Disputes over wages, benefits in the nation’s third-largest school district

Po

CHICAGO-Chicago parents and community groups are scrambling to prepare for a massive teacher strike set to begin Thursday, prompting the city to preemptively cancel classes in the nation’s third-largest school district.

The Chicago teachers Union confirmed Wednesday night that its 25,000 members will not return to their classrooms Thursday after months of negotiations between the Union and Chicago public schools failed to resolve disputes over wages and benefits, class size and teacher training time.

Chicago’s strike is the first major teacher walkout since 2012 and city officials announced early Wednesday that all classes were canceled Thursday in hopes of giving more planning time to 300,000 student families.

“We want this to be a short strike with an agreement that will benefit our schools and our teachers. We have ways to go, ” Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said during a Union news conference. “We really want to see improvement on all the issues we’re talking about here.”

Mayor Laurie Lightfoot said she was disappointed by the Union’s decision to strike.

“We are offering a historic package on major issues – wages, staffing and class size,” she said Wednesday night at her news conference, adding that the school district negotiators will remain at the negotiating table and that she hopes the Union does too.

During the 2012 strike, the district kept some schools open for half a day during the seven-day walkout. District officials said this time they will keep all buildings open during school hours, staffed by principals and employees who normally work in administrative roles.

Breakfast and lunch will be served, but all extracurricular activities and school buses are suspended in an area serving more than 300,000 students.

Janice Jackson, the district’s General Manager, urged parents to send their children to the school that they normally attend, however they would be welcome in any district schools.

“We put together a really comprehensive plan for students,” Jackson said. “We will make sure they are safe and they have a productive day.”

Also striking will be the 7,000 support staff whose Union also failed to reach a contractual agreement.

Before announcing the strike, June Davis said that if the teachers left, she would likely send her 7 – year-old son, Joshua, to her regular elementary school-Smith Elementary on the city’s South side, where almost all students are low-income and minority.

Davis, 38, says she would otherwise have to take her son to his grandmother in the southern suburbs, requiring an hour-long trip on the regional bus line.

“Everyone is hoping that they will come to some kind of agreement, find some kind of compromise,” Davis said.

Lightfoot preemptively announced that Thursday’s classes would be canceled, saying she wanted to give parents more time to plan. Clearly disappointed, Lightfoot said the city not only offered a 16% wage increase over a five-year contract, but the city also agreed to put language in the contract addressing” enforcement targets ” for class size and staffing increases for positions such as nurses, librarians and social workers-items the Union says are crucial.

“The current size of the CPS class proposal falls far short of what is needed to address the broad scale of the problem,” they said in a statement.

Lightfoot said the city agreed to make significant changes to some of the Union’s top priorities, but its negotiators responded by making additional demands, including some that she felt were unacceptable.

“The Union is still demanding a 30-minute reduction in school hours in the morning,” she said. “We won’t do that. We will not cheat our children out of school time .”

Before heading to the law firm’s center for talks Wednesday morning, Union Vice President Stacey Davis gates said there was a “rough gap” between Lightfoot’s comments and what negotiators had put in writing.

“To say that you have offered a proposal that respects what we ask is to say that you have leaned back … it’s absolutely ridiculous, ” Davis gates said.

Community organizations have been preparing for days to welcome students, starting at a $ 100 a day camp for elementary school children at Shedd aquarium for an all-day program run by boys

Mimi LeClair, President of the Boys

“It’s a terrible dilemma deciding between likely job loss or having their pay docked when they rely on every penny or leaving their kids at home alone,” LeClair said.

The city’s public libraries also plan programs for students, along with a network of churches and community centers that are part of the city’s Safe Haven program, designed to provide children with a safe place during the summer months, especially in the city’s South and West sides.

The Chicago metro YMCA expects high demand for its all-day program for children ages 5 to 12 who are too young to stay home alone but whose parents may oppose sending them to schools without a staff of teachers.

“Real life is still happening,” said man-Yee Lee, a spokesman for the organization. “Parents still have to go to work and their children still have somewhere to go.”

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