"Fighting for equal housing also means fighting for students’ mental health and the resources to help them with it. Some might believe that a student’s home situation doesn’t correlate with education or learning, but for students who have to sit in classrooms for 8 hours or sometimes more, their situations at home might impact them more than ever." -- Judith Hernandez, 10th grade
On October 17, 2019, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) went on strike for 11 days, the longest a strike of any teacher walkout since 2018. During this strike, over 300,000 students missed “lessons, state playoff tournaments and an ACT exam date,” according to USA TODAY. Losing many days of school can have long-lasting development effects on students, such as falling behind in the fundamental reading skills in earlier grades, or not being able to graduate. So, what was so urgent about the CPS school system that led to 11 lost days of school for a strike?
The many demands of Chicago teachers mostly consisted of limiting class sizes and hiring more support staff that work with students in CPS. In general, these students face a lot of trauma but have little resources at school and at home. Writers Erin Richards and Grace Hauck from USA TODAY interviewed Chicago Public School social worker Mary Difino, 27, who works at two schools on the city's west side, where she explains, "Those kids cannot come to school after seeing shootings and only have a nurse or social worker once a week.” Because of a lack of support staff, many times teachers step in to help their students in moments of need. However, “Yvonne McNutt, 62, a social sciences teacher of 16 years” explains that this is often hard to do because she is handling classes with up to 43 students.
The many demands of Chicago teachers mostly consisted of limiting class sizes and hiring more support staff that work with students in CPS. In general, these students face a lot of trauma but have little resources at school and at home. Writers Erin Richards and Grace Hauck from USA TODAY interviewed Chicago Public School social worker Mary Difino, 27, who works at two schools on the city's west side, where she explains, "Those kids cannot come to school after seeing shootings and only have a nurse or social worker once a week.” Because of a lack of support staff, many times teachers step in to help their students in moments of need. However, “Yvonne McNutt, 62, a social sciences teacher of 16 years” explains that this is often hard to do because she is handling classes with up to 43 students.
Thirty-minute prep periods for elementary school teachers, and higher pay for its teachers and other staff, such as bus aides, custodians, security officers, and special education classroom assistants “who are among the lowest-paid workers at CPS” were also on the list of demands. According to the Service Employees International Union, who represents the CPS workers, more than half of these non-teaching staff members earn less than $35,630 a year while teachers earn nearly $79,000 on average. Meanwhile, the Department of Housing and Urban Development defines low income as $57,050 a year and very low income as $35,650 a year. For this amount of yearly pay, teachers and all staff have to act as nurses, counselors, PE coaches, and sometimes even parents.
Additionally, the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) also demanded equal housing because there are nearly 17,000 homeless students in CPS. The staff themselves also struggle to find housing, which often leads to them leaving their schools to find more affordable housing elsewhere, resulting in the students continuing to lose resources simply because the teachers lack equitable housing as well.
When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot saw housing on the list of demands, she explained that the CTU’s collective bargaining agreement was “not the appropriate place for the city to legislate its affordable housing policy.” However, she does agree that affordable housing is a “critical issue” in Chicago and “everyone’s voices need to be heard.” Despite affordable housing being a challenge many school districts face, demanding equal housing has never been seen in teaching strike negotiations before Chicago.
Oakland, a city that engaged in its own teacher’s strike last May, also faces similar housing challenges to Chicago. According to Mercury News, “The number of homeless residents living in Oakland, the Bay Area’s third-largest city, has increased 47 percent since 2017.” This is due to the increase in rent. “The average price to rent an Oakland apartment is $2,674 — up 7 percent from last year” states RentCafe. However, the demand for affordable housing wasn’t present on Oakland teacher’s list of demands during the last school strike with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). This strike lasted 7 days before settling upon an agreement, leading one to ask: Is equal housing actually a concern schools should be taking action towards, however unprecedented?
Additionally, the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) also demanded equal housing because there are nearly 17,000 homeless students in CPS. The staff themselves also struggle to find housing, which often leads to them leaving their schools to find more affordable housing elsewhere, resulting in the students continuing to lose resources simply because the teachers lack equitable housing as well.
