‘These bruises won’t heal’
CPS kids back in school, but bitterness remains
By Tim Hadac
Teachers who walked off the job in the new year returned last week after the Chicago Teachers Union rank and file voted to accept Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s offer of increased safety measures at schools.
But it was a divided vote, with just 55.5% in favor, out of 18,620 votes cast—meaning there was a considerable amount of grumbling on the part of teachers returning to public schools in Clearing and Garfield Ridge, as well as across the city.
“This has been a bitter, bruising experience,” said a woman who teaches at a school in the area and who requested that her name be withheld. “The mayor and her team acted disgracefully toward us and did all they could to make us out to be the villains, when all we do, we do for the children. These bruises won’t heal. The bitterness remains.”
The agreement hammered out between CPS and the CTU calls for expanding COVID-19 testing and giving school communities increased control over both. Educators also now have a metric for reverting to remote learning, as well as incentives for increased substitute teachers to address staffing concerns.
The agreement also provides both students and staff with N95 masks, which are recommended as a standard of protection against the highly infectious COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Even before the vote was finalized, school communities had already begun to organize around tracking and protecting against COVID-19 infection in their schools, with a growing number of schools poised to go on pause because of infection rates among staff and students.
“This vote is a clear show of dissatisfaction with the boss,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey said in a statement to his members. “It’s outrageous that teachers, school nurses, counselors and more had to endure a week of being locked out by the mayor just to get a commitment from her bargaining team to provide every student with an N95 mask in a pandemic.
“This agreement covers only a portion of the safety guarantees that every one of our school communities deserve,” he continued. “Put bluntly, we have a boss who does not know how to negotiate, does not know how to hear real concerns and is not willing to respect our rank and file enough to listen to us when we tell her we need more protection.”
Sharkey said the vote to return to classrooms “represents a union’s, and a city’s, frustration with a mayor that has simmered since the beginning of this pandemic. We’ve been fortunate that Governor Pritzker has led responsibly, including an offer of hundreds of thousands of SHIELD tests to the district, that the mayor rejected for weeks. But you deserve more, and the families you serve deserve more, and we will continue fighting for that.”
The mayor and her CPS team said little, except to reiterate their assertion that while the latest data shows the Omicron variant surging among young people, hospitalizations among the young are infrequent. Most kids seem to handle Omicron infection as well as they deal with influenza or the common cold.
Clearing and Garfield Ridge residents had a few thoughts to add.
“Things are bad enough [in CPS] without more learning loss,” said Ali Hussein. “I hear what the union is saying about COVID safety, but they didn’t have to walk off the job like that. Once again, they disrupted the lives of children and families across the city.”
Angie Grasso said her granddaughter “was in tears when she learned she couldn’t return from the break and tell her classmates all about her Christmas adventures. The union broke her heart. That’s all I know.”
Heidi Kormann said she ignored the back to school order and kept her son out of school until Tuesday, Jan. 18—as did several thousand parents participating in the CPS Sick-Out coalition.
“I give our teachers and the union all the credit in the world,” she said. “It took a lot of guts to stand up against the mayor, to stand up for what’s right. As always, they care for our children more than anyone at City Hall does.”
Local News
St. Rita’s season comes to end against Kenwood
Spread the loveBy Jeff Vorva Staff Writer If this St. Rita team returns intact next season, look out. The Mustangs were six minutes away from winning their first sectional championship, holding a six-point lead against top-seeded Kenwood at the Class 4A Thornwood Sectional on March 4. The Broncos, however, roared back and went on a…
Head in the stars, feet on the ground
Spread the love‘Astro Joe’ brings astronomy to the people By Kelly White When Joseph Guzman was a child, he used to swipe his father’s binoculars and lie out in the backyard, exploring the urban skies with great fascination. The young boy did not know what he was observing, but he felt a strong attraction…
St. Rita tops Homewood-Flossmoor, vying for first sectional title
Spread the loveBy Steve Millar Correspondent St. Rita’s Morez Johnson knows how deflating it is for an opponent when it plays strong defense and forces the Mustangs into a missed shot, only for Johnson to grab the rebound and score. “Those second-chance points hurt the other team a lot,” Johnson said after St. Rita defeated…
Catholic school kids unmasked
Spread the loveParent reactions mixed By Tim Hadac Reports of local Catholic school children rejoicing over the lifting of mask mandates were widespread this week, while their parents reacted with a mix of opinions. “I’ve seen kids jubilant over this—some so much so that they appeared to be crying tears of joy,” said Garfield Ridge…
How about giving small businesses a break?
