Hundreds of Chicago students orchestrate school walkout and crowded protest to demand safer COVID-19 conditions, relief stipends, and laptops



Students in Chicago staged a walkout on Friday to demand safer school conditions during the surge of COVID-19 cases. The students also participated in a crowded protest where they made demands for remote learning, laptops, and COVID-19 relief stipends.

On Wednesday, the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools agreed to reopen schools with in-person classes. However, hundreds of students participated in a walkout on Friday afternoon. The district-wide walkout of at least 500 students was organized by the Chicago Public Schools Radical Youth Alliance (Chi-Rads) – a self-described "organization of allied, radical CPS high schoolers from every corner of the city to organize to create an education system that best serves us."

Curie High School students walked out of school today in favor of hybrid learning, amplifying youth voices & to hold @ChicagosMayor & @ChiPubSchools accountable.\n\n1/4pic.twitter.com/RgzRWCQ4je
— Chi Student Pandemic Response (@Chi Student Pandemic Response) 1642190161

The Chicago Public Schools Radical Youth Alliance issued a list of 39 demands for the Chicago Public Schools. The organization demanded that schools shift to remote learning for two weeks. The group called on Chicago Public Schools to increase the "remote workforce" for staff members and "students whose presence isn't necessary in the building."

The organization ordered the public school system to make accessible COVID-19 testing for all students, "sufficient N-95 masks along with the other face coverings PPE & medical grade masks."

The group requested mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and no spectators at sporting events.

The students are also demanding Chicago Public Schools provide "every student with their own personal laptop," and the organization emphasizes that the laptops must have "4GB RAM & 512GB storage, and at least 8 hours of battery life."

The group said the students should be able to keep the laptops "during their entire duration as students, virtual or not." They also petitioned for "access to high speed wifi, that has at least 10 Mbps of download speed and 1 Mbps of upload speed."

The group also requests "personal tutors outside of school hours in every school."

The Chi-Rads claim, "There are many aspects of our everyday lives that hinder certain students from receiving quality education from inequitable structures and oppressive systems within the city."

To remedy the "inequitable structures and oppressive systems," the group demands the school to "reload EBT cards" and hire "one full-time therapist/psychologist for every 30 students."

The students also require COVID-19 relief stipends.

"Much like Covid Relief packages, students should receive covid relief stipends to help cover the necessities that families are going through during these times beyond food," the list of demands states. "Many families are living paycheck to paycheck and this pandemic affects people’s ability to work; that, unfortunately, affects our ability to live."

The group also said teachers should have the decision of whether they want to teach remotely or in the classroom. The students said teachers should be able to "take a leave of absence regarding concerns of Covid."

The Chicago Public Schools Radical Youth Alliance also called for "spaces of healing and community building."

a thread!!! 1/3chicago public school\u2019s radical youth alliance has come forth with a list of demands that we believe is the bare minimum of things that @ChiPubSchools leadership can implement in response to the crises we have seen in our communities.pic.twitter.com/NTnLsmSHWg
— Chi-RADS (@Chi-RADS) 1641868543

To show that they were serious about their demands for safer COVID-19 conditions, the hundreds of students participated in a crowded protest outside of the headquarters for Chicago Public Schools.

Here's Catlyn Savado, a freshman at Percy Julian High School on the Far South Side. She's an organizer with @chiradsCPS.pic.twitter.com/59drltPEhw
— The TRiiBE (@The TRiiBE) 1642189692

The students railed against Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot by chanting, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Lori Lightfoot’s got to go!"

Views from across the street.pic.twitter.com/RzqLsMNwTi
— The TRiiBE (@The TRiiBE) 1642190156


Chicago Teachers Union president calls mayor 'relentlessly stupid' for asking teachers to return to work as union 'walkout' results in classes being canceled for 4th straight day



Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey held firm to his organization's demands over the weekend, prompting classes in the Windy City to be canceled for the fourth consecutive day on Monday. In his defiance, the union leader even called the city's mayor "relentlessly stupid" for asking teachers that teachers return to work.

What's the background?

