

The district’s CEO, Janice Jackson, said she believes her district’s safety plan goes beyond any across the country that she has seen.

“We believe our latest proposal to the union can serve as a foundation to a deal,” she said.

Parents appear divided. Some support the union’s push to delay reopening until teachers are vaccinated or more work accommodations are granted. Others are part of an increasingly vocal contingent who are concerned about the impact on students’ mental health and academics and are pushing for the reopening to proceed as planned. Some are caught in the middle, privately lamenting the instability but publicly staying mum at the risk of getting shamed on social media or causing friction with their children’s teachers or principals.

Still, fewer than a fifth of prekindergarten and special education students who need moderate to intensive support returned to in-person learning this month — a development the union has held up as evidence that families remain unconvinced by the district’s safety measures.

Failure at the bargaining table

There are many unknowns, chief among them how Chicago Public Schools will respond to the union’s labor action. The district has said it considers the move an “illegal strike” because it would cancel in-person learning, but taking the issue to labor court to weigh the legality of a strike can be a long process.

Earlier this month, the district “locked out” some teachers who didn’t report to in-person work, but it waited several days to do so, and the number of teachers denied access to their online classrooms fluctuated over the first weeks of reopening. Of the 3,800 teachers who returned to campuses, the district locked out just under 3%, or about 100 teachers.

Both sides laid out the ongoing sticking points in negotiations Tuesday. Whether educators should receive both vaccine doses before returning remained one of the biggest issues in dispute.

Asked why the city does not simply move teachers to the front of the vaccination line, however, Lightfoot said that would be unfair to frontline workers, including those who work in public transit and the city’s libraries, who have been reporting to work.

“How do we say to those folks, ‘You have to go to the back of the line?’” she said.

The district said it had stepped up its offer earlier in the day. Officials said they expanded accommodations for teachers who requested them for health reasons and were offering schools additional options to address gaps in the number of teachers reporting to in-person work. But they did not provide numbers. Of the 7,000 teachers expected to return in the first reopening wave, about 46% received accommodations.

For the first time, the district also included a plan for rapid tests for students and spelled out specific metrics that would determine when individual schools would revert back to remote learning.

Lightfoot also said she is “all for” mediation. She cautioned that the strife would hurt the district’s reputation in the long run — and would undermine efforts to improve the city.

“We won’t get there, ever, with this happening. I hear you, parents. I see your comments on social media. I understand the frustration. We are doing everything we can to make sure we get this deal done,” she said.

The union, meanwhile, said it would continue pushing for safety metrics that it felt best protected teachers returning to in-person work, including a request for all staff to be vaccinated before returning to classrooms, weekly testing, and more telework accommodations for teachers with high-risk family members.

“We are willing to keep teaching, but CPS has said they will lock us out,” said union president Jesse Sharkey in a statement, noting that a broader group of educators would become eligible for vaccinations at the end of February. “We are willing to keep negotiating, but CPS has refused to back down from insisting that 80% of educators and support staff … in every elementary school be back in class on Feb. 1 to serve less than 20% of the students.”

Negotiations with the district, union leaders said, were akin to a dysfunctional marriage, with “a spouse agreeing to marriage counseling only if the other party first concedes the spouse has the right to do whatever they want in the relationship.”

Chicago teachers vote to defy district orders and stay remote, thwarting reopening

2021-01-24T18:40:24+00:00

A majority of Chicago’s teachers, clinicians and paraprofessionals voted to defy district orders to report to school buildings on Monday, throwing the school district’s reopening efforts into disarray.

The move, which the district has warned is an “illegal strike,” could bring most in-person learning to a halt in Chicago. Union leaders rejected the idea that the move constitutes a strike, noting that teachers plan to continue teaching virtually.

To allow more time for negotiation, district leaders said Sunday they would push back the date teachers return to buildings to Wednesday, giving the two sides more time to discuss reopening without the widespread disruption some feared. Educators for kindergarten to eighth grade previously had been told to return Monday.

District officials said Sunday the two sides “agree on far more than we disagree.”

It does not change the timeline for a broader return of elementary school students, planned for Feb. 1. Prekindergarten and special education staff already reporting to buildings will continue to do so, the district said.

Still, the back-and-forth doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a strike altogether.

“Tomorrow, we choose to work safely and remotely — together,” the union said in a statement Sunday. “If we are locked out by the mayor and CPS, then the choice to strike is theirs, not ours.”

About 3,200 prekindergarten and special education returned to school campuses two weeks ago — fewer than the district expected — and another 70,000 students in kindergarten to eighth grade are expected to return Feb. 1. A second wave of teachers had been called in to prepare classrooms starting Monday.

The union said 71% of its members voted in favor of a resolution that rejects the district directive to report to in-person work on Monday. The affirmative vote also sets in motion a potential strike if the district responds to a walkout with disciplinary action against the teachers. About 86% of teachers participated in the vote.

The union has said its goal is a written agreement with the district over working conditions.

The vote unfolded as Chicago Public Schools released new plans to prioritize teacher vaccinations at four sites starting in February. Vaccine supply has proven a challenge for public officials in every state. District leaders said that, because of supply issues, it could take months to arrange vaccinations for 40,000 employees.

The vote didn’t clear the legal boundary of 75% of members in favor required for a formal strike. But the union said that threshold didn’t count in this case because they were weighing an unfair labor strike. They set the vote margin at 60%, a number the district has challenged.

The announcement throws into chaos the second stage of the district’s reopening plan by creating major staffing uncertainty. Thousands of teachers, and some 70,000 students, are expected to return to school over the next two weeks.

Chicago Public Schools came out firmly against the plan last week, warning teachers in a letter that refusing to report to school buildings Monday would constitute an “illegal strike.”

During a Friday press conference to announce the start to the district’s push to vaccinate employees, schools chief Janice Jackson declined to say how the district would respond to a boycott of in-person teaching. She stressed again that the district considers such a move unlawful and would handle it accordingly, but balked at spelling out the district’s “legal strategy.”

“That’s a strike; that’s not a lockout,” she said when asked specifically if the district will block teachers who opt to work virtually out of their online classrooms.

