Sunday, January 17, 2021

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post
Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers



CHICAGO — Brian Yuhas was one of the teachers who was ordered back into his Chicago classroom on Monday as the nation's third-largest school district began opening campuses for the first time since March. But he didn't go. He wasn't comfortable going back, and besides, his students had chosen all-remote learning.

But on Tuesday morning, when he went to sign in to the district platform, he was locked out.

The same thing happened to other teachers who refused to go back as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) carried out the first part of her school reopening plan, despite fierce resistance from the Chicago Teachers Union. The school district is requiring all teachers in the tier that started offering in-person instruction on Monday to teach from their schools if they did not have preapproved accommodations, even if their students had opted for remote learning.

It started disciplinary procedures early in the week on more than 140 employees for not reporting to schools in person and has withheld pay and locked them out of the school system’s accounts, deeming them absent without leave. By Friday, the number of designated AWOL employees dropped to 87. But 901 of the 3,787 employees did not report on Friday, including 479 teachers, according to Chicago Public Schools data.

After being locked out, Yuhas said he called parents and relayed lesson plans to some of them, and he spoke to a case manager at a long-term skilled nursing-care facility, where five of his eight students live, that helps individuals with developmental disabilities.

“I was the only person outside of the building that would actually see them without looking in the window,” he said about the students in the care facility. “I was the only person that had contact with CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post