(Bloomberg) — Chicago Public Schools are poised to reopen for students on Wednesday after the teachers’ union leadership voted to approve a deal with city officials to restart in-person classes in the nation’s third-largest school district.
Schools have been closed since Jan. 5 after Chicago teachers voted to shift back to remote learning, demanding that the district put in place more stringent protections amid a Covid-19 surge driven by the omicron variant. On Monday, the House of Delegates voted to suspend the union’s remote action, and the members must now ratify the agreement. The district said classes are canceled Tuesday but that students can return on Wednesday.
“It’s meaningful that the House of Delegates voted to end the work stoppage,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a press conference on Monday. “And certainly my hope is that the rank and file teachers” will ratify the agreement, she said.
The agreement includes metrics on when a classroom or a school should go remote, enhances testing, which was a major sticking point for the union, and increases contact tracing, the union said in a separate press conference on Monday.
“I’m hopeful that this is the end, at least for this school year” Lightfoot said, adding that the agreement takes the district through the end of summer school. “I’m hopeful that we will have a stable, uneventful rest of the school year.”
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