Every Chicago school should have a librarian, band, art, sports and restorative discipline, CTU head says

With the Chicago Teachers Union contract expiring in June and an ally in the mayor’s office, the president of the union made her first public pitch Tuesday for what she calls a “defiant” set of contract proposals. These include ensuring every school has a librarian, band, choir, art and sports, as well as staff that can usher in a restorative approach to discipline.

But Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged before a crowd at the City Club of Chicago that the union won’t get everything it wants all at once.

“We are at the foot of the mountain; we used to be below sea level,” she said.

She suggested these proposals may need to be phased in and that the length of the contract will be a key issue. If the union could get a long contract, it would compel the next school board, which will be partially elected starting in November, and maybe even future city administrations, to pursue the school system the union envisions.

Davis Gates said the union’s elected body will meet Wednesday to vote on the contract proposals, which number in the hundreds, and then negotiations will begin in earnest. The union, she said, is looking at the collective bargaining process as a way to spur a “cultural transformation” at Chicago Public Schools.

“We are going to join the transformation that the city is undergoing in this moment and say that we’re not going to fight for the school Chicago students deserve anymore, we’re going to give it to them,” she said.

As in the past, the union will be pushing contract proposals that go beyond wages and working conditions. In her preview Tuesday, Davis Gates said the proposals focus on improving the school experience for students, such as more arts, sports and smaller class sizes. But they also address bread-and-butter staff issues, such as pay — especially for the lowest-paid workers — and more planning time for teachers.

Davis Gates admitted this will be expensive, even if it’s spread out over time. Chicago Public Schools faces a $391 million deficit for next school year as federal COVID-19 relief money runs out. A nearly $700 million hole emerges the following year. But Davis Gates pushed back on the idea that these proposals are unrealistic.

In her speech, Davis Gates said her union is used to hearing “no” because of the lack of money. But she said deficit thinking has resulted in bad public policy.

“They’re gonna say, ‘These are great proposals and can’t nobody pay for it and CTU with all of this, that and the other and who’s gonna pay for it, Stacy?’ ” she said. “Stop asking that question. Ask another question.”

She jokingly addressed the Civic Federation, a fiscal watchdog group, telling them, “It will cost $50 billion and three cents and so what?”

But later, when answering questions from reporters, Davis Gates said the school district needs to see if there are other revenue sources it is not tapping into. As she has done in the past, she pointed to the failure of the state to fully fund its school funding formula as a major problem. But she also said the school district might get extra money from the city’s shift away from special taxing districts known as tax increment financing districts.

And she added that maybe the business and banking community could contribute more.

“One thing that I learned growing up in a working-class household is that everybody’s money counted,” she said. “You figured out how to make something out of nothing. And if anything, Chicago is a working-class family, and so we have got to figure out how to do this transformation in a way that maximizes what the students in the city deserve. So it’s going to be all of that and then some.”

Davis Gates also offered insight into how the union will approach negotiations with a friendly city administration. Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer, won with major backing from the CTU.

Davis Gates said the union is not going in fighting, as it did in more hostile previous negotiations, but rather with the attitude of, “How might we turn this district into a sustainable community school? How might we put in our schools restorative justice workers instead of police officers?”

She told the audience, which included a host of civic and business leaders, that she sees the city as embarking on a “group project” to determine how to really make schools better.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.