Some schools have told families they are making plans to staff classrooms with non-union members to keep them open for students.

But Jackson also said a beefed-up district negotiations team will continue talks with the teachers union through the weekend.

Special education classroom aides, lunch workers and security guards, represented by SEIU Local 73, will be expected at work Monday. The local’s contract includes a no-strike clause, but in the past, those staff have refused to work in conjunction with teachers in other labor disputes.

The district has said it wants to hire 2,000 retired teachers and support staff to help fill in gaps, but has not yet filled all those positions.

The district insisted last week that an agreement with the teachers union is “within reach,” and union leaders agreed, but neither have released a draft agreement or a timeline for such a document.

In a letter to teachers, Matt Lyons, the district’s chief talent officer, expressed concern about the effect of a walkout on students who have already elected to return. “This vote would cancel in-person learning for the tens of thousands of students who asked to return — and the thousands of pre-K and cluster students who are already learning safely in classrooms,” he said.

But union leaders pushed back strongly on the district’s use of the word “strike“ and who was ultimately responsible if a work stoppage happened.

“Our members didn’t vote on a strike. They (are voting) to remain in remote learning to mitigate disaster,” said Stacy Davis Gates, the union’s vice president. “The only person who can cause a stoppage is the mayor, and CPS, if they lock our members out,” referring to the district’s decision to cut off access to email and remote learning software to about 100 educators who refused to report to campuses in the first reopening wave.

Parent surveys from December showed about 1 in 3 students planned to return when campuses reopened for pre-K and special education students this month and for K-8 students in February.

District numbers shared Friday showed that about 3,250 Chicago students returned to in-person classes in the first week of January — 60% of the attendance officials had expected.

In Chicago, teachers with children less likely to get permission to work from home

2021-01-20T03:26:26+00:00

Three of the four educators on Catherine Dalber’s preschool team at Lawndale Community Academy are mothers to school-age children. Through a formal request process established by Chicago Public Schools late last fall, each woman asked to continue working from home when school buildings reopened.

The district denied all three requests, Dalber said.

Those teachers weren’t isolated situations. In Chicago, only 1 in 10 teachers who asked for a child-care accommodation that would allow them to continue working remotely received such permission, according to Dec. 29 data provided by Chicago Public Schools.

In the Chicago Teachers Union’s high-pitched labor dispute with the district, the denial of remote-work requests, and failure to respond to some, have become a flash point.

“Chicago Public Schools leaves no wiggle room for people to be human beings,” said Dalber, who has a National Board certification and is a mother of three. “When we were surveyed (late last fall on work accommodations) by CPS, it seemed that we had a choice — that they were going to take into account our family needs. Then they turned around and denied the vast majority of us.”

As districts reopen school buildings and while the pandemic continues, officials have grappled with when to grant teacher requests to work from home.

Chicago allowed teachers to submit requests based on their own medical needs, the medical issues of someone in their home, or child care needs. Of the 7,000 teachers and paraprofessionals the district called back to classrooms to teach prekindergarten and special education, officials originally said 2,000, or about 33%, asked for accommodations.

Although the district acknowledged the numbers have shifted as it allowed more teachers to work at home and schools changed their plans, Chicago still expected 54% of pre-kindergarten and special education teachers to show up on campus this week. Because hundreds failed to swipe in or failed health screening, the actually percentage is likely to be lower.

When it came to exemptions, teachers seeking medical accommodations were more likely to see them granted. In fact, teachers who themselves have medical conditions and applied for accommodations had them granted 100% of the time, in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the district said.

Only 21% of those requesting an exemption because they live with someone who has a complex medical issue won permission to work from home, according to the December data.

Some teachers who were denied exemptions reluctantly reported to buildings. Others took unpaid leave. A small group continued to work remotely, defying requests to report to buildings, and last week, the school district remotely locked out approximately 100 of them from their classes.

Among them were several teacher parents, some of whom said they were still waiting on a formal determination from school officials on their request.

Speaking last week at a union event, Marina Ruiz, a special education classroom assistant at Jorge Prieto Math and Science Academy, said she was locked out while waiting for her accommodation request to be approved. She found it doubly frustrating because all of her students had chosen to remain remote, but the district still demanded that she return to the campus. Ruiz also is caring for a mother in hospice.

“All of my students have continued with remote learning. There’s no reason for me to be in the building,” said Ruiz.

One speech pathologist, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, also is still waiting for the district to respond to her request. Her first request was denied, but then the district reached out and asked her to sign an affidavit. She has not heard anything since. The parent of a toddler and a 4-month-old baby, she has taken unpaid leave for now, which offers her no job protection.

“I want to continue working through telework,” she said, describing her options. “If there is a vaccine, I’d go back to work immediately.” (Chicago’s chief public health official, Dr. Allison Arwady, said Tuesday that the city will enter the next vaccination phase starting Monday, and that that phase will prioritize teachers likely starting sometime in February.)

Although tens of thousands more teachers are expected to report on Monday, the district has not yet released accommodation data for that next wave.

Asked Tuesday at a press conference about the child care accommodations, schools chief Janice Jackson said that the school district gave teachers with school-age children the option of sending their own children to campuses four days a week, instead of the two-day in-person week offered to K-8 families.

“We are providing an alternative, in that our schools are providing in-person learning throughout the week,” she said. “There are some individuals with extenuating situations, and the district has been flexible. But where we have a solution, teachers should avail themselves of it.”

For some teachers, that option causes other complications.

Dalber believes sending her two elementary-age children to school four days a week appears to double her family’s risk, by exposing them to two different groups of children. She also has a younger child to consider and a caregiver for that youngster who is high risk.

Adding to her ire: In the under-enrolled school where she teaches, Dalber has only three preschoolers on her roster — all continuing to learn remotely.

“I’m not against there being a plan,” said Dalber, who reported to her campus this week. “I don’t trust this plan.”

Diane Castro, a pre-kindergarten teacher at Lorca Elementary with 14 years of classroom experience, said last week that despite teaching being “all she ever wanted to do,” she was starting to think otherwise. She has two children.