The nation's third-largest teachers' union has been in a renewed standoff with political leadership since last week, its more than 25,000 members encouraged not to return to in-person classes until stringent health and safety rules are implemented.

Its desired rules include large-scale COVID-19 testing and KN95 mask-wearing as well as the establishment of thresholds for districts to shift to fully remote classes in accordance with citywide positivity rates, rather than positivity rates within the individual districts.

City leadership has so far refused to give in to the radical demands, calling them "noise" and "misinformation" intended only to scare parents. Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez insisted last week that “there is no evidence that our schools are unsafe."

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, too, has called out union leaders for “politicizing the pandemic" and claimed there "is no basis in the data, the science, or common sense for us to shut an entire system down when we can surgically do this at a school level."

During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Lightfoot characterized the union's latest actions as an "illegal walkout," adding about participating teachers, “They abandoned their posts and they abandoned kids and their families."

What are the details?

But in a press conference Monday morning, Sharkey fired back at Lightfoot, accusing the mayor of being "relentlessly stupid" in her dealings with the union.

“We feel like we’re at a point where we don’t have enough at the table to be able to go back to the people who, frankly, have sacrificed a lot at this point, and confidently say, ‘This is something that can help us ensure our safety,’” Sharkey said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “The mayor is being relentless, but she’s being relentlessly stupid, relentlessly stubborn.”

In a statement issued on Sunday, the union said, “Educators are not the enemy Mayor Lightfoot wants them to be.”

“The mayor is saying she is going to be relentless in prosecuting a case, but the mayor is not a prosecutor and I’m not a criminal being prosecuted," Sharkey similarly stated in the press conference. "Our members are not people who’ve done anything wrong.”

But Sharkey's last claim certainly rings hollow with city leadership, which views the union's walkout as overt disobedience. As such, Chicago Public Schools has threatened that teachers who fail to show up for in-person classes will be placed on "no-pay status" until they return.

Anything else?

Sharkey also called Lighfoot's opposition to remote instruction "just a talking point," even while admitting that remote instruction is "not as good as" in-person instruction.

"I hear the mayor say that she doesn't want to do remote. But honestly, that's just a talking point, it's an idea, ‘remote is bad.' Remote education is a tool. Teachers view remote education, yeah, it's not as good as in-person," he said, comparing the need for remote learning during the pandemic to the option of using it during winter blizzards.

But the city knows that in-person instruction is the goal and has rolled out a plan to get students safely back in classrooms. According to the Associated Press, school leaders have touted a $100 million safety plan, which encourages teachers to get vaccinated, requires masks indoors, and includes air purifiers in each classroom.

The plan is apparently not enough for union members, who claim teachers are being unfairly asked to risk their health and safety by showing up to work.

Sadly, amid the escalating war of words and continued standoff, Chicago students and parents are the ones truly suffering.

A survey published in April by the Children's Hospital of Chicago found that "across the board, caregivers reported significantly worse psychological well-being [for the children in their care] after school closures as compared to before."

Chicago teacher battling cancer shows up to school despite canceled classes, warns against people using teachers unions as a 'tool for political gain'



Chicago Public Schools have been canceled since Wednesday after 73% of the Chicago Teachers Union voted to return to remote work because of COVID-19 fears. However, the school district doesn't want teachers working remotely, so all classes have been canceled after the union was accused of staging an illegal walkout. Despite classes being canceled, teacher Joseph Ocol still showed up at his classroom on Wednesday willing to teach his students in person. Ocol is ready to teach in-person classes despite battling cancer.

"There were no students, and I was the only teacher there," Ocol told WBBM-TV. "I miss my students. It’s just that this is a different situation, and I feel sad about this."

Ocol – who teaches five classes in math and algebra – said he is "not aware" of any of his 82 students or any teachers he knows currently infected with COVID-19. He advocates for a school-to-school decision on closing based on COVID-19 cases.

"Of course, I agree that there has to be safety measures, but it should be done in a sweeping way – because there are schools that don't have COVID," Ocol said.

