Chicago Public School's Pro-COVID Lockout Part 1

How are you doing? Um? You know, it's it's been kind of weird, but all in all, I'm in good spirits. I think my sisters and brothers and c to you are in good spirits. So we're going to keep fighting

the good fight. Yeah. So, before before we fully start to get into the teachers Union and Lord Lightfoot's fuckery, I want to sort of get a bit of context for people who don't live in Chicago or just don't know much about the only politics because LORI, like you know, if if you read sort of like media accounts of this, like you, you, you you may be sort of misled into into thinking that there's like even some semblance of good faith going on here from Lord Lightfoot, and like

I just I just want to like do a great like a Lord Lightfoot Greatest hits real for a second. So Lightfoot like immediately after she got elected, like the like the first thing she does is she she's she literally she's like, Okay, there's too much crime on the subway. We're gonna put swat teams on them. And so you know, you just be on the red lighte and there's a wat team and you know, because again this is what happens when you put a swat team on the fucking subway.

They immediately shot a dude in the back for nothing, you just literally no reason. They shot him in the back. Um. So that that was like that was like like the first like few weeks of Lightfoot. And then during the uprising, she like she she turned the rich party of Chicago and she's like a medieval castle like she like like like raised all the drawbridges into the middle of the city so that no one could get into central part

of the city. It was like awful. And then you know then as as as we sort of like there there's more and more sort of bad lightfoot stuff. Most recently, so Chicago got a bunch of aid money from the federal government and she spent two and one million dollars of it paying the police, not the schools. Yeah, nope. And CPD like these Again, I think I talked about this before, but like when when the CIA was like our initial torturing program failed, where do we go to

like find people who know how to torture? They brought into Chicago Police Detective like and you know, and and this is the the CPD, Like like like there's there's two half a CPD. Right, there's there's like the torture CPD. And then related to them but not necessarily identical is the part of the CPD that's just a cartel. Like there, there's there's a thing in in at the beginning of the tens were like it turned out that like the almost like the huge parts of the CPD were literally

just a cartel. They're running drugs. They were just like doing shakedown for and and like one person total, like you got arrested by the FBI for and everyone else is just still there. It's great, it's a it's a time so that this is this is who Lorrie Lightfoot is, um, she sucks. Like everyone hates her like like her. The people who should be her political allies hate her. Like Chicago Chargo got like a police reform bill, and the

reason it was like a very mild one. But the reason it happened was just that, like like the like the Alderman passed it out of just pure spite because of how much they don't like Lightfoot. So this is this is the this has been My Christopher shouts that Lord Lightfoot intruded this. But yeah, Needles is say, Lightfoot not acting in good faith, just absolutely batman villain. Yeah, it's incredible. No, actually that's not fair because a lot

of Batman villains are kind of right. Yeah, yeah, she she's, she's, she's. She's like the nightmare refusion of like Batman and a Batman villain, Like what if what if you like the worst aspects of both and made them The Mayor's Yeah, I've been kind of Um so I moved here almost a year ago from a smaller city, and I did not like the mayor in my city, and he really was a big fan of like the Lory light Foot playbook.

But um, I guess people weren't as politically involved there, and my first week working in Chicago Public schools UM, somebody mentioned the mayor mentioned Laurie, and everybody kind of groaned, and I was like, oh, you don't like her, you don't like your mayor, And I mean I knew they didn't, but I was just kind of testing the waters. And this lady looks at me and goes, we hate her. I swear, like, if you mentioned her name in this city,

people practically spit on the ground. It's like, it's amazing because like you mentioned a demon. Yeah, it's like like Chicago to cogunitoriously, we all hate our politicians. But like Lightfoot, like like that there were you would find rama Manuel supporters right, Like I don't know a single lord like outside of the schools, within the schools, everyone I know. It's like even even the even the cops don't like her, Like she keeps she keeps funneling hundreds of billions of

dollars into them, and they still don't like her. It's like, it's incredible. Do you unite the teachers union and the police union one something that's the only thing that they've ever agreed on is fuck Lory Lightfoot it's really incredible. So life, whatoot's latest scheme? Um, yeah, do you want

to explain? I guess go back a little bit in in into the history of sort of how how Chicago and Chicago Public schools have kind of been responding to COVID and then how they just did this stuff, and yeah, I guess, like, yeah, give us a background, like what's going on. Well, I'm going to preface with two things. One, I am fairly new here, so I don't know all of the details. And two, I really want to emphasize that I'm just here talking for myself. I don't represent

