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CPS ‘does not care about my health and safety’: Teachers call plan to withhold pay if they don’t show up for in-person classes Monday ‘heartless’

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Chicago Public Schools will move forward with plans to reopen schools on Monday, despite ongoing objections by the teachers union and a large group of aldermen.

Further, CPS CEO Janice Jackson said staff members who don’t show up — as about half failed to do this week — will be deemed absent without leave “and ineligible for pay going forward.”

“This is not a measure we take lightly,” Jackson added.

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union took issue with assertions that schools are adequately equipped and ready to open, with one calling Jackson’s comments about docking pay “heartless.”

“The CEO does not care about my health and safety, and is making me decide between getting paid and supporting my family,” Lilly Freyer, third grade teacher at LaSalle Language Academy, said at an afternoon CTU news conference. “It seems like a pretty heartless comment during a worldwide pandemic.”

Union leaders on Friday offered little clarity for those wondering whether they should be preparing for another teachers strike, though the possibility remains on the table.

But the mayor, emphasizing the safeguards in place for students and staff, contended Friday that remote learning “is not sustainable, not over the long term, because it does not serve every student equally, especially those students who are younger, who require additional help and support and simply don’t have access to a sustainable learning environment.”

“We are doing everything we can to place safety in this pandemic at front and center of what we are doing … but we need to forge forward,” Lightfoot said.

CPS schools have remained closed for in-person learning since the coronavirus prompted Gov. J.B. Pritzker to shut down schools statewide in March.

But after delaying reopening several times amid strong opposition from the CTU, the state’s largest school district announced plans to begin bringing its first students back on Monday, including prekindergarten and some special education students.

Parents were given the option, and about 38% of parents of students eligible to return Monday, or about 6,500 children, chose the in-person option, according to CPS.

“What’s gotten lost in a lot of the noise here is that it’s an option … we have an obligation to support that selection, that choice,” the mayor said. “To deny parents this option is irresponsible and wrong. It just is.”

However, the union has underscored the fact that teachers have not similarly been given an option not to return to schools beyond those who have been granted accommodations because of medical conditions.

CTU lawyer Thad Goodchild on Friday asked how a teacher can be considered absent without leave if they are trying to provide instruction by logging in remotely.

“CPS is saying we are not going to let your child see their teacher because their teacher refuses to risk their life?” Goodchild said. “That doesn’t sound like equity to me. It also doesn’t sound legal.”

Freyer said she doesn’t know if CPS will take away her Google access for staying home, but that all she wants is to teach her students. “I will be logged on, trying to teach every day that I am able,” she said.

Shavon Coleman, a teacher assistant at Lawndale Community Academy, cried as she described multiple family members contracting COVID-19, including two relatives in the ICU now.

“If they don’t think that that’s enough of a reason to not open schools, then that’s more than heartless,” she said.

The plan calls for most other elementary students — virtually all kindergarten through eighth graders — to begin in-person classes on Feb. 1, with a hybrid of remote and in-school classes. Of that group of students, nearly 71,000 have chosen the in-person option, bringing the total number of in-person learners to 77,000.

No return date has been set for high school students in general education programs.

But the union has continued to push back against these plans, with leaders saying they’re skeptical of the district’s ability to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission in schools. On Monday of this week, when the first teachers were due to return to buildings, about half of them defied the district and continued to teach remotely instead. Of all staff, about 60% showed up.

Jackson said Friday that figure has grown to 65%, “largely driven by teacher attendance increasing throughout the week,” Jackson said, “despite significant pressure from union leadership.”

Teacher attendance rose from below 50% Monday to nearly 58% Thursday, and paraprofessional staff attendance went from 70% to 72%, according to data provided by CPS. That still leaves 863 classrooms missing a teacher.

And each day, close to 8% of employees failed the mandatory health screenings “or were absent for other verified reasons,” which CPS did not further break down. CPS officials said the number of staff expected back decreased by nearly 100 throughout the week because of accommodations granted on a rolling basis and because some staff were bumped to return with the second wave due to changes in school or caseload assignments.

