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CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools will reopen for some students Monday for the first time since last spring amid an escalating clash between city officials, who are threatening to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up, and the powerful Chicag…

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools will reopen for some students Monday for the first time since last spring amid an escalating clash between city officials, who are threatening to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up, and the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, which contends that schools are not properly outfitted to combat the coronavirus.

Teachers who don’t show up for work Monday “will be deemed absent without leave and will not be eligible for pay,” said Janice Jackson, CEO of the nation’s third-largest school district.

CHICAGO — Brian Yuhas was one of the teachers who was ordered back into his Chicago classroom on Monday as the nation's third-largest school district began opening campuses for the first time since March. But he didn't go. He wasn't comfortable going back, and besides, his students had chosen all-remote learning.

But on Tuesday morning, when he went to sign in to the district platform, he was locked out.

The same thing happened to other teachers who refused to go back as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) carried out the first part of her school reopening plan, despite fierce resistance from the Chicago Teachers Union. The school district is requiring all teachers in the tier that started offering in-person instruction on Monday to teach from their schools if they did not have preapproved accommodations, even if their students had opted for remote learning.

Why Teaching Civic Engagement is Essential

DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION MAGAZINE

Stopping Criminals in Their Tracks

District Administration

Visitor management programs and software are a growing trend in K12 schools, according to Chuck Hibbert, a national school security consultant and the retired director of security for Wayne Township Schools in Indianapolis. In some districts, school…

Visitor management programs and software are a growing trend in K12 schools, according to Chuck Hibbert, a national school security consultant and the retired director of security for Wayne Township Schools in Indianapolis. In some districts, schools are using additional software that checks visitors against sexual predator and/or criminal databases.

Textbooks to Tablets

DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION MAGAZINE

Study Abroad as an Online Student

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT

Windows 8 in Schools

District Administration Magazine

CHICAGO — Chicago opened public school classrooms this week for the first time since the spring, but 18 percent of teachers and staffers required to return Monday did not do so, according to the school district, which is starting disciplinary proced…

CHICAGO — Chicago opened public school classrooms this week for the first time since the spring, but 18 percent of teachers and staffers required to return Monday did not do so, according to the school district, which is starting disciplinary procedures against some employees.

On Monday night, Chicago Public Schools notified 145 employees that they were considered absent without leave and that their pay would be docked beginning Tuesday. Some teachers who spent Monday teaching virtually instead of returning for in-person instruction were also locked out of their Google Classroom accounts in the evening, according to a district email that many teachers received.

CHICAGO — The school year began more than six weeks ago for Chicago Public Schools. But Angel Alvarez’s third-grade daughter, who is visually impaired, hasn’t spent a day inside a classroom.

On Aug. 28, two days before Decatur Classical School was supposed to resume classes, Alvarez received a phone call saying the bus service for his daughter had been canceled because of the Chicago school system’s bus-driver shortages.

Alvarez, a medical researcher, said his daughter still does not have a way to get to school — he works long hours at a lab, and his wife is legally blind. So for now, with no remote option made available, Alvarez’s 9-year-old is at home, using workbooks he bought her instead.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Teachers Union voted to refuse in-person instruction Sunday and directed educators to work remotely starting Monday. The decision comes two weeks after the nation's third-largest school district called teachers and staff into classrooms and started to lock them out from remote work.

Chicago Public Schools chief executive Janice Jackson had said the action would constitute an illegal strike. “I want to be clear, if teachers refuse to come to work on Monday, that is a strike, that is not a lockout,” Jackson said Friday as the union polled its 25,000 members.

But in a statement on Sunday, she said the district has agreed to a request from union leadership to push back the return of K-8 teachers and staff from Monday to Wednesday this week. “We now agree on far more than we disagree, but our discussions remain ongoing, and additional time is needed to reach a resolution,” Jackson said.

Planning Your IEPs During COVID

Metro (Detroit) Parent Magazine

Misty Kluck knows what it means to be a parent-advocate.After finding out her daughter Tessa had Down syndrome while in utero, Kluck was asked if she wanted to terminate her pregnancy.“I was heartbroken,” says Kluck, who also has a 26-year-old daugh…

Misty Kluck knows what it means to be a parent-advocate.

After finding out her daughter Tessa had Down syndrome while in utero, Kluck was asked if she wanted to terminate her pregnancy.

“I was heartbroken,” says Kluck, who also has a 26-year-old daughter. “It’s like going through the death of your child because of what you thought it was going to be and what you thought they were going to do.”

Instead, Kluck moved from Louisiana to Michigan to be closer to her husband’s family and access better medical services.

A Parent’s Guide to School Online

Chicago Parent magazine

Stressed. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Frustrated. Anxious. This describes just about every parent who is trying to prepare for a new school year amid the coronavirus pandemic. Let’s face it: Help can’t come fast enough.As many parents have realized, it’…

Stressed. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Frustrated. Anxious.

This describes just about every parent who is trying to prepare for a new school year amid the coronavirus pandemic. Let’s face it: Help can’t come fast enough.

As many parents have realized, it’s up to us to muddle through to figure out how to make school work this year as teachers are trying to do the same, all while trying to stay healthy.

Without a streamlined approach at a national level, the pandemic has left every city, state and school district interpreting their own options. Many are eyeing a hybrid school option, with time spent in school and at home learning.

That’s not something any parent wants to face, particularly working parents, but it’s our new reality.

Enhancing School Access Control

District Administration Magazine

Five years ago, the Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina went digital, with laptops and MacBook Air computers districtwide. The district has not purchased a textbook in over five years, with the exception of those required for high …

Five years ago, the Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina went digital, with laptops and MacBook Air computers districtwide.

The district has not purchased a textbook in over five years, with the exception of those required for high school Advanced Placement classes.