CTU in any way. This is just I wanted to talk about my feelings on things. So, UM, what I do know is they were doing remote learning, and when I arrived here in March, we were fully remote and UM. Then in the fourth marketing period, so like around like after spring break, UM, we moved to a hybrid model. So we had parents and kids could like choose if they wanted to stay online or if they wanted to

be in person. UM. I think like sixty percent or more depending on what school UM chose the online option. Like a lot of parents just were not comfortable putting their kids in UM. I know that there's been like a ton of talk about UM, you know, like the most economically disadvantaged families need the schools open, But it's kind of been the reverse. It's been the people who have UM more means are more interested in opening, and people who UH are less well off are a little

more resistant to it. I mean, that's not the same across the board. I don't want to generalize too much, but that's been what I've seen UM. I think, if I had to guess it, there's a lot of history behind that, Like UM. I mean, first of all, just can your family afford an illness like this? And people

living in multi general generational households. And I think something that CPS and our government in general really fail to acknowledge is just how how much mistrust there is between government institutions, public schools, and UM people of color and for a good reason. You know, they have been repeatedly just screwed over by these institutions. And I can absolutely understand why they might not trust a school district that says, hey, we'll keep your kids safe, because they weren't doing it

before the pandemic. UM. So we had I had like seven kids in one of my classes and like ten and another and then the rest of them were online. And I'm like sitting at a computer teaching to the kids online and to the kids in their room. All the kids in the room are on their computers too, so that we can like still be like one cohesive class. UM. It was hard, and it was like kind of like mentally fatiguing, like just going back and forth like that.

But you know, we made it work. I was kind of I was really proud of us, Like we made it work. We made it happen. We stayed in contact with the families and the kids constantly UM and like as things moved on and as numbers started going down, more people started warning their kids back UM. And then after spring they UM well, so like after springbreak they let people come back. And then as we moved towards on our more and more kids were coming back. Which it was the school I was in was UM handling

it very well. Our principle was really committed to like keeping us safe. So there was UM testing. Like once a week somebody would come bay and be like, yo, go get your COVID test. UM. I don't know if kids were being tested, but I know teachers were. UM. Then summer happens. I ended up in a different school in the Austin neighborhood, which is um a lot less advantage than the one that I had been working in, and we open back up fully in person no remote

option like at all, like if UM. The only people who could get remote were kids that were deemed medically fragile, but they had to one submit like tons of paperwork to prove that and to their siblings could not stay removed. So at that point, it's like, why, what's the point? And if you were a teacher who had a medically fragile child in the schools, your kid could be remote, but you couldn't, So then you know, how is that going to work? UM? And I found in the school

where I was. You know, this is the issue with Chicago and with you know, most of the country is some schools have more resources than others. And the school I didn't know where to get tested. Nobody like told me. I think there was some kind of testing program, not sure,

definitely nothing for students. UM. I've since moved to a high school that has more resources, but still I have not been able to figure out where the heck to get testing, which has been one of the biggest things that uh CTU is asking for is we want um opt out testing instead of opt in testing, so you would automatically be registered to test, and if you didn't want to test, then you would have to opt out, which would end up with far more people getting tested

and make it a lot easier, because I mean a big part of why people are in signing up is it's really hard, like I don't know where to find it that everyone's like it's in your emails somewhere. I've

searched my email. I don't know, Like we get like emails a day, like yeah, and it's yeah, Like you know, I think anyone anyone who remembers what being in a school is like those they have, I mean, just the absolute worst bureaucratic stuff, Like it's it's it's it's like honestly, like it's like my experiences with like academia and like even back in the high school, like their tech stuff was like worse than corporate sex stuff, which is like

astounding mm hmm, it's it's ridiculous. Do you want to jump into here into Lightfoot's like okay, Lightfoot has like invented a new kind of COVID denialism, which she's like she she's now turned into like a COVID test nihilist, like it's incredible, like she she she has. She went on this rant about how like COVID testing is a quote quasi medical procedure and how you're gonna get lost,

like it's it's bizarre. So this this journalist asked her about the testing because and I don't know which journalist that was, but I want to thank them so much because they have seen a lot of the reporters are actually out there trying to keep c t US demands in the conversation as opposed to this like whole oh lazy teachers don't want to work like off, we do want to be working. Um. But so I almost thought that she had like mixed up with this person said,

and thought that they were talking about vaccines. But even so, like stop it, stop, just stop doing that. But who is having a reaction to a COVID test. It's like literally a cute tip, like like you just sticking. They don't even stick it that far up your nose anymore. They just do a little in your nostril or like a mouth swat. Yeah. Like actually like as someone who had like like I genuinely did have a kind of bad reaction because I jabbed it up really far and

like I was like sneezing a lot afterwards. But it's like, oh, no, you sneezed a little bit, Like what what does it even mean? Like not like I feel like people are acting like this test is like this weird new technology it is. It isn't Like right before the pandemic, like a couple of months before I had the flu and I had exactly the same kind of test. They stunned a thing up my nose. It was hella uncomfortable. Um it took like two seconds. They stuck it on a

little plastic thing. I'm a bob and said, oh, looks like you have the flu. Yeah, it's I don't know where this is coming from. I think it's just she is not a very charismatic person, and she's not someone who does well under pressure. And right now she's back into a corner and she's acting out and it's been kind of wild, like I've seen she's she's also throwing other people around her under the pots. Yeah, like she says something about Pedro Martinez, like she says, the teachers

aren't in charge of this. Padre Martinez is in charge. She's the CEO. And I'm like, okay, so you're being this is setting him up to take the blame on this. Everything that you tweeted about like it was she was like, no, no, it's actually the Mayor's and nothing. Sorry, it's it's actually the Uh, it's the principles. The principles were like no, yeah,

So CPS is kind of interesting. Um, this can be really good or really bad, depending on what's school you're in, but the principles really have a lot of autonomy over their school. Um. I've now been in two schools where that's worked out great. My principal rocks. Um, if she ever hears this, I hope she knows that I said that. I think she's great. Um. Also, the principle I worked

at the beginning of school year was awful. Um. So, but when it comes to like district wide protocols, like that's district wide and so CPS apparently had a meeting with principles where um, I heard some rumors about this too, but I also saw that letter that they had posted. Um, the principles are one really frustrated because CPS isn't communicating stuff with them very effectively, and so parents will be calling like do we have school tomorrow? And they don't know,

but CTU knows, and it's telling their members. So the teachers all know the like more answers than the principles do, which is obviously really embarrassing if you're supposed to be in charge. Um. And then there they were told in this meeting with CPS, school's gonna be closed on Friday. Okay, school's closed on ready, Great, sounds good. And then Lightfoot gets on the dang news and tells everybody that it will be done on a school by school pap basis

at principles discretion, depending on if they have staff. So now all of these principles who had already told their students and families that, um, we're closing, look like they're the ones who closed it as opposed. Like and that's it is rare for me to feel bad for a school principle, because that's that's my boss. You know, I don't us, but I feel bad for them right now.

Oh my god, Like you're just trying to like make sure that people have the information they need in a timely manner, and this lady is up here making you look like a monster. It's so unfair. Yeah, should we talk about what's been happening up to the pastor of winter break and then the stuff that's happening now, because it's very grim and bad. Yeah. So a lot of schools have been having COVID cases. Um, there's I'm not

really sure what's going on with cps IS data. It kind of seems like they're not reporting it very faithfully or accurately. Like if you look at their tracker, they'll be cases and then suddenly they'll be gone. Um. We never really get a hard number ever. Like will be like if you have a student in your class who has been quarantined and we all know what it is, but they don't say it. They'll be like, um, you know, uh, Johnny will be out for the next x amount of

time due to health reasons. Please let him join via Google Meet And they never do. That's the other annoying thing is like the students, I think because they are either close contact or they're sick, um, you know, to them, it's like a a break almost like they're not going to log in randomly, Like it's it's just with I think with kids, like once it stops being consistent and it's like back and forth all the time, it becomes very difficult for them to stay motivated because they're out

of their routine. Like I I sometimes hate it when people say this, but it is kind of true. Kids kind of thrive on routine. Um. So at this point now I have like a third of my class at any given moment will just not be there and it will be different third of the class every you know, it kind of like rolls through. So all of my students are like different points in the curriculum. It's hard to like know what to teach each day because I

don't know who needs what. It's hard to reach out to the kids that are at home and make sure that they get what they need because I'm so busy trying to catch these kids up and move these kids on and all that stuff, um, which I have seen some research. I'll see if I can find it, um after we're done. The like pointing out that like remote

