Chicago Teachers Union to Vote on Defying City’s Order of In-Person Teaching

Chicago public school teachers marched through the streets near City Hall during a strike in Chicago, Ill., on Oct. 31, 2019. Scott Heins/Getty Images

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on Monday opened its classrooms for students returning from winter break, but members of the city’s teachers union will soon vote to decide whether to collectively refuse to work in person.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is set to vote on Tuesday on whether its more than 25,000 members would continue in-person work or begin remotely working from home. If teachers vote in favor of remote work as they did one year ago in January 2021, the school district may have to send its 330,000 students home with laptops and internet hotspots as soon as Wednesday.