The Chicago Teachers Union’s team of 65 educators voted in favor of a proposed settlement Monday evening that wrapped up close to a year of negotiations with the school district.
Tuesday morning at a press conference, CTU celebrated its hard-fought gains for students and educators. Stacy Davis Gates, president of the teachers union said the district “spent a lot of time marginalizing (the) table.” She reiterated the strong priorities and values baked into the contract.
“We’re not closing schools, we’re not giving money to the oligarchy and the elite of this city. We are, quite frankly, resourcing the people who have been deprived of it for generations,” she said. “This city can do a lot when it is clearly connected to the community.”
Notably, under a friendly mayor, the third-largest teachers union in the nation wrapped up bargaining for the first time in a decade without a strike vote or strike. A vote from the 730-member House of Delegates on Wednesday is the next step in ratification. A full 30,000 membership vote and approval from the Chicago Board of Education will seal the deal.
CPS Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez said to a room of reporters several hours after it was approved Monday that this year’s process was a “different approach” and even “collaborative.” Considering the months of discussion both sides put into reaching a deal and the political drama that led up to its final days, any insinuation of harmony might seem to onlookers like April Fools.
“Regardless of what some of the narratives were out there, there’s never been a moment where my team didn’t act in good faith,” Martinez said. “Did we get sometimes frustrated about misinformation that was shared? Yes, we did, because we’re human, and there was a lot going on.”
Still, the CEO, who is leaving his position in June after Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer, led an effort to fire him for not taking out a loan, spoke Monday night about the hard work that his staff put into the new teachers contract — under extremely financially extenuating circumstances.
Martinez said the proposed contract will cost about $1.5 billion over four years, and that 80% of those costs were for raises to account for cost-of-living: 4% in the first year and 4-5% in years two through four. The union’s original slate of proposals, according to Martinez, would have resulted in a $10 billion contract.
The schools chief called the final proposals “sustainable” but only confirmed that CPS had enough money to pay for the first year. He acknowledged the district’s looming “structural deficit” of hundreds of millions, which he said would require more substantial conversations with the city and state.
At a City Hall news conference Tuesday, the mayor took a victory lap over the tentative deal while hinting at his next steps for the financial conundrum that remains on his desk.
“Look, this contract is a reflection of my overall values, as well as what the people of Chicago expect,” Johnson told reporters. “So this is a complete transformation and a move away from school privatization, layoffs, closures, the so-called turnaround model. … I’m also very proud that there are a couple of things that Richard M. Daley and I have some alignment around: running successful Democratic National Conventions and avoiding teacher strikes.”
The remark was a subtle jab at his predecessors Lori Lightfoot and Rahm Emanuel, who each presided over CTU strikes. But Johnson must still find a way to pay for the four-year contract as well as an $175 million pension payment cost incurred on the city side.
On the latter, the mayor suggested another go at the Chicago Board of Education voting on a CPS budget amendment, postponed at the last board meeting: “I’m going to work with the board members. We’re going to work with the General Assembly. My office is going to lean in even more.”
At the same time, Johnson’s budget director Annette Guzman sought to tamp down concerns from aldermen and others over the city having to account for the $175 million hole in the 2024 budget after all.
“I think I want to remove the notion of a balanced budget,” Guzman said. “You balance the budget when you pass a budget. You monitor your budget throughout the year to ensure your revenues are coming. … What we’re doing now is reconciling.”
Ultimately, the agreement is a boon for union President Davis Gates and Vice President Jackson Potter, who are up for re-election in May. Due to changes in state law, negotiations focused more on non-economic issues that would affect kids’ experiences than in years past, union members said.
“This agreement is the product of 15 years of struggle,” said Thad Goodchild, CTU deputy general counsel. “We couldn’t be prouder of our members in every corner of this city and the decades of blood, sweat and tears they’ve put in Chicago Public Schools.”
The resulting contract gives veteran teachers pay increases; shifts policies around teacher planning time and evaluations; adds more teachers assistants, librarians, nurses and bilingual-endorsed educators and lowers class sizes.
Final sticking points: veteran pay increases, planning time, evaluations
CTU’s slate of 700 asks from mid-April was whittled to just three sticking points last week.
In response to lasting disagreements about raises for veteran teachers, the district agreed to put $30 million toward pay increases for its longest-serving staff, phased in over four years.
(The average salary of a CPS employee under the proposals is forecasted to be over $110,000 by the contract’s end).
Bogdana Chkoumbova, CPS’ chief education officer, acknowledged they’d spent weeks debating preparatory time in the elementary school day, and landed on 70 minutes — up from an hour. The district’s holdup was that CPS “really did not want to continue to expand planning time (at) the expense of student time,” Chkoumbova said.
The extra 10 minutes could go toward meeting the state’s requirement for 30-minute recess, Chkoumbova said, but it will be different for every school. The agreement also shifts three days for principal-directed professional development days to teachers, who can use that time for prep.
Teachers’ evaluations, one of the last holdups in negotiations, will be adjusted to a three-year cycle for tenured teachers who have been with the district for over 19 years. Additional training, mentoring and professional development resources will be adjusted for teachers in high-need schools, according to CPS.
Bilingual education supports, teachers assistants, librarians and nurses
CPS said it has maintained over 7,000 teachers since 2019, and will commit to approximately 800 to 900 employees over the next four years. Felton said he believes that the staffing allocations would not put the district into “further financial distress.” He stressed that the staffing additions will be intentional.
“We think that they’re going to the right schools to serve the right kids,” Felton said.
The contract includes compensation for 30 additional bilingual teachers assistants in order to meet the needs of English Language Learners, a population that increased by 11% at the start of the 2024-25 school year from the previous year, reaching over 88,000 students — more than 25% of the total student population.
That increase was mostly caused by the thousands of migrant children enrolled in the school district since 2022, when the first of over 50,000 asylum seekers arrived in Chicago from Texas, under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott. Many of them settled on the South and West Sides where there wasn’t the language support they needed.
The contract has cemented proposals in its new contract for newcomer or immigrant students through a standing bilingual education committee.
Emily Ayala, a CPS parent on the Southwest Side celebrated the protections for immigrants, speaking about the fear that has spread in her community due to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations around schools.
“As a member of a community of color, as a person of color, a woman of color, and as people of color in this space, we know that the most important thing that we have in common is our humanity and our ability to love and protect each other,” she said.
The bargaining team also agreed to proposals for 24 fine arts teachers, 68 technology coordinators and 90 librarians added over three years. CTU Vice President Jackson Potter called the additions “the antithesis of the (Department of Government Efficiency).”
“We are bringing back union jobs that … provide greater services and support to our schools,” he said.
Class sizes and safe spaces
The finalized proposals dedicate $40 million to address class size limits, more than ever before.
Kindergarten class limits will go down from 32 to 25. First through third graders will have a limit of 28 students and fourth through eighth a limit of 30. Oversized classrooms (above 23) will be required to add a teaching assistant.
Other substantive proposals include $10 million in transportation, equipment and uniforms for sports. The contract will create LGBTQ+ safe spaces in schools, promising to put free hygiene products in all bathrooms and prohibiting discriminatory practices based on gender identity. It will give female employees health care benefits by reducing costs associated with accessing abortion or related services while in Illinois, and it will help ensure students are learning in buildings that are healthy, safe, modern, and revamped.
It includes academic freedom protections, giving union members the right to choose to supplement school curriculum with lessons, units and learning activities according to their professional judgment.
Originally Published: April 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM CDT
