Like most public school educators, Jackson Potter has taught remotely for the past year and has witnessed the psychological toll of distance learning on his students.
Concern about his students’ mental health is one of the reasons Potter voted in support of a hard-won agreement between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union.
“At least five [of my students] have been hospitalized for depression and anxiety,” Potter, an eleventh-grade social studies teacher at Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School in Chicago, tells The Progressive. “Those who had difficult home situations before COVID typically relied on their friends as a lifeline in managing the stress they live with. Other students who thrive on activities—team sports and clubs—are now completely isolated. Many of them are left home alone all day, every day, because their parents are essential workers. They’re really struggling.”
Concern about his students’ mental health is one of the reasons Potter voted in support of a hard-won agreement between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The agreement ushers in a gradual reopening of elementary and middle schools throughout the city (high schools are tentatively scheduled to reopen on April 19), and Potter sees the agreement as a step in the right direction.
Nonetheless, he says that he worries about safety, especially since few teachers were fully vaccinated when students began their phased-in return on March 1.
By all accounts, the agreement hammered out between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the 25,000-member CTU is less far-reaching than the union wanted, which is why the CTU has pledged to continually monitor sanitation, indoor air quality, and social-distancing protocols for compliance with health and safety standards.
The agreement is nonetheless significant. Among its provisions, Chicago Public Schools has agreed to provide hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes to students and school employees; install sneeze guards around the desks of clerks, clerk assistants, and CTU bargaining unit members; and give cloth face coverings, surgical masks, and face shields to all staff.
The agreement also bars the use of rooms that are too small to ensure three-to-six feet of social distancing between students. What’s more, a state-certified environmental specialist is mandated to test indoor air before students can return to in-person learning. Furthermore, air purifiers are required in each classroom, and COVID-19 testing and contact tracing are mandated at specific intervals.
It’s a huge undertaking.
Chicago is the third largest public school district in the United States, with 341,000 students enrolled in 638 schools, and its reopening plan follows similar efforts by other localities throughout the country. The result is an uneven patchwork.
As of late March, most states had ceded authority to local school districts, giving them the power to decide whether instruction will remain remote or will transition to in-person learning, with periodic closures when contagion rates reach a level that is determined by state and city health department authorities to be dangerous.
For its part, the Centers for Disease Control has said that schools can safely reopen as long as five mitigation measures are in place: the universal and correct wearing of face masks; physical distancing; frequent hand washing; consistent cleaning and adequate building ventilation; and regular testing and contact tracing for those who have the virus.
Critics, however, are quick to point out that these are recommendations, not mandates—and many educators worry that they do not go far enough.
Critics, however, are quick to point out that these are recommendations, not mandates—and many educators worry that they do not go far enough.
Diana J. Muhammad, a physical education and dance teacher at Chicago’s Beasley Elementary School, is one of them, and while she voted in favor of the CTU agreement, she has reservations about it. “We all want schools to reopen and students to return, but the authorities rushed the process,” she says. “The city did not even include teachers in the initial reopening plan.”
Already, Muhammad is hearing from teachers that ventilators are not being correctly installed or properly utilized. In one school, Muhammad says, staff took a photo of a ventilator box being used as a trash can, with no actual ventilator in sight. “Other schools are filthy,” she says, “with classrooms that are covered in dust. Some preschool teachers posted pictures of mice in their rooms, droppings all over the floor where students are expected to nap.”
It is now up to the CTU to protest these conditions and press for immediate repairs, she says.
Another concern, Muhammad says, involves the small number of Chicago parents who are opting to send their children back into buildings they fear are unsafe. Beasley Elementary, she explains, normally has an enrollment of about 1,000 students, but she expects about 200 when her school reopens.
“As a gym and dance teacher, I’ll move from room to room, and will be able to provide the small number of kids who are coming back with adequate social distancing.” But, she adds, parents are justifiably concerned about what might happen if space is lacking.
Nicholas Limbeck, a Spanish-English dual language elementary school teacher, shares Muhammad’s concerns. But, he sees the CTU’s “social movement” strategy of partnering with community allies as key to ensuring that city government will comply with the terms of the reopening agreement.
“The city dug in ideologically, which put the CTU in a difficult position,” Limbeck says. “The mayor took a really aggressive stance against the union.”
“The city dug in ideologically, which put the CTU in a difficult position,” Limbeck says. “The mayor took a really aggressive stance against the union.”
That said, it is still worth noting that nearly one-third of CTU members voted against the reopening plan. Katie Osgood, a special education teacher at Suder Elementary School, a magnet school that draws kids from throughout Chicago, was among them. Osgood explains that she expects just two of her twenty-six students to return in person this spring.
“The issue is the pandemic itself,” she says. “Our kids are experiencing anxiety and depression because of COVID-19. Yes, they’re suffering, but opening up schools is not the solution.”
In fact, Osgood believes that premature reopening will exacerbate the problems students are facing. “Kids who come back will still be spending all day on their computers,” she says. “There will also be a ton of rules: They can’t touch playground equipment. They can’t touch each other. They can’t remove their masks. Opening schools is not a substitute for mental health support. If we want to improve the wellbeing of our students, we first need to get the pandemic under control. Once that happens, most will bounce back; kids are resilient.”
Carlos Rodriguez, a middle school math teacher who has taught for thirty-two years, agrees with Osgood. “Everyone wants to go back to normal,” he says. “But this can’t be business as usual. The city seems to be in a great hurry to get kids back so that they can catch-up academically, but this is detrimental to everyone. We need mental health and emotional support before we can concentrate on learning outcomes.”
Rodriguez has experienced the pain of COVID-19 firsthand, having lost a beloved colleague and watched his father battle the virus. “When policy makers say, ‘Hey, we’re ready to open. Everything is fine,’ I have to ask if they would be in such a rush to reopen if their mother or father had COVID-19? Do politicians ever put themselves in the shoes of those who are suffering, those who’ve lost loved ones, or do they only look at statistics about transmission rates?”
Ninth grade social studies and geography teacher David Marshall, one of three union delegates at Schurz High School, also opposed the agreement and believes the CTU should have gone on strike in August 2020. He calls the staggered reopening plan “fracturing,” and says that the agreement does too little to protect teachers who need to remain at home because of their own or a family member’s health concerns.
“Most accommodations, around 85 percent, were granted if the teacher was at risk,” Marshall tells The Progressive. “But only 17 or 18 percent of those who asked for accommodations because of family need were approved. That’s wrong.”
Vaccination access, Marshall adds, was another sticking point for him. Although the city government has said that it will vaccinate 1,500 teachers a week, Marshall notes that, with 25,000 teachers in Chicago, not everyone who was expected to return could be vaccinated before the resumption of in-person instruction this spring.
“I love teaching,” he says. “But I don’t want to risk my life. Most of us won’t give our lives for the job.”