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Chicago Public School’s system is in a crisis. Currently Chicago Public School(CPS) district 299 is on strike, its third strike since 2012. In 2012 over 500,000 CPS students were impacted by the strike; today 360,000 CPS students and families are impacted by the strike. After the 2012 strike many parents including my own made the decision to take their children out of CPS. I understand that teachers need more resources but I empathize with the students. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago city officials, and the Chicago Teachers Union(CTU) have been locked in negotiations for over a week and have yet to come to an agreement. The plethora of reasons teachers decided to strike are far too many to list, but classroom size, resources for diverse learners and teacher pay are just a few. While the CTU, Mayor Lightfoot and other City officials meet to hash things out privately and publicly, hundreds of thousands of children are missing school. What about the 300,000 CPS students? What about the 16,000 homeless CPS students? Where is their union and why don’t their voices matter?
Frustrations are mounting. CPS students are missing out on so many things. Some students are missing meals while others are missing out on their future meal ticket. On October 24, 2019 parents and cross-country student athletes from Jones College Prep filed a lawsuit on behalf of all CPS student athletes against the Illinois High School Association and the Chicago Board of education. These cross country athletes could not participate in the state playoffs, many of these students are Seniors and will miss out on recruitment opportunities. In addition to the Jones College Prep’s cross-country team, CPS athletes that play tennis, football and soccer will miss their play-offs due to the strike. CPS football players at Simeon Career Academy have had to forfeit games and will also miss their play-offs. Some of the top recruiters from the best colleges attend games at Simeon sadly, these players will never get the opportunity to meet with them. These stories about the impact of the strike on CPS athletes are just some of the unintended consequences that will be overlooked once school resumes.
As of right now, CPS classes have been canceled for over a week. Students have missed eight consecutive days of instructional time. Daily, students and families patiently wait for announcements regarding school. Family routines have been broken, parents are missing work, athletes are missing play-off, and students are falling even further behind in their studies. Moreover, thousands of students are missing their teachers, their favorite lunch person, their favorite custodian and more importantly they are missing their friends. For children and teenagers, the center of their universe is school. School is where students make plans, form clubs, listen to each others problems and for some it is the only place they get a hug. Mayor Lighfoot, City officials and the CTU are focused on getting a deal for more access to better resources and better facilities, but they are not acknowledging that school is so much more than a physical infrastructure. School houses support systems for the most neediest, the most awkward, the most popular and most introverted of students. This strike needs to be resolved now because CPS students need to be back in school with their friends where they create memories that last a lifetime.
It is true that CPS students need more resources, deserve smaller class sizes and access to new books and technology. However, it is never right to walk out or quit on students especially when they are preparing for pay-offs, homecomings, standardized tests and other assessments. By Friday, October 25th CPS students will have missed 38.5 hours of instruction and teachers have lost out on 38.5 hours of pay. Teachers are striking for higher pay, but I would argue that they’re losing pay while out on strike. Negotiations may be ongoing but, it is clear that there are no winners. In the end, I’m sure that parties from each side of the negotiation table will get a small piece of what they wanted. It doesn’t matter how this strike will end, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
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Citations:
The Editorial Board (2019), Monica Davey (2012) and Mike Puccinelli (2019) wrote blog posts about the teachers’ strike.
The Editorial Board (2019, October 24)
Monica D. (2012, September 10)
Mike P. (2019, October 27)
