25,000 teachers went on strike in Chicago today leaving 300,000 students without teachers.
Some of the biggest issues that the teachers have are that the schools are understaffed, the teachers themselves are underpaid, there aren’t always nurses on staff, there are not enough school librarians and the class sizes are too big.
A list of the teacher’s main concerns can be found here.
CPS(Chicago Public Schools) has a contingency plan for the strike and did state that, “To ensure students have a safe place to stay and access to free meals, all school buildings, along with other city sites will be open.”
The schools are open but there are no teachers there to teach the kids. CPS went on to state that, “Principals and non-unionized support staff will be available to greet students and ensure they have access to engaging activities”.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated in response to the strike that “We’re not moving any further on money because we can’t. From a financial standpoint, we always have to keep in mind the taxpayers. CPS is just on the other side of pretty significant crisis and we don’t have unlimited resources, but having said that, we put very generous offers on the table both for teachers and support personnel and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to bring them back to the table and resolve all the other open issues”.
There is no indication at this time as to when the strike will end.