A contract deal between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools that appeared imminent on Thursday did not materialize, with negotiations continuing throughout the evening.
Hopes were high after negotiations stretched late into Wednesday night. CPS CEO Pedro Martinez even sent a letter to his staff saying they should have information about the tentative agreement ready to go out on Thursday. After the Chicago Tribune reported on the letter, his chief negotiator had to walk it back, saying Martinez “unintentionally misstated” the status of negotiations.
A settlement has been within reach for a couple of weeks, and the late-night session helped push the two sides nearly to the finish line. They continued to negotiate all day Thursday. A deal this week would bring to an end almost a year of tense negotiations in which the union went to battle with the schools CEO despite having a friendly mayor in office.
Once talks are finally buttoned up, CTU leaders would then take the terms to their “big bargaining team” — a group of a couple dozen educators who have helped negotiate the contract — for consideration. That group met Thursday evening, even as negotiations went on. They are not expected to meet again until Monday, according to CTU sources.
That team then typically decides whether to recommend the package to the union’s House of Delegates. A final ratification vote by the CTU’s 30,000 members would then seal the deal.
CTU’s leadership did not comment. They insist on sharing details with their membership before talking publicly.
In a statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson said it is promising that negotiators have made “significant headway” on three critical issues, including teacher preparation time, changing the teacher evaluation system and retaining veteran educators.
“What we are hearing about this potential deal is encouraging, not just for our hardworking teachers but for all Chicagoans. We all benefit when our public schools are thriving. The potential agreement includes smaller class sizes for our students and librarians in dozens of schools across our city,” Johnson said.
These negotiations are the first in more than a decade in which the CTU had the legal authority to bargain over issues outside the classic bread-and-butter topics of salary and benefits. The union has found a way to bargain over issues like class size in past contracts, but it had to take a roundabout approach.
The union and school district have already announced that they’ve settled some contract areas, including firm class size limits — though not as small as some members would like because lowering class sizes is expensive — and the union secured a promise to hire more librarians after years of complaints that too many schools were going without them.
The union ultimately decided to accept a salary offer put forward in the summer of 4% cost-of-living increases in each of the four years of the contract. The CTU also pushed to add upward of 7,000 more staff members, but became satisfied weeks ago when it won a couple thousand more staff — especially with CPS facing budget deficits in the years ahead.
The CTU also pushed in these last weeks of negotiations for additional pay increases for veteran teachers.
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