Chicago Teachers Union speaks out against layoffs

Chicago IL – On June 7, the last day of the Chicago Public Schools 2023-24 calendar, over 300 paraprofessionals and school related personnel and teachers were laid off due to budget cuts.

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) attended the board of education meeting on Thursday June 27, to demand an end to layoffs as a part of the broader demand for fully staffed, fully funded schools. They explained the devastating effects these layoffs have on school staff and on students. The union is currently in contract negotiations with Chicago Public Schools, which is led by CEO Pedro Martinez.

“CEO Martinez ought to be ashamed of himself. We’re talking about 330 people who are connected to thousands of Black and brown families,” said CTU Recording Secretary Christel Williams Hayes at a press conference before the meeting.

“I do not understand how these budget cuts were made. Make it make sense. How will you make sure students will feel comfortable in their buildings without these veterans in their schools?” asked Sandra Lockhart, an instructional assistant who was laid off after 20 years of working at the same school. Lockhart is one of many paraprofessionals and school related personnel (PSRPs) laid off after serving their communities for decades. Many of these educators are breadwinners who cannot easily commute to other neighborhoods and acclimate to new schools.

“Why are you cutting off vital services? Why are you cutting one on one attention in oversized classrooms? The support of counselors, justice coordinators and people who protect student safety? You are cutting the backbone of our schools,” declared CTU organizer Tanille Evans.

“I’ve constantly advocated for our students who administrators see as criminals. I fight for them to be seen as human beings,” said Edward Ward, a restorative justice coordinator who was laid off for the second year in a row.

“The work I do, the work we do, we are not disposable. At the end of the day, it’s the students who suffer,” Ward added.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martinez and members of the board of education admitted during the meeting that Chicago’s schools are struggling to adequately serve Black and brown children, and that the numbers of disabled, homeless and newly immigrated students have increased by thousands. The board, however, did not discuss or respond to questions about layoffs.

CTU members exposed the hypocrisy of a school district that claims to aim for equity also laying off overwhelmingly Black and brown staff who are crucial to the achievement of Chicago’s majority Black and brown students.

“You can’t say that we are moving in a direction that honors the voices of young people, then cut 20 restorative justice coordinators,” said CTU President Stacy Davis Gates. “85% of PSRPs are Black and brown women. Their work is often made invisible, but when the schools open we won’t see invisible work, we’ll see schools falling apart.”

“Budgets are moral documents, and there are things in this budget that do not compute,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter stated in the board meeting. Potter pointed to years of financial mismanagement by previous elected officials such as former mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner, which left CPS in a $400 million budget deficit after the end of federal COVID funding, as the reason why layoffs occur.

“Those bad actors must be called out and held accountable, pushed to renegotiate, and pay back revenue that translates to things like libraries and librarians,” Potter explained.

The current CTU contract, won in 2019 after a strike during the administration of then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, expires on June 30. At this moment, with former teacher and CTU organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor, the union has, according to their communications department, “an opportunity for transformative change that can genuinely address the segregation, privatization, and budget cuts that have harmed Chicago students for so long.”

However, the Chicago Teachers Union still expects a struggle against “bad actors.” It’s public statement concluded: “We still have to grapple with a stubborn bureaucracy, inadequate state funding, and wealthy corporations funding Trump and the Illinois Policy Institute in order to pay fewer taxes and defund public education. Easy or not, we will set a new standard for public schools in Chicago.”

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