“Who is supposed to care for them,” she asked, “while I’m at work?”

Among the Chicago Teachers Union’s demands: no to ‘simultaneous instruction’

2020-12-11T00:41:47+00:00

With less than a month before some Chicago teachers could return to school buildings, the teachers union has said it rejects the district’s plan for “simultaneous instruction.”

The union also is calling for the city to set a 3% positivity threshold for reopening decisions. Above that rate, Chicago Public Schools would return to all-remote instruction.

The union released its list of demands Thursday, and it’s the most detailed look yet at what it would take to get union leaders to support reopening schools. The list heralds a looming clash between the district and union ahead of Jan. 4, when the first round of teachers are expected to return to buildings.

Despite months of negotiations, the two sides have failed to reach a written agreement. The union has accused the district of not bargaining in good faith, while the district has said the union hasn’t brought forward concrete proposals. The intensity of the conflict is reminiscent of last fall, when teachers walked out on an 11-day strike after weeks of stalled negotiations.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently abandoned his threshold — 3% positivity over a seven-day range — after a brief school shut down and concerns from parents that the rate was arbitrary.

Some of the Chicago union’s demands — like a rejection of “simultaneous instruction,” during which teachers instruct in-person students and remote students at the same time — are likely to be more contentious than others. The approach has fast become a fixture of the return to school buildings nationally, but educators say it can be difficult, and that teachers need significant support to do it successfully.

In a statement on the union’s demands, a Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said “CTU is seeking to reduce instructional time for students and tie reopening to arbitrary standards that are not based on actual public health recommendations.”

Even as the district and union continue to meet regularly, district leaders said they don’t expect to have a written agreement with the union ahead of January’s reopening, and they plan to press ahead without it.

Among the union’s other demands:

A 3% test positivity threshold to reopen schools. District leaders have not set a positivity threshold for reopening, but said they will put school reopening plans on hold until the case-doubling metric hits 18 days.
A shutdown of school sites if a local community is above 3%. Currently, some Chicago neighborhoods, such as Belmont Cragin, clock in at a weekly positivity rate of 21%.
Testing of all staff on a rotating basis, with about 25% of educators tested weekly, and targeting high positivity areas. Under pressure from the union, Chicago Public Schools said in November it would offer random COVID-19 testing, not just tests to symptomatic individuals as it had previously planned. The city, district leaders said, will provide the district with 30,000 rapid tests to aid in that effort — but it would need a regular supply to meet the union’s demands.
Creation of a CTU-CPS Joint Committee on COVID-19 that includes independent experts.
School-level safety committees that include union delegates.

The union also listed specific demands around improving remote learning. It wants the school district to reduce screen time by one hour a day. Students would engage in individual activities during that time, and teachers would use the added hour for preparation and professional development.

The list of demands also includes some efforts toward rent support for families and additional counselors in schools in lieu of police officers, but it does not offer additional details.

Read the full list of demands here.

With a reopening date set, will Chicago teachers come?

2020-12-09T23:40:26+00:00

The first wave of teachers are expected to return to Chicago’s public schools in the new year, but Erin Young isn’t sure yet if she’ll be among them.

Remote learning has been difficult for her students at Luther Burbank Elementary on the Southwest Side. But COVID-19 could be deadly for Young, who is in a high-risk category and, she fears, for some of her students with severe disabilities.

“I have struggled with the decision,” said Young, who teaches special education cluster students from kindergarten to second grade. “I’m getting a lot of pressure from my family” not to go in.

Empty of students since March, Chicago’s public schools are moving again to reopen their doors. The district has announced staggered reopening dates for students in kindergarten to eighth grade starting in January. But among the biggest questions about reopening is this: How many teachers will return next year?

The answer depends on how many individual teachers request health accommodations or unpaid leave. It also hinges on the outcome of the increasingly tense relationship between the school district and the city’s teachers union. Union leaders have shown they are willing to press their case in the labor court system and the court of public opinion, filing labor grievances and calling for car caravan protests about reopening plans. But some critics say they also haven’t clearly outlined the specific conditions in which they would support a return to school buildings.

The intensity of the conflict is reminiscent of last fall, when teachers walked out on an 11-day strike over pay raises and hiring more social workers and nurses.

Now district leaders say the question of whether to reopen schools is no longer up for discussion. They don’t expect to have a written agreement with the union ahead of January’s reopening, and they plan to press ahead without it.

“Our desire always is to have an agreement with the union on how we educate kids,” schools chief Janice Jackson told Chalkbeat this month. “But I don’t see that on horizon anytime soon.”

The union, meanwhile, this week filed an appeal in labor court to stop reopening altogether until there is a written agreement on safety protocols around reopening, and could weigh a strike vote timeline in coming weeks.

The dispute has left Chicago teachers like Young wondering what to do — take an unpaid leave, prepare for a labor action, or plan for a return to school buildings.

“The stakes are so high,” said Young, who wants more guidance about how to teach students with disabilities and enforce social distancing or following behavior rules. She worries about the health of her students who are at higher risk.

She’s not alone. Sean Eichenser, an eighth grade teacher at an elementary school on the Northwest side, said he applied for a health-related accommodation to avoid returning to in-person work. He is now anxiously counting down the days until Feb. 1, when K-8 students are expected to return. “I keep looking at my calendar in February and thinking, ‘What are we doing?’” said Eichenser, who is worried COVID-19 rates will only get higher during the winter.

Others have said they will return to classrooms, even if they are nervous. “I’m a teacher, and it’s my job to take care of the kids and show up at school,” said Tim Daly, who teaches special education cluster students at Schurz High School in Irving Park. “I see the parents in my Zoom calls every day and they need help.”

Teachers had to inform the district by Monday if they would return to school buildings and whether they would need accommodations. An earlier round of “intent to work” forms showed 42% of teachers would return without seeking an accommodation. Meanwhile, in separate parent surveys for pre-kindergarten and special education families, 34% said they would choose an in-person learning option, the district said.

