The Chicago Teachers Union has yet to make a deal with public school officials today. Teachers have entered a second day of their first labor strike in 25 years, once again forcing parents to make other arrangements for their children. CNN’s Casey Wian is at Manuel Junior Elementary School in Chicago with the latest on the negotiations from last night.
The school board and teachers are still at an impasse. “For now, both sides seem unwilling to budge,” Wian reports. “The issue of teacher evaluations and the procedure for recalling laid-off teachers and who should control that” were not “even discussed last night at the bargaining table,” he says. “So, that is not a hopeful sign.” According to the union, however, negotiations are scheduled to resume at 9:30 this morning, he says.
The other issue at hand is families dealing with this unscheduled day off for their kids. “Right now, a lot of parents [are] struggling to find alternative arrangements,” Wian says. Parents have expressed fear of possible gang violence. Wian says, “That’s something that we’ve heard a lot from parents, very concerned about children roaming the streets with no place to go, given the fact that Chicago’s murder rate up more than 30% over last year.”