CPS Teacher Joseph Ocol Comes To School Despite Remote Learning Vote www.youtube.com

"I joined the Chicago public schools as a teacher first and foremost and I believe my role should be inside the classroom with my students," Ocol told host Tucker Carlson. "I did not join CPS to be a union member."

Ocol blasted anyone using the Chicago Teachers Union or students as political weapons.

"I believe that there are ways to fight City Hall," Ocol said. "You don’t dangle the plight of the kids in the middle of the fight just to seek your demands."

"There are other ways. I have nothing against the union," he continued. "But I have something against people using the union as a tool for political gain."

Ocol warned that remote learning is detrimental to both children and parents.

"I have done the remote learning for more than a year with the students," he explained. "I have seen the limitations and the challenges that a teacher has with remote learning. It's not really effective."

He noted that some students would simply "log on and just not be there" during remote learning sessions.

"I feel it’s not also fair to the parents," the teacher added. "The parents need to be with the students when they should be earning a living."

Ocol has been a Chicago Public Schools teacher for 17 years, as well as an after-school chess mentor.

"Police surveys [show] that the most dangerous time for a student to be outside a school building is from 3 to 6 p.m.," Ocol told Fox News Digital. "So that's when I opted to start the chess program after school to keep kids inside the building. It's not just about winning games, although later on, the kids were winning medals and trophies, but it's more about saving lives. That was my goal then."

Ocol's chess team at Earle STEM Academy won a national championship in 2016 and was invited to meet former President Obama.

"Despite my battling cancer, I still have a role to play right now," Ocol said during a Fox News appearance on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "I just want to make my life relevant somehow, the thought that I can still be of service to my students and I can touch their lives and make a difference in their lives."

When asked about having cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ocol replied, "I consider that another challenge in my life. I keep on praying that somehow I'll still be able to manage my life to be significant to my students. At all, you never know the time value of the moment until it's become a memory, and I want to become part of the memory of my students."

"I learned about the end of life what really matters," Ocol said. "Not what we vote [for], but what we do. Not what we got, but what we shared … More about our success with our significance in the lives of others. I want to live a life that matters. And that's very important for me."

Chicago Teachers Union again rejects in-person schooling, prompts citywide school closures



The Chicago Teachers Union voted to reject in-person schooling and once again transition to a remote-only work environment on Tuesday, citing unsafe working conditions amid a surge in COVID-19 cases. The move, which was reportedly the result of a unionwide survey, prompted Chicago Public Schools to cancel classes Wednesday.

In a lengthy Twitter thread posted late Tuesday night, the nation's third-largest teachers' union announced that all of its more than 25,000 rank-and-file members would be logging in remotely to work starting the very next day and would continue to do so until changes ensuring their health and safety were made.

"The results of tonight's citywide electronic ballot are in. Starting tomorrow, all CTU members at CPS schools should be working remotely. The result of tonight's vote was 73% in favor of the remote-work-only job action," the union wrote.

"To be clear: Educators of this city want to be in buildings with their students," the union added. "We believe that classrooms are where our children should be. But as the results tonight show, Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot and her CPS team have yet to provide safety for the overwhelming majority of schools."

The action will end when one of the following conditions is met: The current surge in cases substantially subsides, or the mayor's team at CPS signs an agreement establishing conditions for return that are voted on and approved by the the CTU House of Delegates.
— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@ChicagoTeachersUnion) 1641358495

The union attempted to reassure parents who, along with their children, will undoubtedly face the brunt of the negative implications of the union's decisions.

"To other parents and guardians of this city, we want you to know that when you put your children in our care, we put their well-being and safety first. We fight for your children like they are our own, because when we teach, they are," the union insisted.

It added, "We understand the frustration that is felt by tonight's decision, and assure families that we will continue to work diligently, as we have for the past 21 months [since the pandemic began]."

The union's promises are likely to ring hollow for countless Chicago parents who have seen their children suffer mentally and fall behind academically under remote schooling over the past year and a half.

