As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
Join the conversation
We encourage our readers to leave comments and engage in dialogue about our stories. But before you do, please check out our "rules of the road."
Recent Notebook Entries
Right Now On Notebook
By:
By:
Subscribe to catalyst-chicago.org by e-mail
Other Blogs
catalyst-chicago.org feeds
Current Issue
Teachers move closer to 10-day strike notice
By: Rebecca Harris and Sarah Karp / August 22, 2012
Though they were not required to, Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted to give their leaders discretion to issue a 10-day notice of intent to strike.
"That is how we do things," said CTU President Karen Lewis in explaining why she looked to delegates for the go ahead to give notice. "We are a democracy."
But more than anything, the move alerts CPS leadership and the public that a strike is a growing threat.
If the CTU wants to strike on September 4, the first day of school, notice would have to be given by Saturday.
The House of Delegates also planned to re-convene in a week, on Thursday – likely to update members on negotiations and see whether members want to strike. There is also a rally planned at Daley Plaza on Labor Day.
As they left the meeting, many members said they felt like a strike was a real possibility.
Delegates cited dissatisfaction with the district's latest salary offer – a 2 percent raise each year for the next 3 years, with the implementation of a merit pay program in the fourth year of the contract – as one reason they are considering a walk-out. They also said that CPS is asking for a bigger health insurance contribution and it would offset a raise.
They said frustration with scarce district resources is also playing a role.
“They seem to be trying to play chicken. It's headed toward a collision,” said Valerie Morris, a special education teacher at McKay Elementary.
She complained that resources are stretched so tight that the school's recess is held in the auditorium and that the principal, assistant principals, librarians, and the art and gym teacher must trade off supervisory duties – instead of spending time doing their jobs.
Jeanne Freed, a Spanish teacher at Lincoln Park High School, said that the mood was “very positive in favor of a strike” but that delegates planned to take information back to the schools after teachers return to set up classrooms on Aug. 27.
“I have been though four negotiations. This is the toughest,” said Paulette Butler-Mitchell, an art teacher at South Loop Elementary who has been a delegate for 10 years. “The frustration level is very high. From the atmosphere inside... it seems like the possibility of a strike is very high.”
Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said in a statement that a resolution passed by the school board on Wednesday to authorize spending on a strike contingency plan was “a precaution that we need to take” on students' behalf.
“We want our kids to stay in school with their teachers where they are benefiting from the Full School Day, but we need to be prepared,” Brizard said. “Most of our kids rely on us for their food, and will need a safe environment and to stay engaged in positive activities.”
I AM FOR THE TEACHERS!!!!
My significant other just got a job with CPS as a teacher and is looking to leave as soon as another job is found-IN ANOTHER DISTRICT. The whole entire hiring process is horrendous, with wait times at Elizabeth for more than 5 hours. No numbers being called, just an archaic, inefficient system with some of the rudest and incompetent staff imaginable. All these teachers want to do is teach, but HR, and the administration is just making it more difficult. Why? Is this some sort of attempt for teachers to become so frustrated that they end up working for charters? Is the goal of CPS to disrupt the entire system so that it just crumbles so that education can be privatized? Who knows what is going on. The Board has anti-Union/Pro-Charter types, appointed by Rahm so maybe I am not being that paranoid.
I hope teachers strike. I hope they get what they deserve. 2% is lousy, and so is merit pay. I worked for a non-profit for 6 years. Every year we had a new union contract. Each year was a pathetic 2% raise and an increase in health care premiums. There was no upward mobility, only inflation, a decrease in my home value, and higher food prices. My income looked like it was slightly more, but my take home remained flat. FIGHT THIS!!!!
Brizard's latest lie... and the $24 million question
It would be nice is some reporter (besides those of us at Substance) would mention the fact that every time Jean-Claude Becky Carroll Brizard speaks to the media (usually behind a veil, as in "in a statement..." because he is afraid to take questions) he has just racked up another day of not being at the bargaining table. In the past 12 months, the Chicago Public Schools has voted to spend more than $1.1 million on one outside law firm (Franczek Radelet) to do the negotiations on behalf of CPS, while Brizard continues to be paid his unprecedented quarter million dollar per year salary as "Chief Executive Officer." (Plus an undisclosed bonus I have a hunch he claimed after Year One).
But let's get to both contingency plans the Board approved at its August 22 meeting. The main one (that was kept secret, by the way, until the end of the Board meeting, in violation of the Open Meetings Act) was the "contingency" plan. The other one was the one to spend $24 million for recess supervisions and stuff like that.
Now I know the math is too hard for an outlet (like Catalyst) that prefers to utilize bad metaphors instead of real numbers when discussing the latest CPS "deficit". Any publication that can gush in generalities or talk with a straight face about a "deficit" of "gazillions" would have been laughed out of town back in the day, but as we know, this is a New Day.
But $24 million is about as hard to miss, I'd think, as tumescence in a convent. Yet it looks like it's been missed (for the second month in a row; the first iteration was $12 million in July).
If, as Tim Cawley fairytaled again yesterday, the budget "crisis" is "dire", then why did CPS approve Board Report 12-0822-PR2 ("Approve Entering into Agreements with Various Vendors for Out of School Times and Recess Facilitation Services") to pay $24 million (and like to go up) for scab services once the strike begins. Not one of those plutorcratic hacks sitting up there during the meeting (which I covered for Substance) had any problem with "Recess Facilitation Services" (or any of the other union busting nonsense they are now committing to...).
One of the finer points of August 22, 2012, at 125 S. Clark St. was that the Rat finally made it out front. Rat and his cousins (yesterday's was the purple one; my preference is the yellow one, but they're a great breed) are going to spend some time on the road from now on. I can see them landing underneath the windows of that Fifth Floor office of one Rahm Emanuel, then over at the Prudential Building which currently houses the Race To The Top fan club. And finally, I would bet to the homes of each of the seven dwarfs, who voted yesterday to waste hundreds of millions of dollars they claim they don't have on a strike the city will remember for decades to come.
