Students in Chicago Public Schools have returned to class after winter break, but a COVID-19 surge has escalated a fight between district leaders and the teachers union over safety protocols that could disrupt classes later this week
District leaders said individual classes and schools with outbreaks may temporarily go online as they have for months, but the district would continue in person.
Nationwide, schools have been grappling with the same issues and a handful of school districts have returned to online learning. In Illinois, Peoria Public Schools extended winter break by one week and schools in East St. Louis announced two weeks of remote learning after winter break. “I am so pissed off that we have to continuously fight for the basic necessities, the basic mitigations,” Stacy Davis Gates, the union's vice president, said Monday outside an elementary school where teachers planned to work from home.