Chicago Teachers Union votes 73% to begin remote teaching starting tomorrow

[greenjar_01]

Chicago Public Schools will now counter by cancelling classes, possibly for the remainder of the week, but definitely for tomorrow.

Fucks sake.

[Nevilledog]

1. ...

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Gregory Pratt
@royalpratt
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said teachers who do not come into work tomorrow will be put on no pay status.
7:27 PM · Jan 4, 2022

[greenjar_01]

2. Oh, it's quite the showdown

Needless to say, there is zero capacity to go remote tomorrow, and no appetite (among parents) for any extended remote instruction plan. CTU is operating on the far margins of what parents will put up with at this point, and I supported them through two recent strikes.

[Celerity]

11. good for her!

[aeromanKC]

3. As a former teacher, I would not teach in this climate at this time.

The environment is not safe. Get out. Wait out the pandemic in another capacity (it's a workers market right now!!) and if that works out great. If not come back to teaching in a few years after Covid has been mitigated.

[greenjar_01]

4. Good for you

[greenjar_01]

5. Accompanying news story

https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/01/04/cps-cancels-classes-wednesday-as-teachers-refuse-to-work-in-schools-until-covid-cases-fall-sharply/

CHICAGO — Classes are canceled at Chicago Public Schools Wednesday after teachers voted to stop in-person instruction amid the city’s COVID-19 surge.

It’s unclear when classes will resume, remotely or in-person. Chicago Teachers Union members voted to refuse to work in-person until Jan. 18 or until the city’s positivity rate falls below 10 percent, a metric CPS set last year for shutting down schools, according to a source and the Sun-Times. Chicago’s positivity rate is at 23.6 percent, up from 13.6 percent the week prior as of Tuesday. Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said she does not expect rates to drop until at least mid-January.

The move to refuse to work in-person at schools was approved by 73 percent of voting teachers union members Tuesday night. Union officials did not provide a timeline when they announced the vote tally, saying instead the action would be in place until COVID-19 cases drop or they come to a reopening agreement with Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Our county positivity rate is above 30% -

and pop-up testing sites were above 50% last week.

And I'm teaching in person (6 hours last Sunday, 3 hours yesterday, 3 hours today, and 12 hours next weekend).

I'd comment on what babies they are (in comparison to what I'm doing) - but I agree that in person teaching is very risky at this point, and probably would have voted not to teach in person. My university has, informally, told me that any class with more than 1/3 of the students absent will switch to remote.

Fortunately, I guess, I'm retiring in April so next weekend will be the last class I teach. (I am doing non-teaching duties until the end of March). So I won't have to wrestle with whether to teach or not.

[former9thward]

6. This is the third straight year of total disruption of the schools in Chicago.

Starting in the Fall of 2019 there was a long strike. Then Covid shut down the schools for the next year and half. Now this. Students can't survive educationally in that environment.

[Thtwudbeme]

8. And- they are doing the right thing. It sucks- but, there it is.

Atlanta is going remote this month.

Other districts are going to start falling fast this week.

[Dorian Gray]

9. I think the teacher's union

will not be met with open arms here.

Parents are tired of disruption in their kids' lives.

I support large districts allowing individual schools to make independent decisions and shut down/go remote if there are staffing issues. It's going to happen and education will be disrupted.

I think shutting down the whole system this way will anger a lot of people.

[greenjar_01]

12. Ayup

[Ace Rothstein]

13. They will definitely use it against Pritzker later this year.

Even though he isn't involved.

[Dorian Gray]

14. I think you're right

I'm of two minds about this because I know how hard this is for teachers. I'm in education. Lots of friends are teachers in NYC/New England.

Schools and municipalities should be doing the most they can to make sure that schools are a safe place for students and teachers. I don't know Chicago well enough to know whether they've done the bare minimum. I suspect not, as the teachers seem genuinely afraid, and I have compassion for that.

But I also think that teachers have access to vaccines, with a booster Omicron isn't as scary as previous versions of Covid, we have access to masks and we KNOW what mitigates this thing. If Chicago schools haven't had updates to their ventilation, that's the government's issue. Every student and teacher should be provided with a great mask to wear. Education should be the number one priority of the government right now. Making it safe for students and educators alike. And unions should be fighting for that.

In NYC we are not testing enough. I have friends who work at inner city public schools here, and it's a shit show there. They are exhausted and they've only been back three days since the holidays so far. The city isn't doing enough, and what they are doing is disorganized. I believe her school's principal should be able to independently go virtual for a week or two to sort out the mess, without the whole system resorting to that. (We need to allow individual schools to act right now due to their circumstances.)

Chicago, like I said, is a different story than NYC for many reasons. We are imperfect, but our union is NOT fighting being back in person. And our case count is insane. I think in Chicago, the unions may lose the sympathy of the parents. They aren't driving the story...