House of Delegates meets tonight, bargaining with CPS resumes tomorrow
We have yet to receive a comprehensive proposal from Chicago Public Schools, which cancelled our bargaining session yesterday to allow more time for the new CPS CEO to get up to speed. As you may know, the district is reducing the length of quarantine despite its...
Oct. 1 bargaining update: We remain clear on what’s needed for safety
We only heard talking points yesterday when new CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and Dr. Alison Arwady spoke to the press. That includes mischaracterizations of our positions, half-truths about safety and deceptive statistics.
Sept. 9 bargaining update: Transparency, honesty from CPS in short supply
“We’ll get back to you” isn’t good enough during a global pandemic, when people, especially in our hardest hit Black and Brown communities, are still falling ill, suffering and dying.
Sept. 3 bargaining update: This shouldn’t be so hard.
At the bargaining table yesterday, we learned the obvious consequences of Mayor Lightfoot’s unsafe conditions. We started school on Monday with a little over 230 students in quarantine. In the last three days, we’ve seen a 400 percent increase in those numbers,...Sept. 1 bargaining update: CPS is no longer honoring COVID sick days
After two days of classes, one thing is clear: Mayor Lightfoot and CPS had no plan for safety for our schools. Major concerns are already flooding our inboxes, all over television, and in newspapers and online. With social distancing virtually impossible, students are...August 27 bargaining update: Ugly disrespect from the CPS team yesterday
Hello all. Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe our bargaining session with CPS yesterday. Ignorant and offensive are more like it. Mayor Lightfoot’s CPS team turned a simple question about background checks for a potential COVID testing vendor into a...August 24 bargaining update
The mayor has touted layered mitigations as successful for our schools. Those mitigations are from the MOU we fought for last spring — she has yet to agree to them for this fall. Those strategies worked at a time when only 25% of our families returned their children to schools last winter and spring. Yet today, we have 100% of our families returning. How does this make sense?
August 18 bargaining update, Tele-Town Hall Sunday
Though we are not at formal impasse, the pace of negotiations is frustratingly slow, and with the first day of school bearing down on all of us, the mayor’s CPS team is refusing to agree to a robust safety plan we can sign off on.
August 17 bargaining update, Tele-Town Hall Sunday
The mayor’s team continues to drag its feet on critical components of the layered mitigation strategies we need to keep our members, students and school communities safe and, at this point, we are looking at returning to school buildings without a full safety agreement.
