The Board of Education next week will vote on whether to replace Aramark with seven other vendor companies to provide custodial and professional services for district schools.
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Teachers Union-backed educators at two Instituto del Progreso Latino charter schools are going on strike after they say little progress was made during the latest round of contract negotiations over the weekend.
The president of the union that represents Chicago Public Schools principals and administrators says he’s concerned about recent comments from CTU President Stacy Davis Gates and other “incendiary language.”
CPS on Thursday released its proposed calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years, which included a start date of Aug. 26 for the upcoming year due to the “estimated influx of 75,000 visitors: coming to Chicago for the convention.
According to a copy of the Jan. 26 police report obtained by WTTW News, William Hozian, principal of Stevenson Elementary School reported that Stacy Davis-Gates spoke to attendees at a union meeting and said, “In talking to my Stevenson brothers and sisters, I told them they should punch their principal in the face.”
Speaking Wednesday before the Economic Club of Chicago, Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said police officers will always have some role in school safety, even if they’re no longer working inside schools.
Students from Ogden International High School and Walter Payton College Preparatory High School marched to City Hall, carrying signs and chanting slogans such as “Viva Vida Palestina” and “our tax dollars are being used to commit war crimes.”
More than 5,000 English learners have enrolled in Chicago Public Schools over the course of the year, many of whom are the children of migrant families. The influx is shining a spotlight on the shortage of bilingual instructors and services at schools.
The seven-member board voted unanimously in favor of the agreements, which would settle a pair of lawsuits filed by Prussing parents after at least 71 students and seven adults were taken to the hospital as a result of the leak.
Files released to WTTW News in public records requests identify 42 district security personnel disciplined between January and October of 2023. The records included individuals terminated in cases with a controversial video in Albany Park, and a sexual assault investigation in West Ridge.
Chicago education officials this week could vote to approve more than $800,000 in payments to settle a pair of lawsuits filed in response to a 2015 carbon monoxide leak at a Northwest Side elementary school that left several dozen students and staff members hospitalized.
The Chicago Board of Education will take public comments on proposed changes to the district policy. That move comes weeks after CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher published investigatory results showing that $23 million worth of electronic devices had been unaccounted for.
CPS announced classes will be in session for all students Wednesday as the frigid temperatures the city has seen this week have begun to dissipate.
“We have been carefully monitoring the forecast over the past 24 hours, and have determined that given frigid temperatures predicted for tomorrow, and a Wind Chill Warning from the National Weather Service that wind chills that could reach -30 degrees, it will be unsafe for staff and students to travel to school,” the school district said in a statement.
State law allows districts to switch to e-learning if an emergency like weather prevents students from being in school physically. But if districts want the option, they must have an electronic learning program established in advance.
Chicago Public Schools was among 67 winners of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first Clean School Bus Program.
