Kirstin Roberts gets to her Chicago preschool classroom early every day, putting small chairs around tables, setting out children’s names and making sure materials are in the right place.
“For those very, very young children, it is really important that they come in to a classroom that’s ready,” she says.
But Roberts doesn’t get paid until the 3- and 4-year-olds scurry in. She and other elementary school teachers say they desperately need more time for preparation, and that’s been a key point of contention in the Chicago Teachers Union’s ongoing contract negotiations with the Chicago Public Schools.
A lot of attention has been paid to the cost of the CTU’s demands as CPS faces a financial cliff. But several key unresolved issues are less about money and more about what happens during the school day.
Negotiators are facing major sticking points concerning elementary school planning time, teacher evaluations and who has the final say over what is taught. Bogdana Chkoumbova, the school system’s chief education officer, and other CPS officials say changes proposed by CTU could threaten the academic progress that students have been making.
Teacher preparation time is especially contentious. Chkoumbova and others say adding planning time would reduce instructional minutes, which she opposes.
“I will not recommend or agree upon reducing instructional time for students, especially now that they’re coming from the pandemic.” she said at a recent news conference.
As the contract negotiations enter their ninth month, the disagreement over planning time is such a big deal that some teachers are willing to walk out to get it.
Elementary school teachers “overwhelmingly have said, again and again, that this issue — the sense of just complete overwork and exhaustion and their feelings of ineffectiveness because of the lack of adequate preparation and collaboration time — they’ve repeatedly said this is a very major issue for them,” says Roberts, who is on the bargaining team.
Elementary school planning time
Until 2012, Chicago teachers were paid to arrive half an hour before students, time many used to prepare and plan with other teachers. But then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided he no longer wanted Chicago to have one of the shortest school days and years in the country. He added an hour of instructional time, in part by having students and teachers start at the same time. Winning back prep time has been a key contract demand ever since.
This time, rather than seek to reduce instructional time to add prep time, the union demanded that the school system hire extra staff members to give students more enrichment classes, like library, art, advisory and gym, while classroom teachers plan.
CPS says it can’t afford to hire many additional staffers.
Roberts is frustrated over CPS saying the union wants to subtract from the school day: “The union has been arguing for additions to our schools that would improve students’ access to a well-rounded education.”
The union says it’s open to a compromise, proposing 20 minutes, rather than 30, of additional planning time daily. It says that can be carved out of the school day without reducing institutional time.
Faith Mitchell, a teacher at Ruggles Elementary School who’s a CTU bargaining team member, says the union has tried to come up with creative and free ways to give teachers more “time to breathe and do what needs to be done.”
“All we get is this pushback, to be seen as lazy, and it’s disheartening,” she says.
Chkoumbova acknowledges that the union is looking for solutions, saying CTU negotiators “just recently clarified that they don’t want to shorten the school day.”
But CPS officials don’t think it is possible to find 20 minutes in the day without impacting instructional time.
They say they already are providing schools with additional teachers to expand enrichment but that, to add more enrichment time, the school system would have to lengthen the day even more so the prep time doesn’t cut into core academic subjects.
Who decides what gets taught
Ever since Donald Trump was re-elected president, the CTU has said its contract can build a “force field around schools.” If the federal government threatens to withhold money to school districts that teach Black history or don’t protect LGBTQ+ students, for example, the contract language could keep CPS from succumbing to the financial pressure, according to CTU vice president Jackson Potter.
CPS officials say language already is in place to protect culturally relevant, historically accurate curricula.
But the union and CPS are at odds over who gets the final say over classroom curriculum choices. CPS wants the decision-making to remain with principals and teachers. The union says that, under CPS’ latest proposal, principals get to decide if there is a disagreement. The union says that’s not acceptable because the principal could insist on something a teacher finds objectionable.
CPS officials say their curriculum proposals “acknowledge the need for flexibility for teachers to supplement and enhance school-adopted curriculum.” But they say the schools must use a “high-quality” curriculum and that teachers can raise concerns with a school-based “professional problems committee.”
Central to this debate is disagreement over Skyline, the school system’s lesson plans and materials. CPS spent nearly $160 million over four years to purchase the curriculum, which was vetted by committees that included teachers, and to provide training for teachers on how to use it.
Skyline is supposed to be optional, though some teachers say their principals force them to use it.
The teachers union want it made clear that teachers shouldn’t be required to use Skyline if they can show an alternative is also high-quality.
But Chkoumbova says principals need to be able to direct what goes on in their buildings.
Teacher evaluations
CPS and union officials also disagree over how and when teachers should receive performance evaluations.
The CTU has long wanted to reform the evaluation system, called REACH, saying Black teachers working in economically disadvantaged communities get lower marks than other educators for factors beyond their control.
“For too many of our educators, they are still being crushed under this evaluation system,” says Tara Stamps, a Cook County commissioner who’s a former longtime teacher and current CTU staffer leading a new teacher development program. “It is not equitable. Black teachers by and far are penalized using it. That has increased turnover for Black teachers.”
That’s what a 2020 study published by the American Educational Research Association found, raising concerns that the evaluation system — largely based on classroom observation scores — could be biased and lead to unfair discipline or firings. A state lawmaker introduced a bill last year aimed at addressing those disparities.
Nontenured teachers are evaluated every year and highly rated tenured teachers every two years. Teachers can be marked as excellent, proficient, developing or unsatisfactory.
The CTU has asked CPS to get rid of REACH — including advocating to repeal a law that mandates the system in public schools — and develop a replacement. CPS has rejected that demand.
The union’s wishes for a new system include evaluating highly rated teachers less often and supporting lower-rated teachers before discipline. CPS says it agreed to those ideas.
CPS officials said they “have refused the union’s proposals to lower the … bars for proficiency in our evaluation system.” They’ve said they need consistently high standards for teachers and that Black educators are not disproportionately hurt.
CPS says it dismissed only 0.6% of all Black teachers last year — 29 of 4,902 — as a result of REACH scores, leaving almost all Black teachers’ employment unaffected by performance reviews. Officials say retention rates for white and Black teachers are both 92%.
CPS has agreed to one part of the union’s proposal: that teachers with the “developing” rating will get extra support.