Chicago Teachers Union votes to refuse in-person classes and continue remote instruction Dawn Reiss CHICAGO —The Chicago Teachers Union voted to refuse in-person instruction Sunday and directed educators to work remotely starting Monday. The decision comes two weeks after the nation's third-largest school district called teachers and staff into classrooms and started to lock them out from remote work. Chicago Public Schools chief executive Janice Jackson had said the action would constitute an illegal strike. “I want to be clear, if teachers refuse to come to work on Monday, that is a strike, that is not a lockout,” Jackson said Friday as the union polled its 25,000 members.