School budgets: Knowledge is power
CTU budget trainings educate and empower members to challenge budget priorities and advocate for school needs.
Shame on you, CPS
PSRP Judy Mahoney is exactly the kind of employee CPS should value. She served as the school clerk at Whittier Elementary in Pilsen for 23 years until a drunk driver changed the course of her life one night. Now, four years later, CPS has slashed Judy’s position at the school and, had our Union not fought back, she would have been out of job at the end of June.
What I learned at the bargaining table
Our members’ willingness and courage to escalate tactics is the only thing that moves CPS to do what’s right for students and educators.
Lincoln Park High School safety committee improves transparency, accountability — and safety
CTU/CPS agreement to reopen schools created safety committees to uphold hard-fought and hard-won mitigations and make building conditions safer for staff and students. At LPHS, staff are united to win change through the committee.
Rent Control is needed to combat the housing crisis, ensure stability for our students and families
We can help solve homelessness facing our students and families by giving municipalities and villages the right to enact rent control policies. HB 116, sponsored by Rep. Will Guzzardi, would lift the current statewide ban on rent control.
Their fight is our fight
Southeast Side teachers, students join the fight against General Iron
Have you formed your safety committee?
Our reopening agreement ,itself, does not make our schools safe. It gives us tools to hold CPS accountable and to ensure our buildings are as safe as they can be. But, like our contract, the reopening will be only as strong as our ability to enforce it, building by building. And that’s where your safety committee comes in.
Elected school board NOW
Chicago’s Grassroots Education Movement alliance and CTU are mounting a campaign to pass HB 2267 — for an elected, representative school board — when lawmakers return to the Capitol after for a “lame duck” session, the closing days of the current general assembly before new legislators are seated. But the success of that campaign will depend on members contacting their state senators and insisting the bill get consideration first thing in the new year.
Voices of the Rank-and-File: Five reasons why I had a sobbing meltdown within 24 hours of school closing down, and five things that are making it better
It wasn’t my best moment. I wasn’t especially proud, as the one in my family who has always been the rock in times of crisis, that I was sitting on the edge of my bed crying, and I couldn’t really even articulate why.
I am Black History
I’m scorned, adorned, and often forewarned / That the way I perform, is because I am a unicorn / A Black Man in a teacher’s uniform. Far from the norm. / A rarity in a sea of disparity, trying to seek clarity / But at times, my work is viewed as charity.
