Chicago Teachers Union Ends Walkout, Students Return To Classes Wednesday

The Chicago Teachers Union has agreed to end their walkout and return to the classrooms after a vote took place on Monday night (January 10).

Public school teachers are back in the classrooms as of Tuesday (January 11) after agreeing with the district on COVID-19 safeguards, USNews reported.

With teachers back in the classrooms, 340,000 students in the Chicago Public School system will return to in-person learning as of Wednesday (January 12).

In a news conference on Monday, Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said the deal was not exactly what they wanted, but "it does include some important things which are going to help safeguard ourselves and our schools."

The weeklong walkout began when the union voted to return to virtual learning and put more safety protocols in place due to the widespread of the Omicron variant.

Many school districts across the United States have returned to school, while others have pushed back their start dates or resulted in virtual learning as COVID illnesses continue rising.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has pushed to reopen schools as the seven-day average of positive cases in Chicago has decreased.

"Switching completely back to remote learning again without a public health reason to do so would have created and amplified the social, emotional and economic turmoil that far too many of our families are facing," Lightfoot stated during a news conference.

In a press conference on Sunday morning (January 9), Lightfoot stated that the Chicago Teachers Union had an "illegal walk-out."

"To be clear, what the Chicago Teacher's Union did was an illegal walk-out. They abandoned their posts and they abandoned kids and their families," Lightfoot said.

The agreement between Chicago Teachers Union and the district is to increase testing and contact tracing in schools, supply additional KN95 masks for students and staff, and create metrics to go remote if needed, the Chicago Tribune reported.

"It was not an agreement that had everything, it's not a perfect agreement, but it's certainly something we can hold our heads up about, partly because it was so difficult to get," Sharkey stated.