Forced to cancel classes Wednesday due to the virtual strike, Chicago Public Schools pre-emptively responded by threatening to put teachers who don't show up to work on "no-pay status" until they return.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who also warned that teachers who did not show up for in-person work on Wednesday would be put on no-pay status, slammed the decision in a statement, saying, "I have to tell you, it feels like ‘Groundhog Day,’ that we are here again," in reference to last year when the union threatened an illegal strike over similarly supposedly unsafe working conditions.

"There is no basis in the data, the science, or common sense for us to shut an entire system down when we can surgically do this at a school level," Lightfoot added, calling out union leaders for “politicizing the pandemic."

According to the Chicago Tribune, as a part of Tuesday's vote, the Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates approved a two-week pause for in-person instruction, until Jan. 18, allowing time for COVID-19 cases to decrease or for an agreement to be made between the city and its public schools that satisfies the union's demands.

Prior to the scheduled return to classes following winter break, the union reportedly demanded that certain safety measures — including large-scale COVID-19 testing, distribution of K95 or similar-quality masks to all students and staff, and established thresholds for a district to shift to remote learning based on citywide positivity rates — be implemented.

"If we had testing, if we had a way to help ensure that people coming into the buildings weren't carrying the Omicron variant, that would be a different matter, but that's not what's going on right now," union president Jesse Sharkey complained to CNN on Tuesday.

But Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez dismissed the union's fearmongering at a recent press briefing, insisting that “there is no evidence that our schools are unsafe."

“The amount of noise that’s out there right now, the amount of misinformation, we have so many people that are afraid, from parents to staff, because of the misinformation,” Martinez said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Martinez reportedly even sent an offer to meet the union halfway on some of its demands before its vote, but the union ultimately rejected it. His offer included a more localized threshold for shutting down in-person learning at specific schools based on student and staff infections — not citywide positivity rates.

Chicago Teachers Union on verge of strike for virtual teaching during COVID-19 surge



Most schools nationwide are supposed to return students to the classroom this week as Christmas break ends. But Chicago teachers could upend the city's plans for in-person learning with a strike over what they say are unsafe working conditions because of a surge of coronavirus cases.

The Chicago Teachers Union will vote Tuesday on whether its more than 25,000 members will refuse to go to work in person on Wednesday and demand that they be allowed to phone in to their jobs virtually. According to WBEZ-FM, 80% of the 8,000 members who attended a CTU virtual town hall Sunday evening did not want to work in person in Chicago Public Schools under current conditions.

The union has been foreshadowing a strike for days. Last week, the union surveyed its members asking if they would "support a district-wide pause and temporary shift to remote learning." They also polled members on whether they'd be willing to "participate in a city-wide work stoppage" if the union's demands are not met.

Studies have shown that viral transmission for COVID-19 in schools is "extremely rare" and that schools can reopen safely. Additionally, virtual learning has been demonstrated to negatively impact student performance, with math and English test scores plummeting in Chicago Public Schools during the pandemic, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Classes in Chicago resumed Monday after a two-week break for the Christmas and New Year holidays. City and district officials have vowed to keep schools open with students and teachers physically present in the classroom, potentially putting them in conflict with the union's demands.

“What we have learned from this pandemic is that schools are the safest place for students to be: we have spent over a $100 million to put mitigations in place, most CPS staff members are vaccinated, and we generally see little transmission in school settings,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement Monday.

"Keeping kids safely in school where they can learn and thrive is what we should all be focused on," she said.

Chicago Public Schools echoed the mayor's support for in-person learning in a statement also issued Monday. The district warned that "districtwide, unwarranted and preemptive mass school closures could actually fuel community spread." CPS also said it has been meeting with union representatives and has "reiterated that a case-by-case, school-by-school approach is the best way to approach COVID-19 concerns in schools."

The city is making its case for in-person learning as a surge of COVID-19 hospitalized 6,294 people statewide on Monday, the highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic began, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

IDPH also reported a daily average of 23,069 new COVID cases and an average of 59 COVID-related deaths per day.

CPS maintains that safety measures including masking, contact tracing, testing, cleaning, air purifiers, and widespread vaccination are sufficient to protect teachers from serious COVID-19-related illness or death.

