Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said Thursday the school district must begin the 2020-21 academic year with remote learning until there are firm guidelines and protocols in place to ensure kids and staff alike are protected from COVID-19.

Nearly two years after an audit by the city’s watchdog found significant problems with allowing Chicago police officers to patrol schools, aldermen will hold a hearing on the program at the center of the debate over defunding the police department.

Teachers, parents and students across Illinois finally have an answer to the question of whether or not classrooms will reopen in the fall — and the answer is yes. But it’s not going to be business as usual.

CPS on Thursday announced it had laid off 703 employees, including 286 teachers, as part of its annual staffing adjustments, which the district said are caused by declining enrollment, changing student demographics and programmatic changes.

Chicago teachers say they’re being diverted from their teaching duties and forced to fulfill a “physically impossible mandate” of rewriting tens of thousands of individual education plans for special education students.

A pair of educators are suing the Chicago Teachers Union and the Board of Education, claiming their First Amendment rights “to stop subsidizing CTU and its speech” have been violated by an “unconstitutional policy” forcing them to pay union dues.

Why the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education are still at odds over the teacher’s contract.

Days after the Chicago Teachers Union voted to approve a new five-year contract with the city, the Chicago Board of Education is expected to follow suit at its regular monthly meeting this week.

Two weeks after ending their historic work stoppage, more than 25,000 rank-and-file Chicago Teachers Union members ratified their new contract with the city.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s 11-day strike is suspended, but it’s not officially over until rank-and-file members vote to ratify a five-year tentative contract agreement reached with the city. That vote begins Thursday.

The school district says it will spread five make-up days across the rest of the year. CPS Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade joins us to discuss the 11-day strike, recent negotiations and a new teachers contract.

Smaller class sizes and more counselors and nurses. We discuss the changes coming to Chicago Public Schools if teachers ratify a new five-year contract.

Chicago teachers return to school. A state lawmaker resigns after a federal bribery charge. Trump knocks Chicago during his first visit to the city as president. And the David Ross era begins for the Cubs.

Chicago teachers and more than 300,000 students affected by an 11-day strike returned to classrooms Friday amid a tentative agreement that is expected to shape education in the city for the next five years.

Chicago Public Schools students will return to class Friday following the district’s longest teachers strike in more than 30 years. What finally brought an end to the 11-day standoff. 

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union won’t head back to school Thursday morning and their strike will last at least one more day after the union’s House of Delegates accepted a tentative agreement with the city, but refused to return to work.