Chicago elementary teachers begin returning to classrooms under near-total media blackout
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Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teachers for kindergarten through fifth grades began returning to schools on Monday, a consequence of the sellout agreement the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) concluded with the district. With their students scheduled to return next week, the danger facing teachers and other workers is likely to escalate further as new variants of the COVID-19 virus are provided ample opportunities to infect new hosts. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health contact tracing data, schools have become the number one potential exposure locations, overtaking all other categories.
The effort to reopen schools in Chicago was aimed at setting a precedent for reopening districts everywhere and shifting the relationship of class forces in the US as a whole.
As another wave of students, teachers and staff are returned to buildings in the wake of the union’s betrayal, new arenas of struggle are opening in Chicago and beyond.
West Coast educators call for united struggle with Chicago educators to save lives
The Los Angeles, San Diego and Northern California Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committees across the West Coast fully support the demand of Chicago educators to keep schools closed during the pandemic. Across the country, as thousands of people die every day, there is a bipartisan push to reopen schools against all medical science. The statement of the Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee “Keeping Chicago schools closed during the pandemic is not negotiable!” points the way forward to workers everywhere.
Teachers, parents and children march in the Brooklyn borough of New York to protest the reopening of city public schools amid the threat of a teachers strike, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)