Teachers call off strike at Chicago art-focused school as agreement nears

The teachers union at the Chicago High School for the Arts has called off its strike at the last minute after “major breakthroughs” in negotiations late Tuesday night.

Educators represented by the Chicago Teachers Union had planned to walk out Wednesday after negotiations with the school’s board of directors had dragged on for more than a year without much progress.

But the union reported that key differences were resolved after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday over pay and benefits, social worker and nursing staffing and the time teachers need to prepare for classes. That led the union to tell its members to report to work Wednesday as talks continued.

“We are hopeful about the new progress being made, but should ChiArts management not be able to compromise and reach a full collective bargaining agreement with us, our strike action could be resumed on the following day,” the CTU said in a statement around 11:30 p.m. “We will continue to burn the midnight oil to get the last remaining pieces in place for the schools and classrooms our students and their families deserve.”

The CTU represents 103 teachers and staff at the Humboldt Park neighborhood school on the West Side who have worked without a contract for more than a year. They announced last week that they would strike Wednesday if no deal was reached.

ChiArts is a privately managed contract school, similar to a charter, that is funded by public and donor dollars. It’s Chicago’s only arts-focused public high school and enrolls 594 students.

With or without a deal, Duffie Adelson, the interim board chair at ChiArts, said the school “will be open to students and plans are in place for student learning throughout the school day.”

She said Tuesday afternoon that the two sides were “still in negotiations and working as hard as we can to reach a fair and sustainable settlement and to avoid a strike.”

Last week, the board said it had made compensation offers “that would significantly raise all teachers’ pay immediately and in future years,” and said it “soundly rejects recent charges made by the Chicago Teachers Union regarding the status of ongoing contract negotiations.”

Teachers rallied at the school last week, calling on the school’s board to “put their money where their mouth is.”

“All students deserve a safe, supportive, sustainable school, and we are not going to back down from this fight,” said Megan Pietz, an English teacher and member of the union’s bargaining team.

ChiArts teachers went on strike in 2019 but reached a tentative agreement the same evening. They were among staff at four Chicago charter and contract schools that walked out against different operators at the same time.