CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A teacher in the West Englewood neighborhood refuses to join his colleagues on the picket line - and this is not the first time.
Joseph Ocol has been a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools for 15 years. He spoke out against the strike, while talking to CBS 2.
“I’m working for CPS. I’m working for the kids,” he said. “I’m not working for the union...This is not about money. This is not also about politics. This is about the kids. This is about the children; their future. This is about the parents. We are inconveniencing the parents.”
Ocol told CBS 2, he is just one teacher trying to do his job.
“I’m just one teacher trying to do his job; trying to take responsibility to be the teacher, an effective teacher, for the students,” he said.
Ocol crossed the picket lines during the one-day strike in 2016.
“I joined CPS as a teacher, not as a union member,” he said.
Joseph Ocol is a math teacher and chess coach at Charles W. Earle STEM Academy, at 2040 W. 62nd St. in the West Englewood community. He is the only teacher at the school who has not gone on strike.
“I am doing the right thing,” Ocol said.
He said he did the right thing when he crossed the picket line in 2016 too.
“We’re losing instructional time. Kids are losing. I don’t know if we will be able to recover this – the lost time and the lost opportunities of learning,” Ocol said.