I thought the $25 million for day care services was worse
George raises a legitimate question about the millions of dollars CPS approved for recess facilitation services and I would add the $25 million being set aside for "student and family support" via Board resolution 12-08222-RS10. It would be nice to think in the event of a strike the City has some moral obiligation to help low income families with day care, but it is not a CPS responsibility to provide day care. The money should be coming from Chicago Department of Family and Support Services and the City of Chicago if at all.
I am not sure limited day care services located around the city really present much of a threat to breaking any strike unless CPS tries to put these day care program in CPS buildings. If that is the case then it clearly would be an attempt to break a strike if one does take place. The truth is neither CPS nor the City can afford to pay for the proposed day care services, even for a week. Moreover, would these services be provided to very seriously disabled children who might require nursing services or need behavioral interventions? I doubt it and I think not providing the option of day care support to low income families with more disabled children would be a violation of the ADA. Under the law you can't provide a public service and then deny it to a subgroup of children based on their disabilities.
Because of the many complexities and cost involved in providing mass scale day care services both the City and CPS would be very wise to stay out of the day care bussiness for the duration of any strike if one were to take place.
Rod Estvan
Big FAT KAREN HAS DONE IT AGAIN!
Every since Lewis became president the CTU has been in shambles. One
mistake after another I hope Rahm kicks her fat butt!
shables?
Not many union leaders get a 90% vote in one direction. also, why would you want our mayor to be violent to her?? Please leave your 5th grade comments for a gamers blog!
Tolerance
It's always refreshing to have the fatuous point of view represented.
Kris still at it...
There are fewer and fewer crazies and traitors among Chicago teachers as everyone moves towards the key vote at Thursday's House of Delegates meeting, but Kris Rudzinski's obsession with Karen Lewis is another example of why publication's should consider whether to allow anonymous and pseudonymous comments. It only encourages the psychopaths and sociopaths.
Anonymous
I agree with your statement regarding anonymous and pseudonyms...however, people who still work for CPS must protect themselves. There have been horrendous attacks on former employees who have been "accused" of crimes and what follows are comments made by people who have an axe to grind and are cowards since they hide their true identity! People forget the meaning of accused and convicted. I admire your tenaciousness but you no longer work for the horrendous CPS...and look how unfairly you were treated!!!
Anonymous comments
If "protect" means anonymous, then they should not be commenting. At Substance, we regularly protect anonymous sources in our news reports. But we do not tolerate anonymous or pseudonymous comments on our website. Blogging is a polluted information territory because it has developed a culture of cowardice by allowing these puerile indulgences. If someone has something to say, we will report it and protect the anonymity of a a source. This type of thing is simply a protracted over-indulgence promoted by certain fads of the 21st Century that has to end.
I have great respect for guys like Phillip Jackson (whose wild comments from Black Star are currently at substancenews.net) but no respect for those who insist they (a) have something to say but (b) don't want anyone to know who is saying it.
Simple: Then don't say it until you're ready to stand behind your words.
With 25,000 CTU members now poised to go on strike, it's time to stand up and be counted and stop hiding.
actually george
I think some of the anonymous chatter on here is what helped give people a voice to those who are afraid. this is the catalyst....not the substance..let each his own ok!!! you are brave...but it sounds like you are retired??? right?
Contingency Plans
It seems to me that the cost of the proposed contingency plans, per day, will be less than the teacher salaries that won't be paid during the strike, so that is where the money will come from. Of course the babysitting program won't be worth as much to the students as a day in class, so it should not cost as much. But I don't think approving a contingency plan means there is hidden money no one knows about.
George, some people must remain anonymous due to factors relating to their jobs.
'Contingency' money proof of Board's "DEFICIT!" lies...
Between the $25 million "Contingency" allocation, the $24 million for recess mercenaries, and the no-bid privatization contracts scattered across the Board Agenda for August 22, anyone who can still report that CPS is facing some kind of "deficit" is asking all the wrong questions or has joined the line for the Jonestown Kool Aid being served by Becky Carroll's every-increasing Ministry of Truth.
CPS will spend hundreds of millions of dollars, not simply the paltry $49 million it has now admitted it always had, to break the CTU strike. The seven dwarfs and the Brizard team are in Chicago with that one mission. Anyone who can still say, with a straight face, that Brizard should be taken seriously (except as a traitor to Chicago) hasn't been paying attention. Even WBEZ yesterday got around to noticing that Brizard, at a quarter million dollar a year salary plus "performance bonus", has not bothered to show up for one of the 48 collective bargaining sessions that have been held with Karen Lewis and the CTU teams since November 2011.
The fact that the Tribune and Sun-Times editorial boards have let Brizard get away with these two lies ("Deficit", negotiations) shows the town how deeply we're into the world described by George Orwell. Brizard's buzzards in the principals' offices (not all principals, just the majority) have suspended teachers for five days for being absent for three days — with a doctor's letter. Only in Chicago, with our tanked corporate media, could these lies get so-called traction, and Brizard be allowed to continue spewing them like sludge into a Septic tank.
Yesterday, three Sun-Times propagandists (Mary Mitchell, who has been a cheerleader for corporate reform since Vallas; Kate Grossman, who writes those silly editorials; and Ros Rossi, who can always be counted on to find the one "mother" — remember Ms. Edgebrook from June? — who hates teachers) were at the press conference. It's sad that the same city that produced City News Bureau and reporters like Kurt Vonnegut (and Mike Royko, in the early days at least) could serve us this in the 21st Century.
Add your comment