CHICAGO (AP) – The president of Chicago’s teachers union says educators consider Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s opposition to make-up days lost to a strike “punitive.”
Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey spoke Wednesday night, shortly after the union’s House of Delegates approved a tentative labor agreement contingent on Lightfoot granting make-up school days lost to the strike.
But union members did not vote to suspend a strike and plan to protest Thursday morning outside City Hall.
Chicago Public Schools announced after the vote that classes will be canceled for the eleventh day on Thursday.
Lightfoot has previously said she would not add days to the school year. She is scheduled to give a statement on Wednesday night but has not yet spoken publicly about the union members’ decision.
The strike has kept more than 300,000 students out of class.
