Chicago officials refuse teacher accommodations in order to force school reopenings wsws.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsws.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Most of the Chicago Public Schools teachers and staffers who are scheduled to return to classrooms next week for the first time in nine months have tacitly agreed to do so but almost a third of them requested to work from home or take a leave of absence.
The district ended up rejecting most of those requests, according to CPS data released Tuesday on the 7,002 pre-kindergarten and special education cluster program employees who were told to return to work Jan. 4 following the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic closure.
Two-thirds of those employees 4,684 of them didn’t ask for leave or accommodations.
A growing number of Local School Councils, from West Ridge to Logan Square to West Englewood, oppose the plan to start bringing young learners and children in special education “cluster” programs back to school buildings in the new year.
Teachers face more pressure to return to classrooms in pandemic washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Vaccines, dollars and Biden ratchet up pressure on teachers to return to school Laura Meckler, Moriah Balingit, Valerie Strauss
Teachers, fearful of returning to classrooms during the pandemic, are facing new encouragement and new pressure to go back, raising the prospect that in-person school could resume in many communities before the school year is out.
The Centers for Disease Control recommended Sunday that states prioritize teachers as part of the second group of people eligible for the coronavirus vaccines.
Two days later, Congress cleared a coronavirus aid package with $54 billion for K-12 schools, which, if the president signs it, is expected to help pay expenses associated with in-person education. That could include protective equipment such as masks and plexiglass dividers, upgrades to ventilation systems and additional staffing.