The below is excerpted from the Labor Notes book How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers. Available at labornotes.org/store. Leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union were pretty sure they would need to strike the school district in the fall of 2012 to win what students and educators deserved. But they had come into office only two years before, and begun
The board voted 6-0 to reject the recommendation from Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez that teachers Lauren Bianchi and Charles “Chuck” Stark be terminated for violating safety rules involving protests and a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Instead, they each got a warning and were directed to undergo training.
The policy change, which applies to unvaccinated students and takes effect Saturday, comes after more than 15,500 students were forced to quarantine during the first four weeks of the school year, but only 1.6% tested positive for COVID-19 after being exposed to the virus, according to officials.
Students head to class at Lane Tech College Prep High School on the North Side, on, April 19, 2021. Monday marked the start of the fourth academic quarter for Chicago Public Schools and for the first time in 11 months all 515 non-charter schools including high schools were open for in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Illinois public schools will be required to return to full-time in-person learning next fall, though concerns remain about students who aren’t yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Illinois State Board of Education unanimously voted Wednesday to support a soon-to-be-announced mandate that “all schools must resume fully in-person learning” in the fall. State education officials are expected to formalize the move at the end of this school year.