Chicago City Wire

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is taking the personal approach in her efforts to coax Chicago Public Schools teachers back into the classroom.

“I’m urging teachers, show up to your schools,” Lightfoot said in a post to Twitter. "Your Kids need you.”

Lightfoot said the view of top city officials remains the same.

“Our charge right now is to do what we’ve always done – follow the guidance of medical experts at the @ChiPublicHealth, the @CDCgov and others, to keep schools open in-person with a robust set of mitigation tactics in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” she posted.

Lightfoot is also taking her argument to frustrated parents, posting, “I want to speak directly to the parents who are worried not just about what’s going to happen tomorrow, but the rest of this week. “I want to assure you that I am doing everything in my power to keep our students in school, where they belong, learning.”

Lightfoot said city officials are committed to hammering out a fair agreement, but posted, “What we cannot accept is unilateral action to shut down the entire district, depriving hundreds of thousands of students of the safe, in-person schooling environment they need.”

After CTU officials recently instructed members to return to remote teaching, CPS officials responded by cancelling all classes.

Union officials said the need for change stems from rising COVID infection rates and is meant to keep teachers and students alike safe.

City officials, meanwhile, have deemed the school closures an “illegal work stoppage,” with some noting that it comes after city schools received at least $1.8 billion in funding as part of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

CTU is now demanding to know how the money is being spent.  

"The mayor’s CPS team has repeatedly failed to meet even its own modest promises in testing and contact tracing, refused to start up a robust student vaccine program, refused to document HVAC safety, failed to maintain even 3-foot social distancing, failed to improve serious problems with sanitation and cleanliness, and continues to reject a science-based metric to determine when there’s too much COVID to learn in-person safely," members said in a Jan. 2 press release.

Even with roughly 65% of all Chicagoans now vaccinated, local COVID-19 cases have recently spiked to record highs, including a daily average of 4,775 cases, or 176.4 per 100,000 residents, though deaths remain low with a daily average of 11, or 0.4 per 100,000 residents.