Thread by @CTULocal1

There's a lot wrong with the decisions CPS and the mayor make around our schools. It's hard to know where to begin sometimes. Perhaps the most glaring in this case is how this plan was hatched by district officials all by themselves. No educators, parents, students...nothing.

Tomorrow marks two weeks since an independent arbitrator ordered CPS to allow clerks, clerk assistants and tech coordinators to work remotely due to school buildings being unsafe. Since then, the district has done absolutely nothing to comply with the order except undermine it.

Illinois recorded 4,015 new coronavirus cases today, which is a single-day record. Today's 53 deaths are also the most in a day since late June. Every state surrounding Illinois is on the city's emergency coronavirus travel order.

We are still in the midst of a raging pandemic.

CTU members have reported 25 CPS campuses with positive COVID-19 cases since Oct. 1. This is with minimal staff. Imagine thousands of educators and students in buildings on a daily basis. That's a potential disaster. Especially with schools used as polling places on Nov. 3.

We will soon be rolling out a citywide school COVID tracker, because CPS and the mayor have refused to share this info with us after we repeatedly asked and submitted FOIAs. The number of positive cases in our schools also hasn't been shared with the general public.

The science of COVID as it relates to children continues to evolve. But sending our youngest and most vulnerable children back into buildings at this point is a very risky proposition. Schools, by nature, are designed for social interaction. That cannot happen right now.

"Mayors argument is unsound," says one of our members. "She said 'social distance' the kids. She knows nothing. Pre-school and cluster children DON'T social distance or wear masks. They require hand-holding in cluster and a lot of hands on assistance from teachers."

Says another: "I’m a SPED Pre-K teacher in a small, blended classroom! I work with a gen ed teacher, a SECA and 15 children in the mornings, 15 children in the afternoons. How is this going to work?"

In July, CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said the 400-case mark was the rolling seven-day benchmark for CPS to move to full-time remote learning, meaning "Are we at a place where maybe school couldn't be open?"

Chicago's current seven-day rolling average is 442 cases.

There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about this in the coming weeks. Not to mention positivity rates continuing to climb in communities like Roseland, South Chicago the East Side, Lawndale and Ashburn.

Let's see if CPS and the mayor have answers.