City locks out Chicago teachers for refusing to risk lives in pandemic

The information below is from a January 12 Chicago Teachers Union press conference, and other teacher voices, all of which are on the union’s Facebook page.

Despite the raging pandemic, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) planned to re-open schools beginning January 4. Numerous Local School Councils in schools across the city opposed the school opening, and 33 of 50 aldermen petitioned Mayor Lightfoot and the School Board, indicating that opening schools under current conditions is unsafe. Many teachers have refused demands to return, opting to continue teaching remotely for safety reasons. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is fighting for a cooperative effort with the City, but has been stymied in bargaining for safe opening. The union is now opening rank and file voting, calling on its members to vote to refuse to do in-person teaching.

On January 11, the CPS blocked Google access and docked the pay of up to 100 teachers who refused to teach in-person. Teachers at Sadlowski on the far South side responded with a teach-in:  teachers bringing their lap tops and sitting outdoors, outside the building on school property, while conducting classes. Music teacher Quentin Washington, speaking at a CTU press conference, said “. . . my heart is heavy because our school district chose to retaliate against educators for trying to be safe in their work environment.” He went on: “I fear for my health, and I’ve chosen to remain in a healthy place by working from home and still providing the same services that I would be required to provide remotely from the school building. Yet they have locked me out. They blocked my colleagues out all over this city who have chosen to stay safe. . .”

Meanwhile, on January 12, at McCutcheon on the North side, Jenny Delessio-Parson confirmed one teacher had tested positive for COVID-19 and four staff in contact with them are in quarantine. At the CTU press conference, Delessio-Parson noted: “CPS has built such a culture of intimidation recently with their staff members, . . . it’s creating an even unsafer situation because there’s no transparency and, there’s this bullying being done by our bosses . . . Two of the classrooms set to receive students had not passed the ventilation assessment by CPS’ standards, teachers found rooms that had not been fully cleaned since March and there was no all-staff meeting or clear instruction on how to receive the students.”

In Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, special education teacher Linda Perales at Corkery Elementary School objected to being blocked from her Google teaching platform: “I know returning to school is unsafe because we know that our cluster students cannot wear their masks all day. . . We have been told that we need to build their tolerance to wearing the mask, which implies that they cannot wear the mask and this is an airborne virus, and not wearing masks puts everyone at risk.”

CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates reiterated at a January 12 CTU press conference that: “In a pandemic where each day forward looks worse than the day we left with respect to infections and deaths, the cumulative impact requires collaboration . . .  partnership . . .  clarity of process, procedure. That is what the pandemic requires.”