Schools closed in Chicago after teachers reject in-person classes

Are we still pretending teachers are selfless heros or has that facade worn off at this point?

I saw the headline and assumed that Lightfoot was for it. Glad to see she isn't but you are spot on when you say this is a monster she helped create. Covid ptsd is real and, big shocker, when the media continues to cram fear headlines down our throats, people can't do any real risk evaluation any longer.

I am an educator in an urban Illinois school and I can first hand tell you the majority of teachers WANT to be back in the classrooms with the students and that the media has played this to be a Covid related issue when in reality it is not.

I encourage you to look up current vacanies and job openings within the Chicago Public School district- there is an enormous amount of positions unfilled and no subs to cover these classes. The students are then pushed into other classes/with other teaches and a teacher is left teaching 40-50-60 kids in one classroom taht is already too small and without enough materials for 20 students.. and now you have 40+ extra students without the necessary text books, kids who refuse to wear masks, parents who refuse to pick up their kids after they have spiked a fever and/or thrown up.

While covid plays a role, the real issue lies in not enough teaching staff, not enough subs, parents who are not held responsible for their childs behavior, students not being held accountable, horrible aggressive and violent behaviors from all students. There are not enough people to open the schools safely in Chicago- from a Covid and violence prevention standpoint.

It's notable that the # of cases is driving hospitalizations up very rapidly to levels either approaching or exceeding all previous pandemic surges. Currently, 18-29 age groups are at twice (4 per 100,000, still low) the level of hospitalization of any previous time in the pandemic, while at 22/100,000 hospitalization rate age 70+ has not yet reached the 29 of last winter's surge, it is rapidly nearing that. Overall, there are 110,000 now hospitalized for COVID, and it is likely to quickly surpass the previous record, so we've got to expect that deaths too, which on a single day basis are now over 2,000 again, are going to be very high again. In other words, Omicron may be less virulent than previous variants but the fact that it is so much more prevalent already (height of over 1 million publicly reported cases the other day) is leading to more hospitalizations and probably even more deaths per day within a few weeks of any other variant. This may still lead to an end of the pandemic as such but that is not going to happen until this wave crests and falls over the next two months (deaths lag cases and can take 2 months to peak and drop).

Chicago teachers do not want to go back to work and COVID is absolutely the reason they claim.

Quote from above article

“ And on Tuesday evening, 73% of the union’s 25,000 members voted in favor of working remotely until Jan. 18 or until the current omicron-driven wave of infections falls below last year's threshold for school closures.”

73% is a overwhelming majority.

Also, here is a quote from the Chicago teacher union’s president

“ Right now going into school puts us at risk, puts our students and families at risk,” union President Jesse Sharkey said in a press conference Wednesday morning. “That’s the simple truth of the matter. This is a virus that’s raging through the city.”

Chicago teachers should not be paid if they do not go into work. Period.

Even your boy Fauci has admitted that the covid hospitalization numbers are inflated because it includes people in the hospital with covid, not because of it. Hospitalization numbers are going to be questioned going forward unless that distinction is now explicitly included.

six fan 77 wrote:

Are we still pretending teachers are selfless heros or has that facade worn off at this point?

They are leveraged by their union and when they strike it shoes their true colors--selfish greed. Theyll try to construe the narrative to make them look like heroes but that is a false flag and they're really just selfish individuals with a toxic culture enabled by protection.

Well, that was true before as well, yet hospitalization rates for COVID have increased by 250% in many places already. If you actually look at how the stats change from week to week in the context of the pandemic, you have to realize that the situation has changed. The question was whether omicron would result in real harm despite its apparently weaker form as it infected more. Well, the answer so far is yes, because it is spreading so much that hospitalization rates are way up, and death rates are starting to rise a lot as well. Worldometer has 1800 deaths listed for yesterday, up a lot from the 1200-1350 that we saw for the past months.

By the way, that 1800 number includes a farcically small number from Florida because of its changes in reporting, so the true number is at least 1900.

Did you vote for lightfoot or Biden? If so I hope you get stuck with 100 kids per room.

That will teach you to vote better.

Thanks forthe insights. Just those issues--class size and coverage--never mind all the other issues the schools are facing, are perennial problems that were in critical stage long before Covid. With Covid the problems have grown and are at the broken-dam stage. Some attitude changes about schools, teaching, education are gonna have to change if this system of education is going to be saved. You do not want to see what happens when this system a collapses! All the detractors of teaching and teachers who thnk its a soft job with tons of perks? Think again. Looks like we're going to have a reckoning, a sad and disturbing realization coming about just how important and undeserved pur schools, kids, staff and parents have been in this country.

This is a great argument for school vouchers.

Parents can send their kids to the schools they want them to go to. In Chicago about 20k is spent on each student every year- if every parent got an annual school voucher for that amount they could send their kids to any public or many private schools. This would destroy the obviously harmful monopoly that the teachers union has.

xczvzxcv wrote:

Well, that was true before as well, yet hospitalization rates for COVID have increased by 250% in many places already. If you actually look at how the stats change from week to week in the context of the pandemic, you have to realize that the situation has changed. The question was whether omicron would result in real harm despite its apparently weaker form as it infected more. Well, the answer so far is yes, because it is spreading so much that hospitalization rates are way up, and death rates are starting to rise a lot as well. Worldometer has 1800 deaths listed for yesterday, up a lot from the 1200-1350 that we saw for the past months.

Do you not trust Fauci anymore? He's said the number are inflated. Shame on you for going against the Fauc.

Give me a break.

There is no occupation in this country that consists so largely of soft, self important and lazy individuals as teaching.

If teachers refuse to come to work then fire them, just as it is in any other occupation. I’m not sure why we treat teachers differently than the students they are actually suppose to teach- if a student refuses to come to class he or she will probably fail said class.

You won't get an answer wrote:

xczvzxcv wrote:

Well, that was true before as well, yet hospitalization rates for COVID have increased by 250% in many places already. If you actually look at how the stats change from week to week in the context of the pandemic, you have to realize that the situation has changed. The question was whether omicron would result in real harm despite its apparently weaker form as it infected more. Well, the answer so far is yes, because it is spreading so much that hospitalization rates are way up, and death rates are starting to rise a lot as well. Worldometer has 1800 deaths listed for yesterday, up a lot from the 1200-1350 that we saw for the past months.

Do you not trust Fauci anymore? He's said the number are inflated. Shame on you for going against the Fauc.

He is the science!

Chicago is a wreck. No idea why anyone would want to live there. High taxes, lots of shootings, erroding civil liberties, staged hate crimes.

energeticlotuseater wrote:

If teachers refuse to come to work then fire them, just as it is in any other occupation.

Okay, then what?

In all seriousness, please explain what you think will happen if huge numbers of teachers are fired. I'm very interested in your ideas on this matter.

More than 70% of the teachers voted not to return so no the majority do not want to go back.

OMG, you have it so hard during Covid. Surely no one in the private sector ever has to deal with less than ideal working conditions. It's not like anyone making $13 an hour in a crowded warehouse or factory had to deal with less than ideal covid prevention measures at any time during the pandemic.

teachers dont want to work. so nothing new really.