Spread the loveBy Joan Hadac Your correspondent in Clearing and Garfield Ridge (708) 496-0265 • joan.hadac@gmail.com Today I begin this column with an opinion. All through the pandemic, our elected officials have made moves to provide economic relief to people hit hard by the harsh realities of life since March 2020. Employers were given “payroll protection”…
Students in triple figures
Spread the love Boys and girls across Clearing and Garfield Ridge recently celebrated the 100th day of the 2021-22 school year, including Maria DiSanto and Isabella Rodriguez, kindergarteners at St. Daniel the Prophet School. Parents interested in enrolling their sons and daughters at the school for the 2022-23 academic year are encouraged to call (773)…
Newman notes fund infusion for Metra
Spread the loveFrom staff reports U.S. Rep. Marie Newman (D-3rd) recently announced that she has helped secure a $513.6 million award of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation (Metra). The new funds are intended to help transit agencies around the country maintain service and keep workers on the…
Naz invites all to webinar on parenting
Spread the loveFrom staff reports Nazareth Academy invites the community to attend a Zoom webinar featuring nationally noted speaker Dr. Michele Borba at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 8. How to Help the Pandemic Generation Thrive Now and Later is designed to will show parents and teachers how to instill “teachable character traits to produce resilient…
Hoop dreams end for St. Laurence girls
Spread the love The dreams of basketball playoff glory ended for St. Laurence High School girls late last month, as the Black and Gold were upset at home by a scrappy De La Salle team. The fifth-seeded Meteors started out cold and trailed 14-2 to the third-seeded Vikings after the first quarter, and were behind…
Neighbors
After 9 months, state data begins to detail new pretrial detention system
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com Nine months after cash bail ended in Illinois, the state is taking its first steps in publishing the data that crafters of the bail reform law saw as essential to judging its effectiveness. The data shows that judges in the 75 counties served by the Illinois Supreme Court’s…
ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS: Pritzker keeps economic development at forefront in exclusive interview
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com With fiscal year 2025 slated to begin Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker continues to tout available state tax incentives and promote Illinois as a site for business development. On the season finale of “Illinois Lawmakers” this week, Pritzker pointed to a pair of developments in East Alton and Normal…
Pritzker calls SCOTUS emergency abortion ruling ‘small respite’ as state protections await his signature
By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com Abortion remains legal as an emergency medical procedure in Idaho, for now, after a Thursday U.S. Supreme Court ruling, while a bill that would cement those protections in Illinois law awaits Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature. The 6-3 decision saw the three liberal justices concur with the order. Three…
‘We don’t really know what we’re voting on,’ top Dem says of Pritzker’s prison plan
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com LINCOLN – On the eve of a scheduled vote to advise Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration on plans to close and rebuild a pair of dilapidated state prisons, hundreds filed into a junior high school gymnasium Thursday evening clad in matching green T-shirts. Printed on the shirts was a…
SCOTUS ruling could upend federal corruption cases for Madigan, allies
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowed the scope of a federal bribery law prosecutors have relied on in their cases against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and several of his allies convicted of bribing him. A jury last spring found those allies – former lobbyists and…
Quantum technology companies set for big tax incentives under new law
By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com CHICAGO – Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday gave final approval to a plan to bolster the state’s tech industry, including an incentives package – backed by $500 million in the state budget – aimed at making Illinois the nation’s leader in quantum computing. The package also expands tax…
Illinois child tax credit: who gets it, how much is it?
By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com In the final hours of their spring legislative session, Illinois lawmakers approved a tax credit of up to about $300 for families with young children. The credit is available to Illinoisans with children under age 12 who qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. Although…
Illinois’ ban on ‘bump stocks’ remains in place despite U.S. Supreme Court decision
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – An Illinois law banning the sale and use of “bump stocks” and other devices that increase the firing power of semiautomatic weapons remains in place, at least for now, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision Friday striking down a federal ban on such items. “Illinois law…
Another Choate Mental Health Center employee indicted for abuse of resident
By BETH HUNDSDORFER Capitol News Illinois bhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com Another caregiver at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna is facing charges for abusing a patient. A grand jury indicted Joseph A. Clark, 24, of Grand Chain, on a felony charge of aggravated battery and a misdemeanor charge of battery. Clark pinned a Choate resident to…
State highway shootings decline as critics sue over ‘dragnet surveillance’
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com Illinois State Police say an automated license plate reader program has helped the agency identify witnesses or suspects in 82 percent of highway shooting cases this year, including all eight that resulted in a death. But as the state looks to further expand its network of more than…