Those numbers, and how they line up, pose a logistical challenge for Chicago schools, which will need to juggle staffing, learning pods that alternate days under a hybrid plan, and a new landscape for teachers who will be expected to teach both in-person and remote students at the same time. The district has said it will expect teachers to report to buildings even if most of their class remains remote.

For teachers who apply for special exemptions, or take a leave, there are several options, but it’s unclear under what conditions, and staffing constraints, they’ll be given.

Employees who have medical conditions that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider high risk can apply to work remotely under the American with Disabilities Act, according to the district. But that’s no guarantee: “While they are considered a priority, not all ADA requests will be approved for full telework depending on the specific circumstances,” according to a district statement.

Teachers may also be eligible for leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, public health emergency leave for educators who are struggling to find child care, or unpaid leave that may not come with any job protection.

Other cities give some sense of what reopening has looked like for teachers. In New York City, the union and school district came to an agreement on reopening, but the plan discouraged principals from assigning teachers to juggle learning pods and fully remote students, leading to a staffing crunch. The district gave roughly 21% of teachers permission to work from home for health reasons this fall.

In Washington D.C., some students returned to school in November but, without an agreement with the city’s teachers union, educators didn’t return and students were supervised by non-teaching staff.

Other teachers unions have also taken their fight to the courts, with mixed results. In Florida, the statewide teachers union fought the governor’s plans to mandate school reopening in August, but wasn’t able to gain traction to stop the move in court. Miami-Dade schools opened partially in the fall, but the teachers union questioned safety protocols, and some teachers said they had been denied health-related work accommodations.

As educators weigh their individual choices, Chicago’s teachers union is pushing forward on a few collective actions, all in an effort to stop the district’s reopening plan, which union officials have argued is unsafe amid double-digit COVID-19 rates.

Union officials have said a safety strike against reopening is on the table. “That’s certainly an option of last resort,” said union attorney Thad Goodchild. “But, you know, we’re talking here literally about a situation of life and death.”

The union has also voiced its concerns to parents at a recent virtual reopening forum, and is planning a car caravan next weekend to argue for improvements to remote learning in place of a return to school buildings.

But the union faces a battle. Many Chicago families have struggled with a screen-heavy remote learning schedule, particularly those with special education students, and school attendance has fallen. A strike vote would need the support of a majority of teachers, including many high school educators who are likely to continue remote teaching through the end of this school year. And while a labor court ruled in favor of the union in their efforts to push the district to offer remote work for school clerks, the decision has not had wide bearing on day-to-day operations.

At a town hall sponsored by the union last week, some people pressed union leaders to spell out the conditions under which they would support a return to campuses. Jesse Sharkey, president of the teachers union, said there “needs to be protocols and enforcement that we can trust.”

He called for the district to create school-level safety committees and a district-level committee with the power to make recommendations to the school board. “We need plans on testing, contact tracing, and vaccination, and that’s important because the communities we teach don’t have equal access.”

But Sharkey did not offer specific parameters, such as how much testing the union is seeking, what contact tracing protocols it would find acceptable, or how widely available a vaccine would need to be for the union to back the plan.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already said teachers won’t be in the first wave to receive doses from the state’s limited vaccine arsenal, and trials that would test the efficacy of vaccines for children haven’t yet started in the United States.

Educators like Erin Young, Sean Eichenser, and Tim Daly said they’re closely watching how discussions move forward between the union and the district and, for each of them, a different area of concern.

Young and Eichenser are focused on COVID-19 rates and how they’d handle a worst-case health scenario, either for themselves or their students.

Daly, meanwhile, said that while he may not have agreed with the decision to reopen, he still looks at Chicago’s reopening plan as a reasonable middle ground.

“The least risky thing in the world is to stay at home and never leave the house, the most risky thing is for everyone to go back to school without a lot of planning,” said Daly, who is already working on lesson plans for a return to school. “But there is a middle way.”

Cassie Walker-Burke contributed reporting.

Chicago is weighing whether to reopen schools. Can it move forward without the consent of its teachers?

2020-10-14T20:16:45+00:00

As Chicago weighs a school reopening plan for the year’s second quarter, one thing is conspicuously absent: an agreement with the city’s restive and powerful teachers union.

In some other large urban districts, such as Los Angeles and Boston, written agreements with unions have spelled out issues like contact tracing plans and learning hours in this unprecedented school year.

But though Chicago schools officials have met regularly with the Chicago Teachers Union representatives, they haven’t agreed on a road map or even on the need for one.

That lack reflects a deep, long-standing tension between the union and the city. The union does not want to return to buildings without a long list of safety measures and assurances, while the city has indicated it wants to open campuses where possible. The split adds to citywide uncertainty about how schools can reopen and function.

Now the union’s criticism of the district is growing more pointed, and more public, as leaders say they want to be brought in to Chicago’s reopening conversations. But the union has limited options.

If the city plans to reopen schools without winning union agreement, the union may file a grievance or labor lawsuit — which might not win district compliance. Or it may threaten to walk out, which risks heightening school disruption for a weary school community.

Still, the teachers union retains a veto power of sorts.

“If you want to reopen schools, you pretty much can’t do it without the consent of your teachers,” said Jon Shelton, an expert on labor and school districts at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay. “The power teachers unions have does not just come from contracts. It comes from members being able to take concerted action.”

This week, schools chief Janice Jackson said again she worries that remote learning is deepening disparities facing low-income students and that virtual classrooms are not replacements for in-person learning. She promised a second-quarter decision “soon.”

With COVID-19 test-positive rates in Chicago hovering around 4.4%, and the recent coronavirus death of a first grade Chicago Public Schools teacher, the district must consider metrics that change daily and the reality that case counts are higher in some Black and Latino neighborhoods than in the city as a whole. Meanwhile, the reopening of classrooms in the Chicago suburbs and in urban districts such as Miami-Dade and Denver is putting pressure on district leaders.

Since the summer, the union and district have been bargaining twice a week, union leaders said.

District officials refused to say whether they are working toward a written agreement for a school reopening and how any discussions are going. But they have said they will continue to meet with the union.

