“We are here to announce the very good news that our kids are learning in person again this week,” Lightfoot said at a news conference Sunday.
“This agreement was designed to ensure that everyone in our school communities is just not safe, but also that they feel safe,” said Lightfoot, “and feel that their lived experiences and fears and frustrations have been heard.”
Officials from the city and the country’s third largest school district have disagreed with the teachers’ union over Covid-19’s reopening plans. Mayor Lightfoot and CPS officials, including CEO Janice Jackson, have said personal learning is safe with Covid-19 mitigation strategies. But the CTU insisted on teachers and students were at risk if they returned to class too early.
After the press conference, CTU reiterated, “There is no agreement yet between the Union and the Board of Education. What we have is a framework that all our members must first review and review, because it is our members who are being asked to return to school buildings amidst of a global pandemic. “
The proposed plan includes a phased return
Jackson said a staged return to personal learning would begin this week pending ratification of the agreement by the union’s House of Representatives.
Under the proposed framework, students in pre-K and cluster programs would return Thursday, while teachers and students in K-8th grade would return in stages over the next few weeks.
Group K-5 staff would return on Feb. 22, Jackson said, while the students returned a week later on March 1. Sixth through 8th grade staff would return on March 1 and students would return on March 8.
In addition to traditional Covid-19 mitigation strategies, Jackson said employees living in medically vulnerable homes will receive Covid-19 vaccinations starting this week. In the future, CPS aims to vaccinate 1,500 CPS employees every week at its own vaccination sites.
The preliminary plan also includes agreed-upon statistics to get the entire school district back online, Jackson said. “We will be ready to do that if the criteria are met during this pandemic.”
Asked by a reporter on Sunday if she spoke too early, Lightfoot said no.
“We understand that the House of Representatives has the right to say yes or no,” she said. But officials wanted to update parents with a preview of the plan, “with the caveat that it must be ratified” by union representatives, she said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has designated teachers in priority category 1b for vaccinations; and while that means they are not yet eligible to be vaccinated in many states, the agency’s director says it does not mean that students cannot return safely.
CNN’s Madeline Holcombe and Theresa Waldrop contributed to this report.