Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) on Sunday again called out the Chicago Teachers Union for staging an "illegal walkout" and accused the union of abandoning students when it voted against returning to classrooms for in-person learning.
An agreement between the union and the Chicago Public Schools has not yet been reached as of Sunday afternoon, meaning children will be staying home from school for the fourth consecutive day on Monday.
Lightfoot ripped the CTU during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," when she accused its members of turning their backs on children and of ignoring the science that says schools are safe for children despite the recent uptick in COVID cases caused by the highly infectious omicron variant. The rise in infections is what led the union to want to delay a return to school.
"To be clear, what the Chicago Teacher’s Union did was an illegal walkout," the mayor said. "They abandoned their posts and they abandoned kids and their families. We are working diligently every single day at the bargaining table to narrow the differences and to get a deal done. My team has been working every single day. They’re back at it again here Sunday. And we can get a deal done if there's goodwill on both sides."
"But fundamentally what we cannot do is abandon the science. We know that the safest place for kids to be is in-person learning in schools," she continued. "And we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make our schools safe. They are safe. We’ve got the data to demonstrate that. We’ve gotta get the teacher’s union to get real and get serious about getting back into in-person learning."
Lightfoot also said she has witnessed an "unprecedented level of parent activism all in support of a return to in-person learning" in response to the recent walk-out. She noted that the current outrage from parents had not been seen in the past.
According to the mayor, roughly 92 percent of the district's faculty and staff has been vaccinated against COVID-19.
On Saturday, Lightfoot and her team rejected a proposal from the CTU that would have required students to provide negative COVID tests before returning to school. The union said teachers were willing to return to school buildings on Monday to distribute laptops and help students sign up for a weekly COVID-19 testing program. It also wants to begin remote learning Wednesday and a return to in-person instruction on Jan. 18.
Lightfoot said in her Sunday interview that the union insists on a return to remote learning, something her team "categorically reject[s]."
"We haven’t sat idly by and let COVID rage through our schools," Lightfoot said. "When there’s been a necessity to shut down a classroom or shut down a school, to go to remote learning, we’ve done that."
CTU President Jesse Sharkey said at a press conference Saturday that the mayor's opposition to remote learning is merely a "talking point."
"I hear the mayor say that she doesn’t want to do remote," Sharkey said. "But honestly, that’s just a talking point, it’s an idea – 'remote is bad.'"
Lightfoot also ripped the union during her comments Sunday for trying to politicize the coronavirus pandemic.
"We’re following the science, the mayor said. "And what I won’t do is allow the teachers union to politicize this surge or the pandemic in general. People are nervous. They are scared. We get that, but the thing to do is to lean into the facts and the science and not abandon them in a panic."
Lightfoot said the district has seen 52 COVID outbreaks, categorized as two or more infections. However, of those cases, the district has experienced an average of just 2.5 students who test positive in cases believed to be connected to schools.