After a contentious weekend in which Chicago Teachers Union officials apparently failed to show up for negotiations with Chicago Public Schools officials on Sunday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) ordered a sizeable number of the city’s teachers to show up in their classrooms on Monday or face discipline.
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“All teachers, pre-K through eight and cluster teachers must report. If you don’t have an approved accommodation, we expect to see you back in class. Those who do not report to work … we will have to take action. Let’s avoid that,” Lightfoot said in a Sunday press conference announcing the decision. Lightfoot indicated that teachers who refused to show up on Monday would be locked out of their virtual learning software and would be considered absent without leave for disciplinary purposes.
Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools officials have been locked in contentious negotiations with Chicago Teachers Union officials, who have sought to delay the reopening of the nation’s third-largest school system until a number of union demands have been met. Teachers were originally scheduled to return to work last week, but union officials ordered teachers to stay home as a bargaining technique.
The union and school district were supposed to engage in negotiations throughout the weekend, but CTU officials apparently were a no-show for the Sunday session, which provoked Lightfoot’s ire. The two sides pointed fingers at each other on Twitter over Sunday’s empty negotiation session.
