Schools closed in Chicago after teachers reject in-person classes

Chicago Public Schools canceled classes on Wednesday after its teachers union voted against in-person instruction.

The Chicago Teachers Union said that 73 percent of its members voted for the action late Tuesday out of concern that schools would not have adequate COVID-19 restrictions and elected to teach remotely, according to The Chicago Tribune.

It is unclear if the teachers will return to remote teaching on Thursday, the newspaper noted.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) slammed the decision and threatened to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up for classes.

“I have to tell you, it feels like ‘Groundhog Day,’ that we are here again,” Lightfoot said, referencing previous struggles with the union, according to the Tribune. “There is no basis in the data, the science or common sense for us to shut an entire system down when we can surgically do this at a school level.”

She also reportedly claimed that union leaders are “politicizing the pandemic.”

In Tuesday’s vote, the Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates approved the decision for remote instruction through Jan. 18 unless COVID-19 cases decrease in the city or an agreement is met with Chicago Public Schools, the Tribune noted.

“We are between a rock and a hard place — the rock being the pandemic, the hard place being an intractable, incompetent mayor,” Stacy Davis Gates, the union’s vice president, said this week, according to The New York Times. “We said a two-week pause so they could get themselves together, have the proper communication, put in the necessary mitigations.”