Union representatives said that the two sides have agreed on small issues, particularly around remote learning. The union said the district is considering a union request to not tie observations, done for teacher evaluation, to job security. The sides are discussing remote learning practices, such as whether teachers must always have their cameras on, and what they’re able to record during live instruction, the union said.

Union leaders want the city to bargain the details of school reopening. They complain that the district has not proposed how to handle the second quarter, which starts Nov. 9.

They said district Chief Operating Officer Arne Rivera and second-in-command LaTanya McDade have not attended recent talks. Instead, the district has sent labor relations officer Caitlin Gerard, the Chief Talent Officer Matt Lyons, and an attorney with the Franczek law firm to bargain. To union leadership, that indicates that the district is not serious about the negotiations.

Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said that last summer the district informed the union of reopening plans only days, and sometimes just hours, before they were released publicly.

That has frustrated union leaders.

“I can’t make a decision without having something to react to,” Gates said. “What has changed since March that would make reopening safe? We need to be able to answer that.”

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign labor expert Bob Bruno said the law doesn’t obligate the school district to secure an agreement on its reopening plan, but the district must bargain any impact on teacher working conditions. From a labor relations standpoint, he said, it’s best practice to develop a plan collaboratively.

The biggest sticking point, experts said, may be in-person learning.

“I think these agreements are extremely important,” says Brad Marianno, a professor of education policy and leadership at the University of Las Vegas, who has been tracking about 250 district reopening agreements since spring. “Districts and unions need to get to the bargaining table to hammer out those details. It gives teachers a sense of stability if you have a plan in place that’s legally enforceable.”

An analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality shows 15 out of the 21 large urban districts it tracked that had formal agreements in the spring also negotiated agreements for the fall.

What was in each of those agreements varied, said the council’s policy specialist Shannon Holston. “What is in those agreements is driven by local context —- for example, California districts have instructional minutes but others don’t get into that at all,” she said.

What’s the picture in other places?

Some large urban districts never crafted reopening agreements with their unions, Marianno said. Districts generally sought to preserve flexibility in an uncertain school year, he said.

Districts that did negotiate agreements haven’t gotten everything they wanted.

In Los Angeles, a memorandum of understanding specifies a school day running from 9 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., with Monday largely dedicated to teacher preparation; the district initially had pushed for teachers logging on to live classes from their empty classrooms.

The Chicago Teachers Union has held up the Los Angeles agreement as a model of productive collaboration.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, the district had insisted on daily live instruction for students. Its union pushed back, and the agreement settled on “regular” contact.

“Districts are in a very, very difficult position in these negotiations,” said Marianno, noting that an impasse or a strike can severely disrupt learning after enormous upheaval.

Does having a plan promise a smooth reopening?

Having a plan is not a guarantee. In New York City, which has had bumps and turns in trying to reopen schools, the city managed to ink an agreement with the teachers union but its complicated promises created a staffing crisis that further delayed reopening.

In Chicago, the case of school clerks may indicate the rough road ahead.

After the district called in school clerks and technology coordinators, the union filed an unfair labor practice lawsuit. The union prevailed in the suit: The judge ruled that any work that could be done remotely should be done so, to ensure clerks’ safety.

While arbitration is binding, the district rejected the arbitrator’s findings and promised to appeal the ruling. The union said that response “flouted” the rules of arbitration.

Without an agreement, the arbitrator will issue a ruling on in-school work for clerks. Until then, the 1,000 school clerks and tech support staff at the center of the dispute are still going into school buildings, without an agreement regulating their working conditions.

Chicago Teachers Union sues Betsy DeVos and district over special education plans

2020-05-20T21:29:10+00:00

The Chicago Teachers Union filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday arguing that the government’s refusal to waive parts of its cornerstone disability rights law during the coronavirus pandemic has swamped special education teachers with paperwork.

The union, which named the city’s school board in the suit, said that the way Chicago Public Schools interpreted the law requires educators and school-based teams to essentially rewrite special education plans for as many as 70,000 students by the school year’s end. Union leaders said that’s a “physically impossible mandate” that diverts teachers from the already challenging task of serving students with special needs remotely.

The lawsuit criticizes how Betsy DeVos, the federal education secretary, has handled special education during the pandemic. Last month, DeVos decided not to recommend to Congress that school districts be given the option to waive key parts of special education law.

“We are looking for relief from onerous and unmeetable bureaucratic requirements,” said the union’s president, Jesse Sharkey. “What we need to be doing is having contact with our students.”

A spokeswoman for DeVos said the lawsuit is “nothing more than political posturing for a headline,” while a spokeswoman for Chicago Public Schools said the union did not properly characterize the situation.

The district said in a statement that its remote learning guidelines for special education do not require a wholesale rewriting of individualized education programs, or IEPs, the documents that spell out the services students with special needs are entitled to receive. Those guidelines just call on teachers to “make basic accommodations” to continue serving students under the unusual circumstances brought about by statewide school closures.

“Make no mistake: This lawsuit against the district is not about helping students,” said district spokeswoman Emily Bolton in the statement. “It’s about avoiding the necessary steps to ensure our most vulnerable students are supported during this unprecedented crisis.”

How to deliver special education services in a pandemic has become a flashpoint issue for educators and disability rights groups across the country. Advocates had feared the federal government might allow districts to ease protections for students with disabilities, but DeVos said in April that she would not, with a few exceptions. Still, some parents of children with disabilities have said they feel left behind as education has shifted online.

The teachers union suit this week states that the abrupt transition to remote learning amid the coronavirus outbreak has been especially taxing on students with special needs. It calls for the creation of a compensatory fund to pay for additional services, such as tutoring, therapeutic camps, and technology support.

Union leaders and educators said the district and federal government’s suggestions that teachers are using the lawsuit to shirk their responsibilities are deeply insulting at a time they said Chicago teachers and other professionals have gone out of their way to continue serving students. They said a lack of clear direction from the district and federal officials are making that job harder.

They said special education plans do need to be adjusted even if remote learning extends into the fall. But, they said, educators must get time and guidance from the district to accomplish what they described as a heavy lift.

Social worker Carolina Juarez-Hill said about the new remote learning plans, “We are trying to roll these out like an assembly line. We are trying to do it as quickly as possible because of the mandate.”