However, several issues with the virus test kits provided to parents for their children over winter break have complicated the debate over reopening. WBEZ reported that CPS provided 150,000 at-home testing kits for students. But many parents who tested their children and returned the sample by last week's deadline were told the tests could not be analyzed.

Parents were told via email that the tests could not be processed within the required 48-hour window "due to weather and holiday related shipping issues," WBEZ reported.

Further, more than half of the test results submitted came back as "invalid." Of the 35,831 tests completed over the past week, 24,989 were invalid and 18% came back positive, according to CPS' COVID tracker.

On top of the processing problems, CPS said that more than 100,000 of the 150,000 tests made available to parents of schoolchildren were never submitted.

The teachers' union has seized on the testing issues as justification for keeping teachers away from in-person learning. CTU has demanded that the school district require students and staff to present a negative COVID-19 test before attending in-person classes. In the absence of adequate testing, the union wants to switch to remote learning for two weeks.

“Here we are, a year later in the cold in January, performing another remote action, because [CPS] can’t get it right,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said Monday.

The union is also demanding high-quality masks for all students and staff and a policy to switch to virtual classes if 20% of a school's staff is in isolation or quarantine for COVID-19.

Chicago Teachers Union once again considers locking down schools, floats 'city-wide work stoppage'



With the rise of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, the Chicago Teachers Union is once again considering shutting down in-person education in the city and returning strictly to remote classes.

What are the details?

In a survey issued this week titled "Possible Actions for Safety January 2022," the union asked its 25,000 rank-and-file members if they would support initiating a temporary return to distance learning if cases continued to spike, WFLD-TV reported.

"If COVID continues to dangerously accelerate or should staffing levels in our schools drop to unsafe levels, would you support a district-wide pause and temporary shift to remote learning?" the questionnaire asked.

BREAKING: Chicago Teachers Union is polling its membership asking if they would "support a district-wide pause and temporary shift to remote learning."\n\nThey're also asking if membership would be willing to "participate in a city-wide work stoppage."pic.twitter.com/AOLuOyoXGY
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@Corey A. DeAngelis) 1640642929

"Cases of the new omicron variant are spiking in Chicago and around the country. It is imperative that we return from our winter break with a plan to ensure school communities’ and our own safety," the survey said. "Please answer the following very short survey to help guide the CTU’s response to CPS’s inadequate pandemic response."

What else?

Elsewhere in the survey, the nation's third-largest teachers union probed members about how far they would be willing to go to demand that Chicago Public Schools enhance their safety measures.

"What actions would you participate in to force CPS to improve its COVID safety measures?" the union asked teachers, listing five different action-step options for members to check off, ranging from minor to major.

Some of the minor action steps included "conven[ing] a meeting of the school safety committee," handing out flyers to parents, and launching an event at school such as a "neighborhood car caravan."

Then the union suggested "participat[ing] in a city-wide action like a car caravan or an outdoor rally" and even floated "participat[ing] in a city-wide work stoppage" to pressure the school district.

What's the background?

It's not the first time the union has demanded an end to in-person learning since the start of the pandemic.

In January 2021, the union ordered its teachers not to return to classrooms amid health and safety issues, and threatened to initiate an illegal strike if any of the absent teachers were disciplined. Some members strangely performed an interpretive dance in protest of the district's return to school policy.

A deal was eventually struck between the district and the union in February that allowed children to return to Chicago classrooms. But it didn't mark an end to the union's protesting. Many feared it would only be a matter of time until the union renewed its calls for school closures.

Now it appears Chicago Public Schools is prepared to kowtow to the union's activism once again. Seeing the writing on the wall, the district purchased 100,000 laptops last week in preparation for a renewed shutdown.

Chicago Teachers Union stalls HS reopening by telling teachers not to reveal if they've been vaccinated



The Chicago Teachers Union is continuing to needlessly obstruct the reopening of public high schools in the city by instructing members not to reveal if they have received a coronavirus vaccination or not.

What are the details?

