{"id":44218,"date":"2016-10-18T12:43:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T17:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=44218"},"modified":"2016-10-18T12:43:32","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T17:43:32","slug":"chicago-charter-school-teachers-could-make-history-with-first-ever-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-charter-school-teachers-could-make-history-with-first-ever-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago charter school teachers could make history with first-ever strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Meredith Francis<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the first time in U.S. history, charter school teachers could strike.<\/p>\n

Though the Chicago Teachers Union narrowly avoided a strike last week<\/a>, over 500 teachers from the Uno Charter School Network<\/a> still threaten to walk out of the classroom as early as Wednesday if a contract deal is not reached by Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody ever wants to strike, but we need management to have a sense of urgency and to understand that it\u2019s so very important to our kids to have a quality education,\u201d said Erica Stewart, a fifth-grade teacher at Sandra Cisneros School in Brighton Park.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stewart was one of dozens of teachers picketing outside Uno management offices Thursday. Of 125 publicly funded, privately run charter schools in Chicago, 15 fall within the Uno network. Amid ongoing contract negotiations with management, United Educators at Uno<\/a> members say they want a cap on class sizes and raises for support staff. For example, management wants\u00a0larger class sizes above the current 32-student cap, according to Stewart, who\u00a0says that’s “already a lot of students to keep up with.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unfair to put our parents and students through this considering that teachers received generous raises just two months ago,\u201d network officials said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Much like in the CTU battle with Chicago Public Schools, the charter school union \u00a0also wants to keep their \u201cpension pickup.\u201d In Illinois, employees are required to put 9 percent of their annual salary toward their pension. At the Uno network, management currently contributes 7 percent but wants to reduce it to 4 percent.<\/p>\n

Though both contract battles are similar, the tentative CTU contract<\/a> calls for a limit in \u201cnet growth\u201d of charter schools: That means Chicago can\u2019t build any new charter schools unless one closes. According to the UEU, charter teachers work longer days and have a longer school year, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily make the two school systems rivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharter teachers have more in common than they do with regular CPS teachers,\u201d said Robert Bloch, a lawyer representing the union. \u201cThey really face the same issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Uno
Uno Charter School Network teachers are calling for a cap on class sizes. (Meredith Francis\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The charter union\u00a0is also upset about 29 staff layoffs, which included technology instructors and graduate support staff that helps students navigate the process to get into selective enrollment high schools and college.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they took away graduate support, they took away a huge portion of our staff that are Latino, that speak Spanish, that were going out and helping recruit more students for our schools,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cObviously we don\u2019t want overcrowding, but we do want to have students in our schools and some of those classes [where] we still have room.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the criticisms the charter school union has leveled against Uno management is the downtown offices are outside the neighborhoods they serve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love our kids, we love our jobs, we love our neighborhoods, but they think they\u2019re too good to be in those neighborhoods where we work every day,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n

Uno\u00a0officials have offered to extend the previous contract and have a federal mediator help hammer out negotiations, according to the statement from Uno officials.<\/p>\n

Daisy Marquina, a parent of first- and fifth-graders at Sandra Cisneros School in Brighton Park, said network officials weren’t\u00a0open with parents about changes to their schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids, they came in, and some of the teachers weren\u2019t there anymore,\u201d Marquina said. \u201cThat\u2019s the way we found out that we were missing more teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marquina said a strike would be hard for parents who don\u2019t have the resources for outside support, since the network won\u2019t be providing contingency sites<\/a> for the roughly 8,000 students in the charter network. But she said she still supports the teachers if they walk out.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: United Educators at Uno, picketing outside the charter management offices in the Loop, say they may walk out of the classroom as early as Wednesday. (Meredith Francis\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meredith Francis For the first time in U.S. history, charter school teachers could strike. Though the Chicago Teachers Union narrowly avoided a strike last week, over 500 teachers from the Uno Charter School Network still threaten to walk out of the classroom as early as Wednesday if a contract deal is not reached by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":44219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2941,675],"tags":[3109,270,2557,3108,3107],"class_list":["post-44218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2016","category-social-justice","tag-charter-schools","tag-chicago-public-schools","tag-strike","tag-united-educators-at-uno","tag-uno-charter-school-network"],"yoast_head":"\nChicago charter school teachers could make history with first-ever strike - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-charter-school-teachers-could-make-history-with-first-ever-strike\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago charter school teachers could make history with first-ever strike - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Meredith Francis For the first time in U.S. history, charter school teachers could strike. 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