learning isn't the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is just flipping back and forth all the time and having huge numbers of kids absent from in person learning. UM So we go on break and obviously we have o macron like sweeping through the country, and we all knew that they were going to be spikes, Like we knew that in Chicago had what was if Illinois had some like astronomically high number of new COVID cases like breaking records all over the place. UM CPS

has had huge increases. Yesterday we had forty three four cases in Illinois. It's that's a lot, like yeah, but yeah, so overbreak like the last like, the Union had been trying has been trying forever to get CPS to come in and agree to UM a few things. So one in February we had a um an agreement that schools would flip to remote if they reached a certain threshold. That agreement has expired and CPS has refused to come to the bargaining table and negotiate a new one. They're

just like, no, we don't need it. We also have been trying to get them to do the opt out testing and a like surveillance testing programing in school so we can kind of just have little bits of data to understand like where are these cases. CPS doesn't want to do this. They don't want a threshold for flipping to remote because then they would have to flip to remote, and they don't want the surveillance testing because then they would have to flip to remote, and they just don't

want to flip to remote. Um. So finally over break, you know, it kind of came to a head, like they were still refusing to negotiate, like, um, one of the union delegates in my building said something about, um, they've been meeting by to these meetings, like you know, like twice a week. They try to get these meetings to happen, and the mayor never comes and the CEO never comes, like they will either send lawyers or they don't show up. And it's like, dude sounded so tired

into moralize when he said that, I felt bad for him. Um, but yeah, So we voted that we were going to go in on Monday and Tuesday meet with our safety committees, get a feel for what's going on in school, and then we are going to have a vote on Tuesday night as to whether or not we will do a remote work action on Wednesday. And I know a lot of people have been like trying to make it sound

like this was very sudden, but it absolutely wasn't. Like we had a vote about whether or not we were interested in doing this, and then we had a vote on whether we're still interested on having a vote, and then we had the vote, and the delicates voted on if they wanted to hold an official like should we do an act and vote? We did. Um, it was

like seventy voted yes. Um. There were some complaints that some people didn't get their ballots, but they did wait till they had enough yes votes to preach that to third majority that we needed. So, you know, c TU has every step of the way really been making sure, um, this is actually what we want. This isn't just like unilateral things like Lorie keeps throwing that work unilateral around.

It wasn't unilateral. It was like, at least two there's the teachers in this district said I don't feel safe at school. There's not enough staff in the building right now to even teach half my kids. A third of my kids are out. This isn't working. So yeah, so we voted that we're going to stay home and work

remotely and then we got locked out. Yeah, which again like and I want to almost refocus on this for a second because even a lot of people who are sympathetic to to to the re unions on Twitter, you see this a lot, they'll they'll be like the CTU went on strike. It's like, no, they didn't like teachers and teachers are not on strike. The teachers are attempting

to work from home and school district will not let them. Yeah, it's it's every morning I get up at six thirty, I make my coffee, and I sit down and I try to log in, and I know I won't be able to, but I do it anyway. Um. Thankfully, I had thought to download as much of my materials as I could prior to this, only my personal device, so I am still able to create lesson lands, been making some very cool social study slides. I'm I'm so sure that my students are gonna love lots of cool assignments

for them to do. To um. But yeah, like, this is a lockout. And Glory keeps starting this word like illegal work stoppage around. It's not a work stoppage. We are actively working. She has illegally. It is in our contract. That she can't lock us out, and she did so. So at everyone's doing each other and saying illegal. But I know which side is right? Yeah, yeah, you know. I I am not an en normal perspector of the law,

but like this is this is both. This is one of the rare occasions where the thing that is happening is both illegal and also just wrong. The reporting on this just has not gotten the actual fundamental thing which is happening here, which is a lockout. And it's enormously frustrating a lot of ways because you know, and i'd say this, okay, so like local media reporting has been a lot better, but any like any national coverage has just I've seen it's just been like, yeah, it's gonna

be it. For part one of this interview, come back tomorrow for part two, when we will talk more about what's actually going on inside the schools and you know, generally do the media's job for them, because lord knows they're not actually getting it right. You can find us that happened here pod on Twitter and Instagram as usual, or you cannot find us. In fact, I encourage you not to find us, because good Lord, the internet is bad. Goodbye. It could happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

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