For more than two months, the union has clashed with the city's school system, Chicago Public Schools, over its plan to resume in-person instruction. The union's complaint centered around allegedly inadequate safety protocols, despite the city spending $100 million to make schools coronavirus-safe.

Last month, the district finally opened its doors to tens of thousands of students attending kindergarten through eighth grade after weeks of tense negotiation between the union and CPS. The union originally voted to defy the reopening plan and threatened to strike if any teachers were disciplined for refusing to return to the classroom. As part of its reasoning, the union claimed teachers' vaccination schedules were unsatisfactory.

But now the union is reportedly stalling any further reopening plans by instructing members not to disclose whether they have been vaccinated or not in a survey being circulated to faculty and staff.

According to a report by WBBM-TV, in a letter sent to its more than 20,000 members, the teachers' union advised that members "wait to respond to [CPS'] vaccination survey."

"I don't have a problem with people answering this kind of survey," insisted CTU President Jesse Sharkey. "I do have a problem with CPS not bargaining it with us."

The report noted that as of last week, CPS' vaccination page showed that while 16,500 faculty and staff had been offered vaccinations, only about 4,200 reported receiving the shot.

What else?

Adding to the drama, this week, CPS put forward a plan to open city high schools for in-person instruction on April 19. But, once again, the union pushed back.

"We have no agreement on returning to in-person learning in high schools on any date, nor will there be an agreement until we know our school buildings can reopen safely," the union said in a defiant statement.

The union's resistance comes even as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last month that school reopening should not be conditioned on teacher vaccinations and as much of the country is waking to the idea that a return to in-person instruction is absolutely vital for the health of its children.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called out the CTU for operating based on political motives.

"When you have unions that have other aspirations beyond being a union, and maybe being something akin to a political party, then there's always going to be conflict," she said during an interview with the New York Times.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blames Donald Trump after teachers' union blocks schools from reopening



Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) blamed former President Donald Trump on Tuesday for the impasse blocking students from returning to in-person learning in the Windy City.

What is the background?

The vast majority of Chicago students who attend city schools, nearly 400,000 in all, have not received in-person instruction since schools were closed at the beginning of the pandemic last spring.

But that's not because the city hasn't attempted to reopen schools.

In fact, students kindergarten through eighth grade were scheduled to return to in-person learning on Monday. But that didn't happen because the Chicago Teachers Union has refused to agree to the city's plan, and the city has caved to the union — at least for now.

The union claims in-person learning remains unsafe for students and staff because of COVID-19, despite the city spending more than $100 million to make schools safe. Meanwhile, most of Chicago's private schools and learning centers are operating with in-person instruction.

What did Lightfoot say?

Lightfoot claimed on CNN that Trump is the reason Chicago public school students have not yet returned to in-person learning, citing "incompetence" with the vaccine rollout.

"This is a very difficult situation and we're in it, still, because of the incompetence of the previous administration. So I think it's important for both sides to come to the table in good faith, recognize that we're both trying to work through a very challenging situation but we must get a deal done," Lightfoot said.

One of the biggest concerns of the teachers' union is the safety of educators, and therefore teachers receiving the vaccine, and accommodations for teachers who believe returning to in-person learning would jeopardize their health.

Later in her interview, Lightfoot doubled down on her attack on the Trump administration.

"These are really difficult times in a pandemic, exacerbated by the incompetence of the previous administration that didn't leave us with enough vaccine to really quickly get to the entire population in our city that needs it. But we're going to keep working hard recognizing the concern that, really, all of our residents have regarding COVID-19," Lightfoot said.

What's the irony?

As the Chicago Tribune noted, Lightfoot's blame-shifting came just one day after she said on MSNBC that Chicago was facing a "uniquely local issue," referring to the powerful teachers' union bucking city plans to reopen public schools.

Meanwhile, as TheBlaze reported, the Trump administration's vaccine rollout was anything but incompetent, nearly accomplishing President Joe Biden's campaign promise regarding COVID vaccine administration.

In fact, data show that vaccine administration averaged nearly 1 million doses per day under Trump, even topping 1 million doses many times before Biden took office.