Labor negotiations between the Chicago teachers union and school officials fell through late last night, affecting 400,000 students across nearly 700 schools in the nation’s third largest public school system. CNN’s Casey Wian talks to John Berman on “Early Start” this morning with the latest from outside the Altgeld Elementary school in Chicago.
The teacher’s strike will immediately impact parents this morning. “What we can expect is a lot of confusion,” Wian says. “Parents are going to be scrambling to try to figure out what they’re going to do with their children, especially working parents.” 144 schools throughout the city will be open for a few hours in the morning until 12:30 pm as temporary centers for parents to drop off their children.
Wian expects “a fair amount of anger and frustration” today while teachers are at the picket lines. Wian refers to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s latest comments calling the strike unnecessary and later adding, “the parties at hand should do what they need to do to right by our children.”
It’s uncertain whether new negotiations are on the table, but school districts say they’ve “offered about as much as they can” offer in terms of salary. Wian says teachers are more concerned with having more say in the school day and teacher evaluations.
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