When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot saw housing on the list of demands, she explained that the CTU’s collective bargaining agreement was “not the appropriate place for the city to legislate its affordable housing policy.” However, she does agree that affordable housing is a “critical issue” in Chicago and “everyone’s voices need to be heard.” Despite affordable housing being a challenge many school districts face, demanding equal housing has never been seen in teaching strike negotiations before Chicago.
Oakland, a city that engaged in its own teacher’s strike last May, also faces similar housing challenges to Chicago. According to Mercury News, “The number of homeless residents living in Oakland, the Bay Area’s third-largest city, has increased 47 percent since 2017.” This is due to the increase in rent. “The average price to rent an Oakland apartment is $2,674 — up 7 percent from last year” states RentCafe. However, the demand for affordable housing wasn’t present on Oakland teacher’s list of demands during the last school strike with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). This strike lasted 7 days before settling upon an agreement, leading one to ask: Is equal housing actually a concern schools should be taking action towards, however unprecedented?
Fighting for equal housing also means fighting for students’ mental health and the resources to help them with it. Some might believe that a student’s home situation doesn’t correlate with education or learning, but for students who have to sit in classrooms for 8 hours or sometimes more, their situations at home might impact them more than ever. During the school day, students are often asked to forget whatever is happening at home and focus to try and solve the algebra problem, or understand what the periodic table of elements is showing.
John A. Rich, MD, MPH, a Professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health explains in a documentary, The Raising of America that, “for the young people in inner cities we actually see the full blown syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD every bit the same syndrome that we see in returning combat veterans from places like Iraq and Afghanistan… If these young people have been harmed or injured by the stress in their lives, then what they really need is healing. We have two choices. We can ask ourselves, ‘What’s wrong with this person?’ or we can ask, “What happened to this person?’”
But just like with CPS, not all schools have the resources to help students with this healing, or even have the resources to ask that question. Although not all students deal with this level of trauma or PTSD, it is important to acknowledge that students come from different experiences and situations, and whatever they are, all deserve the resources to deal with the difficulties if needed. But did the Chicago strike actually achieve this? Was losing 11 days worth it?
After 11 days of arguing that affordable housing along with the rest of their demands were important to their students’ education, the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) voted 81% yes for the tentative agreement, which promised the CTU “Staffing increases, including 209 more social worker positions, which will allow for one to be placed in every school, and 250 more nursing positions by the end of the contract.” In addition, $35 million a year was granted to reduce oversize K-12 classrooms, and $250 million given for in recruitment and training, Finally, students were granted 5 make-up days of school to recoup from days lost to the strike.
Although the CPS strike did not win a deal towards dealing with affordable housing, their strike sparked a conversation around the topic of education and housing, and how much of students' lives outside of school actually gets acknowledged by districts and teachers. This conversation is one all schools, unions, and districts should be having—especially here in Oakland.
John A. Rich, MD, MPH, a Professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health explains in a documentary, The Raising of America that, “for the young people in inner cities we actually see the full blown syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD every bit the same syndrome that we see in returning combat veterans from places like Iraq and Afghanistan… If these young people have been harmed or injured by the stress in their lives, then what they really need is healing. We have two choices. We can ask ourselves, ‘What’s wrong with this person?’ or we can ask, “What happened to this person?’”
But just like with CPS, not all schools have the resources to help students with this healing, or even have the resources to ask that question. Although not all students deal with this level of trauma or PTSD, it is important to acknowledge that students come from different experiences and situations, and whatever they are, all deserve the resources to deal with the difficulties if needed. But did the Chicago strike actually achieve this? Was losing 11 days worth it?
After 11 days of arguing that affordable housing along with the rest of their demands were important to their students’ education, the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) voted 81% yes for the tentative agreement, which promised the CTU “Staffing increases, including 209 more social worker positions, which will allow for one to be placed in every school, and 250 more nursing positions by the end of the contract.” In addition, $35 million a year was granted to reduce oversize K-12 classrooms, and $250 million given for in recruitment and training, Finally, students were granted 5 make-up days of school to recoup from days lost to the strike.
Although the CPS strike did not win a deal towards dealing with affordable housing, their strike sparked a conversation around the topic of education and housing, and how much of students' lives outside of school actually gets acknowledged by districts and teachers. This conversation is one all schools, unions, and districts should be having—especially here in Oakland.
