CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The head of the Chicago Teachers Union is scoffing at the idea that Mayor Brandon Johnson is ready to give the CTU free rein in upcoming contract negotiations.
At the City Club of Chicago luncheon, Stacy Davis Gates said she knows what will be said about the union and former member Brandon Johnson.
"They're gonna say: 'Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago, is gonna give CTU everything it's asking for', and I hope he does, because that would mean we will have a librarian and a library in every school," she said.
"It would mean that we will have green facilities being built for children in this city."
Other CTU goals include more social workers and nurses in schools.
Davis Gates acknowledges that the contract negotiations won't be easy and they might not get everything right, but she invites the public to be part of the process.
"We're going to have some really good ideas come out of this process that help us move the public schools ahead and we're going to have to come back to the table and tweak other ones that we didn't get so right, because that's what happens when you are transforming stuff," she stated.
"That's what happens when you're doing a group project with people who want to and people who don't want to."
When asked how she feels about moves to do away with ''Selective Enrollment'' schools, Davis Gates said the board resolution didn't say that, but people assume improving one means degrading the other.
You can have both, she said. "You can have more."
But Davis Gates believes officials must rethink how the systems can be more equitable.
She also refused to comment on what she thinks of the current plan for an elected school board while Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill.
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