{"id":120937,"date":"2021-02-08T13:15:27","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T18:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=120937"},"modified":"2021-02-08T13:42:48","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T18:42:48","slug":"chicago-public-schools-reaches-tentative-reopening-deal-with-teachers-union-students-may-return-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/chicago-public-schools-reaches-tentative-reopening-deal-with-teachers-union-students-may-return-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Public Schools Reaches \u2018Tentative\u2019 Reopening Deal With Teachers Union, Students May Return This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchicago-public-schools-reaches-tentative-reopening-deal-with-teachers-union-students-may-return-this-week%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=120937&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1134501042-scaled-1.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Chicago\u2019s mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Monday that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have reached a \u201ctentative\u201d deal that could have teachers back in classrooms as early as this week \u2014 but the two sides have yet to agree on precisely when students might also return to in-person learning.<\/p>\n<p>CPS and CTU have been at odds since early January over a plan to have most Chicago students return to classrooms n on February 1st. CPS insisted that it spent hundreds of thousands readying classrooms for mid-pandemic instruction and encouraged teachers to \u201cfollow the science,\u201d as noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which claims returning to in-person learning is largely safe. CTU demanded that all teachers be vaccinated before CPS was allowed to reopen and that teachers who had contact with \u201cvulnerable individuals\u201d be allowed to work from home in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<p>At one point,&nbsp; teachers even suggested that schools could remain closed until the pandemic ended \u2014 a timeline that could keep virtual learning alive for the next several years.<\/p>\n<p>Monday, though, Lightfoot claimed the two parties had finally broken their impasse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt long last, CPS has finally reached a tentative agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union that opens up school doors for our pre-K, cluster, and K through eight students,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/coronavirus\/ct-chicago-public-schools-teachers-union-deal-reached-no-strike-20210207-riflckhjwnfjfil5ddvbdfr75y-story.html\">Lightfoot announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder the tentative framework, the first group of students and staff \u2014 pre-K and special education cluster programs \u2014 would return Feb. 11. When schools briefly opened to those groups in January, fewer than 1 in 5 eligible students attended,\u201d the Chicago Tribune reported. \u201cSubsequent groups would be staggered, with staff returning ahead of students: Kindergarten through fifth-grade staff would go back Feb. 22, followed by their students on March 1. Sixth through eighth-grade staff would go back March 1, followed by their students on March 8.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The two parties did not agree on a return timeline for high school students.<\/p>\n<p>It appears, from comments CTU officials made following news of the agreement, that the union\u2019s threat of a strike did not produce better results from CPS, leaving them more willing to take a deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not clear to me that if we strike, we automatically get more,\u201d CTU president Jesse Sharkey explained to members. The Tribune notes that, because CTU already has a contract with the school district, any strike \u2014 official or unofficial \u2014 could have left members without paychecks at a particularly difficult time.<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot was quick to note, Monday, that it was parents who prompted the deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have told me directly and you have told us that you feel like, as parents and students, you have been held hostage and your voices have been drowned out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not clear whether the deal covers vaccinating teachers. The head of the CDC said, last week, that schools did not need to ensure all teachers were vaccinated in order to return students to classrooms safely. The Biden administration, which is deeply connected to teachers unions, said that the CDC director was speaking in a \u201cpersonal\u201d capacity when addressing the vaccine issue, but promised, Sunday, that it would release guidance on returning to in-person instruction this week.<\/p>\n<p><em><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/span><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em><span>member<\/span><\/em><\/a><em><span>.&nbsp;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chicago\u2019s mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Monday that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have reached a \u201ctentative\u201d deal that could have teachers back in classrooms as &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892891,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4387,3715,3799,5810,4546,3735],"class_list":["post-120937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chicago","tag-deal","tag-public","tag-reaches","tag-reopening","tag-schools"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}