Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Monday insisted that there is "proof positive" that the city's schools are safe and could have opened in full on Monday despite demands from the city's teachers union, who are on the verge of a strike, that educators be vaccinated before returning to their classrooms.
"We invested over $100 million on ventilation, other safety protocols, making sure we have masks, safety health screening, temperature checks, all the things you would expect that the CDC guidance told us that we know makes sense to mitigate any issues in schools," Lightfoot said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"Our schools are safe," the mayor added. "You don't have to take my word for it. We have had three weeks of safely implementing our plan until the teachers union blew it up."
Preschool and special needs teachers started back to school at the beginning of January, she added, so that's the proof that the plan works.
Last-minute negotiations with the teachers' union over COVID-19 safety measures stalled Sunday, just as roughly 62,000 students and 10,000 teachers and staff for grades K-8 were expected to start school Monday for the first time since last March. However, the students remained on remote learning, and Lightfoot said Monday a strike would have been "catastrophic," particularly for children.
"It is not about that we don't want teachers to be safe," Lightfoot said. "It is not about that we don't respect the rights of organized labor ... it is about putting our kids first. If we do that, both sides will get a deal done in no time."
Meanwhile, absenteeism from remote classes is at an all-time high, particularly among black students and children who live in unstable housing conditions, and despite the city having put $50 million into making sure children have free access to wifi, said Lightfoot.
"We still see after the first quarter grades that a disproportionate number of our students are failing, and that is particularly true of the black and Latino students," she said. "This is what we are fighting for."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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