The union notes district guidelines require educators to review students’ special education programs and draft a plan to serve students remotely. The guidelines also say teachers have to hold a formal conference with parents or guardians to help draft the remote learning plans — a step that the union argues would create “anxiety and emotional distress” for parents during a challenging time.

The union says about 51,850 Chicago students have IEPs and another roughly 20,000 have other special plans, which cover non-instructional special accommodations such as those addressing food allergies.

After special education advocates filed a complaint in 2017 that Chicago systemically delayed or denied services to children with disabilities, the state school board placed the district under oversight. A monitor oversees the district’s special education efforts.

But the monitor has not yet issued a public accounting of how children with disabilities are faring in remote learning. Asked Wednesday for details on that by one of the state’s school board members, State Board of Education Superintendent Carmen Ayala said she’d provide an update at a future meeting.

Despite coronavirus uncertainty, Chicago school leaders move forward with $125 million budget boost

2020-04-28T19:38:45+00:00

Chicago will spend $125 million next school year to boost special education and low-enrollment schools and to add some of the nurses and social workers it agreed to in the latest union contract, officials said Tuesday.

The district, which offered a first draft of school-level budgets for the 2020-21 year on Tuesday, expects to present a balanced full-district budget this summer, thanks in part to about $205 million in federal emergency funding to help it face strain from the coronavirus pandemic and resulting school building closures. Chicago Public Schools must share some of that funding with private and charter schools, according to the federal government.

The spending plan presented Tuesday for individual campuses represents about 60% of the anticipated total district budget.

Still, schools chief Janice Jackson stressed the district cannot rule out the need to adjust its plan, as the longer-term effects of the coronavirus outbreak on state and district budgets become clearer.

“We are also cognizant of the reality we live in with COVID-19,” she said. “We will continue to monitor that.”

Asked Tuesday afternoon whether budget increases are prudent as revenue projections trend downward, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he didn’t know yet how coronavirus-related revenue shortfalls would impact schools. He said he was working with legislators to see “whether we will be able to increase education funding at all. But I hope that we will.”

The preliminary school spending plan comes amid questions about whether Pritzker will allow school campuses to reopen in fall or whether remote learning will continue. The governor over the weekend acknowledged that extended fall closures were a possibility.

On Tuesday, Chicago Public Schools leaders said they compiled this year’s budget in response to a community engagement process, initiated by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, to reconsider how Chicago divides up its $6.2 billion operating budget, about $3.8 billion of which was earmarked for individual schools in 2019-20.

More than a third of the slated $125 million increase — $44 million — will go to 255 schools in the form of so-called “equity grants,” which have previously been directed to campuses with shrinking enrollment. The money is intended to help those schools maintain or even bulk up programs with the aim of attracting more families.

That approach has raised questions about whether Chicago should continue to throw lifelines to its most struggling schools, since that comes at a cost to other schools. According to district enrollment data, 145 campuses this school year were less than half full.

Officials said Tuesday that they were broadening the definition of the grants to include schools in communities with a high “hardship index,” a metric that factors in poverty, employment, education levels, and other data. Schools can use the additional money to hire reading specialists, for instance.

New proposed funding includes $97 million to increase special education services, $18 million to expand free full-day pre-kindergarten, $13 million to hire more nurses and social workers, and $5 million to fund college and career programs at neighborhood schools.

“The school budgets we are releasing today are key to providing every student in the district with a high-quality education,” Jackson said.

District leaders touted the special education boost as the largest single-year funding increase for special education in the district’s history. Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade said the district tweaked its approach to budgeting for special education to give schools more flexibility and reduce the need for “mid-year corrections.” That includes giving schools more opportunities to “round up” staff positions — for instance, budgeting for two teachers or aides when school numbers call for 1.2 full-time positions.

Officials with the Chicago Teachers Union voiced disappointment Tuesday that the district had not briefed them on the school budgets ahead of time. In a statement, union President Jesse Sharkey criticized the lack of detail about how the district will address the COVID-19 crisis in school budgets. He said an increase in funding for nurses and social workers falls short of a goal to place those professionals in each school, as the union has advocated.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Chicago was in the first stages of rethinking how it allocates its school budgets, part of a campaign promise by Lightfoot to revamp how the district doles out funds.

A committee of board members, district leaders, and union organizers held public meetings to solicit budget input earlier this year.

Their recommendations, also released Tuesday, suggest that in the long term the district must significantly change how it divvies up funds. In the short term, the district said it owes schools more transparency on how budget decisions are made, and will sharpen its definition of equity.

Jackson said the district incorporated two of the group’s six recommendations this spring. One was using school neighborhood’s “hardship indexes” instead of just student demographics to drive added funding to schools. The district also tried to give principals more of a say in crafting their school budgets.

Jackson said the district is still considering the remaining recommendations. She said the committee and residents who took part in listening sessions rallied around a need to advocate more aggressively for additional revenue from the state. She added she has no intention to move away from budgeting based on student enrollment, noting that slightly more than 50% of schools’ budgets are based purely on enrollment.

She added, “If the pie is not big enough for everybody, we will continue to have those debates.”

Principals are expected to receive their budgets on Tuesday afternoon.

Two principals joined Jackson in a virtual press conference to praise their latest budget allocations. Zaneta Abdul-Ahad at Hampton Fine and Performing Arts Elementary in Ashburn said she was thrilled to see additional funding for two new full-day pre-kindergarten classrooms — long on the wish list of the school community.

Victor Iturralde at Solorio Academy High School said students and families in the school’s Gage Park neighborhood face “tremendous economic challenges,” and he welcomes a new $100,000 “equity grant” the school received to provide added stability.

“Our students and community need a little help leveling the playing field,” he said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Goodbye As, Bs and Cs? Chicago Public Schools to revisit grading during pandemic

2020-04-22T20:39:32+00:00

A new grading policy is in the works in Chicago Public Schools, where officials are weighing calls by the teachers union and others to shift to a pass/fail approach.

