Time Scheduled To Return To School: Fill & Download for Free

I have been fired from a job after being falsely accused of stealing. There was a huge investigation that took nearly a month. They told me that if the investigation comes back showing that I did not commit any offense then I would return to work without anything being put on my record. In the meantime, I found another job that was better pay AND was willing to work with my previous schooling schedule. They called me back and told me “The investigation shows that you did not commit the offense and are welcome to return to work on Thursday” I told them “Okay!” I went in at my scheduled time, immediately walked into the manager’s office, she said “ Hi, Jeremy. We are glad to have you back.” I literally took my nametag, placed it on her desk and said “I resign.” and walked out. It was kind of an asshole move, but at the same time I was really upset.

My first husband passed away in January, 2001. My daughter was 16 at the time, in 10th grade. I permitted her to take a week and a half off to grieve, but getting homework assignments from her teachers.. When she returned to school, her history teacher told her that she had a report due that day. She had not been made aware of the assignment, as the teacher had only given it a week prior. The teacher told her. “ Well, you should have been here when it was assigned. “ She told her that her father's death was not a good enough excuse for missing class. She came home in tears. I called the school the next day and spoke with the principal. He agreed that the teacher had been out of line. The teacher was made to apologise to her in front of the class, and was written up for being insensitive. I asked the principal if I could schedule a grief instructional seminar for the staff, and he agreed. The seminars still happen every year. I also spearheaded a grief counseling group, headed by a wonderful hospice nurse. It still exists today in that school. Not really policy changes, but changes nevertheless.

Here’s the situation with schools in Chicago:All schools, public and private, urban and suburban, switched to remote learning in the middle of March of last year.Most private schools and suburban public schools had a smooth transition to remote learning, as they already had the infrastructure in place. I, a private school teacher, had been using Google Classroom for years already, and all of my students had 1:1 tech. Students were told as they left school on Friday to just check Google Classroom for their assignments on Monday.Most Chicago Public Schools did not have that infrastructure in place. They had two weeks without any remote learning at all, while the district got up to speed with the necessities of remote learning. Their first priority, though, was ensuring that their students still got their free breakfasts and lunches from the school. Chicago Public Schools generally have a lot more social services to deal with than private or suburban schools have.After that two-week transition period, CPS had its Spring Break.I should mention here that CPS began the school year with a two-week teachers’ strike, so their school year was already cut short.Sometime during those two weeks, the governor of Illinois announced that students’ grades could not go down because of e-learning. Basically, grades from March were locked in or could only go higher. He didn’t want students without internet at home to suffer.Predictably, by the time CPS got fully rolling with e-learning in mid-April, some schools had up to 40% of students who simply didn’t show up to a single online class.Over the summer, the mayor of Chicago, knowing that e-learning simply wasn’t working for the students who needed it most (students who live in poverty, who are unsupervised during the day because their parents work outside of the home, and special education students), said that she wanted Chicago public schools to open with a hybrid system in the fall.Private schools in Chicago returned to in-person learning in August, with COVID safety protocols in place.Most suburban public schools returned to in-person learning in September, with a hybrid schedule for students. Fifty percent of the students come to school each day, while the other 50% of students learn remotely that day. Then they switch every day.The Chicago Teachers’ Union refused to return to any kind of in-person learning in the fall.By November, the mayor of Chicago, again knowing that remote learning was a massive failure for the students who needed the most help, and seeing how successful hybrid learning models were for suburban public schools, wanted Chicago’s public schools to go hybrid beginning in December.The Chicago Teachers’ Union refused.The mayor of Chicago then proposed that just preschool and special education students return to in-person learning in January, and all teachers begin returning to their classrooms to teach remotely from there (instead of their homes).The Chicago Teachers’ Union protested to return to classrooms for all teachers.For the last three weeks, the mayor has been pushing for all schools to reopen for hybrid learning, and the Chicago Teachers’ Union has been refusing.Negotiations between the CTU and the city keep breaking down, deadlines keep being pushed back, and threats keep being made to lock the teachers out of remote learning and punish teachers who refuse to return to the classroom.I should mention here that Chicago public school teachers are some of the highest-paid teachers in the country.Allthewhile, private schools in Chicago have seen a surge in new student enrollments, as parents who can afford to have simply given up Chicago Public Schools.The gap that already existed between Chicago Public School students and their private and suburban counterparts has now turned into a chasm.And that’s where we are now. Today is the 101st day of in-person learning this year for private school students in Chicago. I, personally, am teaching lessons on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dramatic writing, and 30 different grade-level vocabulary words to my students today. We’re also watching some plays that the students wrote and recorded themselves.The only time the students don’t have on their masks during the day is when they’re eating lunch. They eat lunch at their socially-distanced desks, which is where they spend their entire day besides recess and gym class. In order to keep them from talking to each other while their masks are off and they’re eating, we watch movies during lunch. My Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video accounts are getting a lot of use at school this year. We just started watching the original Karate Kid yesterday. It was only when we started watching it that I realized that I’d never actually seen it. I’d just assumed, as a child of the 1980s, that I’d seen it at some point. But, as we watched the first 30 minutes of it yesterday, I didn’t remember ever seeing any of it.Anyway, back to your question:Why are Chicago area private school kids being educated in person while the less affluent public school kids are zooming?The only group pushing against a return to in-person learning for Chicago public school students is the Chicago Teachers’ Union. The mayor wants students back in the classroom. Most parents I know what their children back in the classroom. Even the Chicago public school teachers I know want to return to their classrooms. It’s the Union leadership that’s saying “no” to every proposal.Their reason for saying “no” is safety.Then the mayor and others point out that other schools have proven that it’s perfectly safe for students to return to school if safety protocols are followed.Then the Union brings demographics into it. They argue that the schools that are making in-person learning work have different challenges due to their different kinds of students.The Union is also including things completely unrelated to reopening schools in its list of demands for returning to in-person learning. This is from their page of official demands:You can see everything the CTU wants on its website here:CTU | Chicago Teachers UnionThe Chicago Teachers’ Union knows that it’s impractical to fire all of them and rehire new teachers… there just aren’t enough teachers who want those positions. They also know that parents (voters) are desperate to get their children back into classrooms. So they see in this situation an opportunity to get some of the things they’ve always wanted anyway.Never letting a tragedy go to waste. That’s the Chicago way. Former Chicago mayor/former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s most famous quote: