CTU Leader Says Trump Presidency Raises Urgency for Contract Negotiations

The Chicago teachers union is increasing pressure for a contract deal, insisting it needs to be done before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January and expressing doubt that the school district’s current leadership can get it done.

“There is a real, clear and present danger facing us,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said of the Trump administration. “The most important thing to do is figure out how to create a contract that will protect, maintain and create a force field, and then figure out how we start working together to keep our area safe.”

On Thursday, the union held a crowded rally in the city center.

In a letter to staff, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez cited Trump’s presidency as the reason for the urgency of the CTU contract, saying the district has strict policies protecting immigrants, LGBTQ and other student groups.

CPS officials also held a briefing Thursday and said they were working diligently to reach an agreement. They stressed that schools now have thousands of teachers and support staff than four years ago, and that CTU requirements will cost CPS $10 billion at a time when the district faces a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars.

KTU representatives do not agree with the calculations of their current proposals. But they also say previous administrations agreed to contracts and later figured out how to pay for them.

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union are gathering downtown Thursday to push for a contract with Chicago Public Schools.

There is some pressure to resolve the issue, with the union calling for an independent arbitrator called a fact-finder to intervene. This is a step towards a strike, which can be announced no earlier than February.

Behind the scenes, the union and school district have reached agreement in some areas, but many unresolved issues remain.

School day and time planning

One big dispute between CPS and CTU concerns time management for elementary school teachers. CPS argues that increasing planning time will reduce training time, and officials are not interested in that. CPS officials say Chicago teachers are given more training time than teachers in other major city districts.

CTU sees giving elementary teachers more preparation time as an opportunity for the district to offer more opportunities to students. They say it’s about making the school day better for students by providing more arts, world languages and extracurricular activities. The only area where there has been significant progress is CPS’ proposal to allocate more money to athletic programs. As for increasing the number of continuing education teachers, CPS officials say they are providing schools with more positions, but they don’t want to dictate who principals should hire, whether it’s an art or French teacher, a technology coordinator or a librarian.

Staffing

The CTU is asking for thousands of new positions that it says will help support students.

There’s one big discrepancy regarding teacher aides: CPS says CTU has proposed hiring more than 7,000 additional teacher aides, spanning more than 60 staffing offers. The CTU says that figure is inaccurate and that the request is much lower.

In addition, CTU wants every school to have a librarian and a functioning library. There are currently only 107 school librarians in the city. CPS has proposed creating a pipeline to attract more librarians, but the district does not guarantee a librarian in every school.

CTU and CPS have made progress toward achieving a ratio of one counselor for every 250 students districtwide, although some disagreement remains on how to achieve this. Over the past few years, CPS has hired hundreds of additional consultants.

The union also proposed one teacher for English language learners in schools with 50 to 300 students in those programs, and another for every additional 300. CPS proposed one teacher for 50 children and older, and a second for schools with 600 English language learners.

Other CTU staffing proposals that CPS has not agreed to include hundreds more reading specialists and interventionists, restorative justice coordinators, technology coordinators and communications specialists to help newly arrived immigrant children.

Union members hold signs calling for support for students at a rally downtown Thursday as they prepare for President-elect Donald Trump to take office.

Class sizes

Class size is an issue that interests not only teachers, but also parents. It has great educational value as well as financial value.

The question asked in the negotiations is how many students must be in a class before the district can provide additional support, which could include hiring a teacher’s aide or creating an entirely new classroom. CTU wants to limit preschool classes to 17 students, kindergarten through 3rd grade to 20; and from 4th to high school grades at 25 years old. They also want CPS to set aside $45 million a year instead of $35 million to reduce class sizes if problems arise.

So far, CPS has refused the $10 million increase. It also proposes higher limits of 20 students in preschool, 25 in kindergarten, 30 in fourth through eighth grades and 28 in high school. CPS officials say current class sizes are much smaller, averaging 22 in elementary schools and 20 in high schools. But setting lower class size limits is a difficult task, especially as the district faces educational shortfalls in the future.

Salary and benefits

There appears to be a general agreement on how much CTU members will be paid.

CPS proposed increases of 4% this school year and then 4% to 5% over the next three years depending on inflation. It will cost $120 million this school year and about $1.3 billion over the entire four-year contract, according to CPS.

In a message to union members this week, union leadership said some details were still to be negotiated, but the district’s offer “exceeds increases in any CTU contract in decades.”

There has also been progress in health insurance, including no increase in premiums and expansion of coverage for various therapies, abortion, infertility and gender-affirming care.