CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and families staged walk-ins at several CPS schools Tuesday morning over challenges in Washington and here in Chicago as they continue to work without a contract.
Holding signs out in the cold outside Peirce Elementary, parents and CTU members rallied against budget cuts and deportation efforts.
Bilingual teacher, union delegate and CPS parent Joshua Lerner said part of their walk-in was in support of immigrants.
“We stand in solidarity with them, all across the city and all across the nation, but we’re also here in perilous times because we’re seeing a lot of cuts and a lot of threats to our public schools right here locally,” Lerner said.
That includes a lack of a certified librarian here at Peirce.
“How do you teach appropriately in this day and age without a school library? All the misinformation, all the algorithmic nonsense that takes students down a rabbit hole of mistruth,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said.
He called a recent poll by the Illinois Policy Institute that showed twice as many people have an unfavorable view of the union than favor it as “not objective and inaccurate.”
Aurora joined the day of action at her school where she’s in the third grade.
“We want to keep our schools safe,” she told WBBM.
Standing with teachers here outside Peirce Elementary was Laurel and her third grade daughter.
“They want to do right by our students, and I see that every day I come here, and I bring my kids here,” Laurel said.
A CTU spokeswoman estimated tens of thousands of CPS students missed class Monday in protest of the Trump administration’s stepped up deportation efforts.
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