Yet Jackson expressed confidence that there would be enough staff next week. “Operationally, we are prepared to open and we can conduct school on Monday,” she said. “Obviously the district has engaged in contingency planning.”

When asked whether any teachers could face termination for not showing up, Lightfoot and Jackson did not address that directly.

“Let’s not race to the bottom,” the mayor said. “It’s our hope and our expectation that those teachers who are expected to be back … will come. If not, there is a process to address these issues.”

Teachers at Brentano Elementary in Logan Square started the week off by teaching outdoors in the courtyard, and their colleagues continued similar protests on Friday, when the CTU said the district cut power to a group working outdoors at a Southwest Side school. CPS did not immediately provide comment.

The union has asked that teachers be allowed to opt out of in-person learning at least until they receive their first coronavirus vaccine doses, which city health officials have said could be available to teachers by March.

The reopening plan has also been criticized by dozens of Chicago aldermen and by a group that represents CPS principals. But CPS officials have continued to stress they are confident in the plan and in COVID-19 safeguards, and that severe equity issues apparent in remote learning necessitate a return to in-person classes.

“We remain committed to continuing to meet with CTU leadership to find workable solutions to address their members’ concerns. Unfortunately, the CTU leadership continues to move the goalposts of their demands, with the goal of halting in-person learning for thousands of students on Monday, even as the majority of its members have reported to schools this week,” CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton said in a statement Thursday.

Lightfoot addressed teachers directly Friday, saying leaders will continue to do everything in their power to keep everyone in schools safe: “To our teachers and our staff, we look forward to seeing you on Monday. I want you to know I have absolutely heard you. I know you are anxious; I know many of you are scared. I understand that. … I also know you care deeply about our children … and put their interests first.”

Questions remain, however, about matters such as lunch, when students will need to take their masks down. Lightfoot said the district has “been feeding children safely since March,” though aside from a small number of child supervision sites, meals handed out at schools have been grab-and-go.

Teachers have also been reporting issues with the number of air purifiers provided to their classrooms, in some cases one HEPA purifier meant to clean the air of a room half its size. Earlier this week, Chief Operating Officer Arnie Rivera said air purifiers have been delivered for every classroom that reopened, and that if a classroom needed two air purifiers, they would be provided.

On Twitter, CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates shared a photo of a letter appearing to show an administrator informing staff at Lowell Elementary that their classroom did not have an air purifier but that an engineer would be bringing one. The letter asked the staff member to sign a form agreeing not to hold the school liable “for any health consequences of (being) in the building.”

Lightfoot on Friday said concerns about insufficient personal protective equipment provided to members or inadequate ventilation in schools were based on myths, while Jackson underscored the $100 million the district has spent on COVID-19-related school safety.

She said grades, attendance and participation have dropped dramatically during remote learning, and that Black and Latino students, who represent the vast majority of CPS’ enrollment and in many cases whose parents are essential workers, have continued to be the most affected.

As for when high school students will return to classrooms, Jackson said those plans are still the works.

The number of students expected at schools Monday ranges from the single digits to 176 at Vick Early Childhood and Family Center, where more than half of students have special education programs. A handful of schools only had one student opt for in-person learning during the first wave.

By February, King Academy of Social Justice Principal Jasmine Thurmond expects to welcome 92 students, about 40% of the school. On Monday, that number is only nine, out of 13 eligible, which Thurmond said will allow the school to develop best practices with a smaller group in the building.

“Even though we are starting to bring students back I also want to reiterate that students who are staying remote for the next quarter will still receive high quality instruction,” Thurmond said. “While I might not be able to hug them when they return, I am looking forward to hearing their voices and laughter in my building again and watching them flourish as students in ways they did not even know they were capable of.”

CPS also tapped a parent who supports reopening to speak at the news conference. “Parents do not have a union to speak up for us, so we appreciate being given a seat at the table,” the parent said.

She said she has experienced food scarcity and housing insecurity during the pandemic, and her three children have had varied experiences with remote learning.

“It was heartbreaking to watch her stare at the screen and disassociate,” she said of her second-grade daughter. “I am doing all I can daily to keep my kids from further disappearing inside themselves.”