Chicago schools were closed as teachers stopped studying privately in the middle of the Covid wave

Chicago public schools were closed during a dispute with the teachers’ union for distance education, which led President Joe Biden to keep students in class even though. the number of Covid-19 cases.

About three-quarters of the more than 25,000 teachers in public schools represented by the Chicago Teachers Union voted against the privacy policy, citing security issues as Covid-19 cases mounted in the city and across the US.

“In the meantime, going to school puts us at risk, putting our students and families at risk of coronary heart disease,” said Jesse Sharkey, president of the alliance. “We have been blocked by the mayor, blocked by the health office, and. . . the only thing we can fix is ​​getting into the house. ”

In response, the state of Chicago Public Schools banned the day’s classes, telling parents that there would be no private study or teaching away Wednesday.

Lori Lightfoot, mayor of Chicago, and the alliance, one of the country’s most powerful teachers, have been battling for months on safety policies in the city’s schools regarding testing, vaccination and cleaning.

Lightfoot said on Twitter that although the district will continue to negotiate with the agreement, “which we will not accept and take action to close the entire region, it will deprive thousands of students of the safe, private learning space that is needed”.

The council said Wednesday morning that the mayor had “shut down” teachers after failing to access the province’s online classrooms. The mayor’s press secretary did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some school governments have reverted to remote education while Omicron is promoting the Covid-19 proliferation, thwarting efforts to reopen travel, businesses and schools after months of epidemics.

School authorities in Atlanta, Detroit and several other states have completely changed online education because of running in Covid cases, which exceeded 1m Monday. The US records about 470,000 new cases a day, according to Financial Times data.

Rochelle Walensky, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the US has seen a daily increase of about 98 percent this week compared to the previous one.

Hospitals and deaths are rising again, albeit slowly – the seven days of hospitalization by about 14,800 per day, about 63 percent more than last week, he said, while about seven days of deaths every day. it was about 1,200 a day, 5 percent higher than last week.

At a press conference Wednesday, Jeff Zients, co-founder of the White House coronavirus, stressed the need to keep schools open. Although he did not mention Chicago’s public schools, he said Biden’s “common sense” is that children should be in the classroom.

“Parents want schools to be open, and experts are clearly showing that personal study is good for children’s physical and mental health, as well as their education,” Zients said.

He also said Biden administrators had provided $ 130bn in government funding for schools to implement “epidemic prevention measures”, such as air conditioning measures, and another $ 10bn to pay for Covid-19 tests in schools.

The Biden government is stepping up its pilot campaign to try to attract 38 percent of uncircumcised Americans to get a jab, and is expanding its promotional program, including accepting third jabs for 12- to 15-year-olds.

However, teacher organizations say that the implementation of preventive and curative measures across the country has not been easy. “If you want to get us back to school as soon as possible, pass the test,” CTU President Sharkey said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, blamed Chicago city officials for failing to adhere to the security measures needed to keep schools open.

He called on all parties to come together for the reopening of the schools. “Omicron is an enemy, not one another.”