The district stuck with letter grades at the end of its third quarter last week, even as some educators voiced concern about grading students only days after the formal start of remote learning in Chicago.

Echoing guidance from the state, the district had decreed that students’ grades could only improve during the weeks of learning at home — a nod to disparities in access to technology and other challenges that can make remote learning tougher for some students. But some teachers argued that inequities magnified by the coronavirus crisis nevertheless make any kind of grading problematic.

District officials told the district governing board Wednesday that they are reexamining the issue of grading in consultation with the Chicago Teachers Union. They said they are trying to strike a balance between keeping students and schools accountable, and giving priority to students’ social and emotional needs during the pandemic.

“I feel strongly we need to create a system of checks and balances,” said schools chief Janice Jackson, echoing the position of some educators who have argued that students need incentives to log on and complete assignments. About the new policy in the works, she said,“we’ll put together something that’s complex and meets the needs of everybody.”

The union head, Jesse Sharkey, who addressed the board virtually during a truncated version of its monthly meeting, said a pass/fail or credit/no credit approach makes sense, calling it “the only way to account for the disruption a global pandemic has caused.” Students could opt to receive a letter grade.

“We are going to lose a certain amount of academic progress, and that’s inevitable,” he said.

In response to later questions from board members, LaTanya McDade, the district’s chief academic officer, said Chicago is researching how other districts across the country are handling grading and talking with the union and others. She noted some students still need grades for their college applications, and some have received letters from colleges reminding them they need to maintain their grade point averages.

Some districts are allowing students to opt in to letter grades. In Denver, high school students now have a choice: For each class, they can decide whether they want to receive a letter grade or would prefer their transcript to show that they earned or did not earn credit for the course. No teacher can give a student an F. In New York, schools still grade assignments, but officials have emphasized “flexibility” — like allowing more make-up work and latitude around student attendance. Officials there have said they are also weighing other options, as Chicago is.

McDade said Chicago is sensitive to the steep hurdles to learning many of its students face; officials plan to keep putting a premium on supporting students’ social and emotional well-being.

But she said, “We want to make sure we respect and honor the hard work students are doing right now. We have to find some middle ground.”

Jackson said she does not want a “situation where anything goes and everyone gets a pass.”

If students put in the work, they should have a chance to improve their standing. “My argument is if 10 kids show up, teach the 10 kids that show up,” she said.

District officials also said they are working on a more sophisticated approach to tracking how many students are engaging with schoolwork and how; the district will also collect data on what schoolwork teachers are assigning.

Some board members signaled support for changes to the grading policy.

School board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a college professor, noted that her university campus has shifted to a model in which students can choose between credit/no credit or letter grades. She suggested that approach could make sense for the district as well.

“Of course learning continues; I get this message loud and clear,” she said.

But, she said, “Our young people are going through lots of different things.”

In an informal Chalkbeat poll posted on Twitter just as third-quarter grades were due, 26.8% said the district should move ahead with grading, 57.1% said it should reconsider, and 16.1% were undecided. All together, 112 people responded.

Chicago teachers vote to ratify new contract by wide margin

2019-11-16T04:21:06+00:00

Chicago teachers have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new five-year agreement, the union said Friday, staving off fears that dissatisfaction with the compromise deal might prompt teachers to walk off the job again.

The final margin was 81% to 19%, with 80% of schools reporting late Friday. Teachers mostly voted in their schools by secret ballot Thursday, with some casting ballots Friday morning. Delegates collected paper votes at schools and delivered them downtown to union headquarters.

The contract agreement, reached at the end of an 11-day strike and approved by the union’s 700-member House of Delegates by a 60-to-40% margin, requires one final signoff: Chicago’s Board of Education will take up the measure Wednesday morning. The board is expected to pass the contract, which will cost the district about $115 million additional this school year.

Combined with a new agreement with Service Employees International Union Local 73 — which represents custodians, bus aides, and special education classroom assistants — the district’s annual $2.6 billion in union labor costs will swell by $137 million this school year.

The school board met this past week to hear about the financial implications of the agreements, and some members raised questions about how the district would pay for years two through five.

On Friday night on the fifth floor of union headquarters, two dozen volunteers and union staff counted green paper votes where teachers had anonymously checked a box for “yes” or “no.” School tallies were registered on large sheets on the wall.

Union President Jesse Sharkey, watching the vote being tallied Friday evening, said he thought contract passage was likely, even though there was dissent among the ranks.

“Do I feel like we got everything we deserved for the schools? No,” he said. “And I hope our members aren’t satisfied. I’m not happy that we gave up six days pay in order to get a nurse in every school. But I do feel proud of our union and what it accomplished, and I think our members feel proud that we really moved the needle on conditions in our schools.”

Since the strike ended, teachers have reported mixed feelings about the contract, which put the city’s new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, in an uncomfortable national spotlight just months into her term. The union said all along it wanted more than pay increases for its members and demanded that the school district, which is overseen by a board and school chief who are appointed by the mayor, invest millions more into additional staffing at schools, class size reductions, and pay raises for aides and clerks who also play critical roles in buildings and are generally low paid.

The union also attempted to use negotiations to pressure the mayor to support its legislative agenda, win more preparation time for elementary teachers, and enact a moratorium on school closings in a district with falling enrollment. But the district fought those initiatives back.

In the end, teachers succeeded in seeing hundreds more staff positions, from nurses to social workers to additional teachers for English learners, written into the contract. They also won substantial pay increases for aides and other support staff, with some immediate bumps of 9% a year. They also won a substantial pot of money, some $35 million a year, to be used for a committee that has jurisdiction over reducing overcrowding, most likely by supplying teachers’ aides.

Teachers themselves also earned a cost-of-living raise on top of the raises they already receive for experience and additional credentialing — 16% across five years. But that was the pay deal on the table before the walkout, and, after the 11-day strike ended with the city only agreeing to make up five days of instruction, teachers said they effectively lost the value of their raises by taking pay cuts for the days not paid.

Experienced teachers also reported dissatisfaction with fuzzy details over veteran pay and how raises for teachers with 14 years of experience or more will be parceled out. The union and district still have not reached agreement on whether the raises will be built into the salary schedule or issued as bonuses, Sharkey said Friday evening.

