Chicago Public Schools is close to a contract deal with the Chicago Teacher Union, CEO Pedro Martinez told top staff in an email Thursday morning.
“Please have an update ready for the full Board to be sent today once we can confirm that we have a tentative agreement with the details that were agreed upon last night,” Martinez wrote.
The two sides have been negotiating almost a year. Any potential deal could still fall through.
Once a comprehensive package is finalized, CTU will present the proposal to its larger bargaining team for recommendation for a vote in the House of Delegates sometime “in the near future,” a district spokesperson said in a statement.
“While CPS and CTU leadership bargained late into the night, a tentative agreement has not been reached and discussions are ongoing,” the statement said.
Pressure to settle a deal was heightened because of a budget gap caused by the looming costs of both the new teachers contract and an $175 million pension reimbursement to the city for non-teaching staff. CPS officials estimated most recently that the contract costs would be about $124 million, but that number hasn’t been confirmed.
School board President Sean Harden, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, delayed a vote on a budget amendment March 20 that would have opened the door for a borrowing scenario to cover both costs proposed by Johnson’s top aides. Martinez wrote in his email Thursday that he expected Harden to call a special board meeting Monday to push for borrowing, “stating it is needed to support negotiations.”
In his email, Martinez pushed back on that notion, saying “we need to be clear … to our staff and families what the facts are.”
To pass, a budget amendment would need 14 votes from the partially elected, partially appointed school board. There weren’t enough votes to pass the budget amendment when it was postponed, and several board members told the Tribune on Thursday morning that their vote hadn’t changed.
“We only have a limited amount of dollars,” said District 8 board member Angel Gutierrez. “There’s no borrowing scenario that you would even consider given what the market is right now.”
CTU has had a rocky time getting the deal across the finish line despite shelling out enormous resources as the largest funder of Johnson’s 2023 mayoral campaign. Critics have said the drawn-out process was a driving force for the mayor’s plunge in popularity, given his ongoing loyalty to the progressive labor juggernaut where he once worked as an organizer.
Outside a building in the Loop on Thursday, CTU members argued that Martinez was obstructing progress on the final package but said they were pushing forward with negotiations.
Sylvelia Pittman, a middle-school math teacher at Nash Elementary in Austin, said CPS needed to approve a contract that would give teachers the opportunity to “service the whole child” — their social, emotional needs and traumas.
“We’re asking that Pedro get out of the way,” she said. “Give us the contract that our students, our families, our communities and our city needs and deserves.”
