The Chicago Tribune brings us the latest on the teachers’ strike that has given 350,000 or so students some extra time off this year:
“We feel like we’re in a pretty good place, we’ve made a lot of progress today,” Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said as she left contract talks shortly before midnight Wednesday. “We spent a lot of time on evaluation. We still have a lot of work to do but it seems like we’re definitely coming much closer together than we were certainly this morning.”
Lewis said parents should not bank on classes Thursday but said, “Let’s hope for Friday.”
David Vitale, the Chicago school board president, offered a similar assessment of the latest round of talks, telling the paper he was “hopeful we can actually come together around this.” The progress came after teachers had a chance to review and discuss the school board’s latest contract offer, which met a handful of the union’s demands, including removing the ability of the district to rescind raises because of an economic crisis.