“I would have loved to have that worked out by now,” he said. “At the very worst, people are going to get some extra pay. At the best, we can do that in a way that actually increases the base (salary). We’re going to have to keep fighting with the board about that.”

On Wednesday, the school board will also vote on a revised 2019-20 school calendar that includes five make-up days from the strike. The district plans to reinstate days from part of Thanksgiving and winter break.

With less than a week before strike, Chicago sweetens offer to teachers; union calls it ‘insulting’

2019-10-11T23:57:30+00:00

Seeking to avoid a strike less than six months into her term, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday she had sweetened the city’s offer to teachers, pledging an additional $2 million to grow the pipeline of critical support staff and another $1 million to reduce class sizes.

In a 72-page offer made public Friday, she and schools chief Janice Jackson also committed to reducing health co-pays in the teachers’ medical plan and said they were dropping a controversial proposal that would give principals more control over how teachers spend their prep time.

The offer does not include additional money for teachers’ salaries. Lightfoot’s most recent pay offer has been a 16% cost-of-living increase across five years. The city’s latest proposal and a summary document are embedded below.

“All in all, our offer includes over 80 changes to the collective bargaining agreement on issues requested by the union,” Lightfoot and Jackson said in a joint statement. “We have bent over backwards to meet CTU’s concerns.”

The union quickly rejected the offer, saying it didn’t adequately address the dire needs for support staffing and smaller class sizes in schools. Those issues have been central sticking points in months of negotiations.

“If you agree that we need smaller class sizes, if you agree that we need a nurse in every school, a social worker in every school, then why won’t you put it in writing?” asked union political director Stacy Davis Gates, calling again for the mayor to place staffing demands in the contract. “Flexibility for the 90% students of color in Chicago has always meant: less, unequal and inequitable.”

In her press release Friday, Lightfoot accused the union of not bargaining in good faith and heading for a strike at all costs.

On the staffing offer, one of the more contentious areas of negotiations, the city offered an additional $2 million over five years to build a pipeline to provide more nurses, social workers and case managers for special education students — all hard-to-fill jobs.

City Hall and the Chicago Teachers Union have disagreed over committing in the contract to adding thousands of support staff positions the union has demanded. The city has pledged to add a smaller number, in the hundreds, across five years, in part because district hiring managers have documented a scarcity of candidates that they say thwarts more substantial staffing increases.

The union has argued the district must write the staff increases into the contract to ensure that new hires are fully licensed and their work is not contracted out to private companies.

In another concession, the district put in language that better protects counselors’ time so they can support students and not be tapped for other duties, such as filling in for absent teachers or supervising lunch or recess.

The union, however, lashed out at the district for ignoring a union request to hire case managers for every school to assist special education teachers in managing paperwork and services for students.

Read the full offer below.

Chicago teachers vote by wide margin to move toward strike

2019-09-27T03:30:00+00:00

Chicago teachers, clinicians and paraprofessional union members voted by a wide margin to authorize a strike, setting the stage for a walkout less than six months into Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s term. Educators could walk out as early as Oct. 7.

The union said 94% of its members voted in favor of a walkout.

With ballots in from 90% of schools late Thursday night, the vote meets the 75% threshold of support from all active union members required by state law.

“This is a clear signal from the members of the Chicago Teachers Union that we need the mayor and the Board of Education to address critical needs across our schools,” said union President Jesse Sharkey.

In a joint statement, Lightfoot and schools chief Janice Jackson said they had been bargaining for months “in a good faith effort to create an inclusive process” that took into consideration teachers’ concerns and ideas for improving schools. “We are committed to doing everything we can to finalize a deal that is sustainable for all Chicagoans and for our city’s future, that respects our teachers, and continues our students’ record-breaking success.”

The vote does not guarantee that teachers will strike, but the union can now announce a walkout date with 10 days’ notice. The union’s 700-member House of Delegates could vote on a proposed strike day at its next meeting on Oct. 2.

Meanwhile, negotiations will continue between the city and union. Sharkey said bargaining would resume on Friday.

The teachers’ contract with the district expired June 30.

Talks have stalled primarily over whether to write additional staff that the union is demanding into the contract or not. The two sides also haven’t agreed yet on class sizes, prep time, pay, health care, or the length of the contract.

The district said it is has put a generous pay raise on the table — a 16% raise over five years for teachers. Both of the city’s major newspapers have editorialized in favor of the district’s offer.

In the joint statement from City Hall and Chicago Public Schools, the mayor and schools chief said that they had put forth a pay deal that would make Chicago teachers “among the highest compensated in the nation” and had committed to increasing support staff.

“As the product of public school systems ourselves, we know firsthand how hard our teachers work, and we celebrate their engagement and tenacity during the bargaining process over these past months,” Lightfoot and Jackson said.

When announcing the results Thursday, Sharkey said that the vote was not just about pay and benefits. “Pay and benefits alone are not enough, we care deeply about the learning and working conditions in our schools,” he said. Sharkey reiterated the union’s demands for class size limits and for the city to lock in firm numbers of nurses, social workers, and special education positions in the contract.

Earlier in the week, Sen. Bernie Sanders attended a boisterous union rally in Chicago, helping bring national attention to the effort. The Illinois Federation of Teachers union issued a statement in support of the strike authorization vote on Thursday night.

During past teacher walkouts, the school district, park district, and YMCA have offered child care and free lunch for students affected by walkouts.

Chicago could see at least three school-related strikes in October. Besides district teachers, educators at Passages charter school also voted earlier this month to authorize a strike.

And Service Employees International Union Local 73, the union representing nearly 8,000 Chicago Public Schools support staff — whose work ranges from working with special education students to staffing metal detectors at school entrances — won a strike authorization vote last month. Those employees could also walk out in October, causing further disruptions at schools.

During the city’s last contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union, in 2016, observers saw a strike as all but inevitable. But district officials made several concessions at the last minute, averting a full-fledged strike.

The city’s last full-fledged teacher strike was in 2012. That year, teachers walked off the job for the first time in 25 years.