CPS CEO Martinez: Schools Will Be Open, But Classes To Be Cancelled If CTU Votes For Remote Learning

CHICAGO (CBS) — The head of the country’s third largest school district said if the Chicago Teachers Union votes for remote learning and not to return, schools will be open but there will be no classes.

As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported, the CTU House of Delegates is voting on a resolution for members to teach from home unless some kind of deal is reached with the Chicago Public Schools. If it gets approved, teachers would then vote electronically Tuesday night between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

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CPS Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez said teachers, staff and students are welcome to come to classrooms – but if teachers vote for remote learning, classes will be called off.

“If they do take a vote to do a walkout tomorrow, I have to cancel classes,” Martinez said. “I am not closing the schools. The schools are going to be open. And so again, all staff will be welcome to come to school because we are going to have a plan for our families. I am not going to let our parents down.”

Martinez added “we will have a plan tomorrow. We’re going to create a plan that’s best for family to the students not based on anything else. And so what I can commit to families is that if they take an action to do a walkout, I have to cancel classes tomorrow. I’m sorry about that. You will have a plan tomorrow we will see how we move forward.”

CPS officials said a vote by the CTU House of Delegates to authorize teachers to work remotely beginning Wednesday would amount to an illegal strike.

“A vote to stop reporting to work would cause profound harm to children’s learning and health and be another damaging blow to the well being of our students and their families,” CPS said in a statement.

Martinez said he understood why parents may be uncomfortable with the idea of sending kids to schools, with the COVID Omicron surge, but said he is frustrated with the amount of “misinformation” that is being spread as to the safety of school buildings.

“At this point, the misinformation and anxiety is so high and I saw it firsthand. I was visiting schools I wanted to get a sense myself. What I was seen. And like I said, in some schools, it is just at an extreme level to the point where there is no logic behind it. There’s no science behind it,” Martinez said.

As the Omicron surge grips Chicago, Martinez and Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said students need to be in school, as it’s a very safe space.

“We need kids to get vaccinated, but I remain extremely comfortable with children continuing in person education,” Arwady said.

Martinez presented his proposal to the CTU, which includes a school level metric by which individual schools could transition to remote learning, as well as a return to daily health screenings and temperature checks for schools that want them.

“COVID is the enemy – not the CTU, not us,” Martinez said, But it is, I wish I wish we could all be on the same page providing accurate information to our families, because I’m seeing the fear.”

In a tweet, CTU responded, saying the counterproposal was shared with them only “eight minutes prior to this press conference.” But the union said it planned to meet with the mayor’s bargaining team Tuesday afternoon.

“Until we do this – draw a line in the snow – then they react,” Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said Monday.

Martinez said he applauded the way the city had the schools ready for students to return after the holiday break.

“There was a great decision to invest in the schools in the filtration systems. There was a great decision to have masks available for every single child for every single staff person. It was a great decision to prioritize vaccinations for a staff and actually to ask every step to get vaccinated. All those decisions are paid off. There was never a need for any kind of agreement. I think the the challenge that I would I wish if I had a magic wand, I wish all of us were providing good information to families,” Martinez said.

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Martinez would not directly identify CTU for being a source of misinformation, but said some of that misinformation centers around schools not being safe.

“The biggest misinformation that I see right now that I can tell you is complete myths about our schools, our schools being unsafe. completeness, that we’re seeing high levels of completion across the school across classrooms,” Martinez said.

Meanwhile at an unrelated news conference Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Lightfoot emphasized the damage caused by sending the entire school system to remote learning. She noted that the city has paid more than $100 million in mitigations such as ventilation and HEPA filters in classrooms, masks, and other safety protocols.

Last time the Chicago Public Schools went to all-remote learning, the mayor said, “what we saw was 100,000 children – particularly Black and Brown children – that were disconnected from the system and learning.” Mayor Lightfoot also said CPS saw a three-fold increase in failing grades among elementary school kids during remote learning last time around.

Mayor Lightfoot added that all-remote learning also resulted in “social-emotional trauma,” because students were disconnected from their social networks that “keep them healthy mentally and emotionally.”

“The worst ting that we can do is shut the entire system down,” Mayor Lightfoot said.

Rather than an “illegal work stoppage,” the mayor said, the focus should be on getting kids vaccinated against COVID-19. She said calls for all-remote learning seem to overlook the fact that a vaccine is available for COVID-19 now, whereas it was not during the past long stretch of pandemic remote learning.

“Why on earth, when we don’t need to pause, would we pause and risk falling back into the same trap?” Lightfoot said. “Achievement gaps are real, and they are affecting kids of color at an exponential rate.”

Lightfoot said she and Dr. Arwady are “leaning into the science” when it comes to COVID-19 response. Without naming the Chicago Teachers Union in this case, she said calls to close down schools are rooted in “fearmongering and hysteria.”

But CPS parent Sharon Winkfield said children should be learning remotely with the rise in COVID-19 cases. Winkfield also said remote learning shouldn’t mean a student’s attendance record is impacted.

“Why must our families choose between being marked absent and bringing their child to school when this disease is running rampant?” Winkfield said. “To ask us to choose between punishment and safety – please. I mean, we love our children, and we want them to stay alive. We want them to be here. We want them to get a good education, but they can’t do that if they’re dead.”

On Tuesday, Dr. Arwady said the high number of COVID cases in the city is alarming.

“We continue to be in the very high transmission category for cases averaging now over 4,500 per day. We also have a test positivity of 23.6% in the city of Chicago,” Arwady said. “The news is not good. The COVID case rate in Chicago is the highest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Dr. Arwady added that the best defense against COVID-19 and the Omicron variant is getting vaccinated. She said she too is hearing a lot of misinformation regarding children and COVID infections.

“One of the things I’m hearing the most misinformation about is that Chicago hospitals are filling up with children, that many Chicago children are dying of COVID, that it’s a really scary time to be a child right now with COVID in Chicago. And I want you to understand that well of course we are concerned about the rise in hospitalizations that is being driven by unvaccinated adults,” Arwady said. “Child COVID hospitalizations remain very rare across the whole city approximately 550,000 children. We are averaging just seven COVID hospitalizations a day right now for children ages zero to 17.”

Arwady said Chicago kids 17 and under are being diagnosed with COVID-19 at a higher rate thanks to the holiday break, but said kid COVID hospitalizations “remain very rare.”

“I want to just reassure you, especially if you are vaccinated; if your child is vaccinated, this is behaving like the flu – and we don’t close school districts for an extended amount of time because of the flu,” Arwady said.

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Martinez said he had asked the union to delay its vote. He said he is still optimistic that CPS and CTU can reach an agreement.