CNN
Chicago school officials sought a court order to end the teacher strike that entered its sixth school day on Monday.
The move comes after teachers union representatives decided Sunday not to end a week-long walkout -- despite a tentative contract deal reached by union leaders and school officials.
The move left Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowing to go to court to force teachers back to work, calling Sunday's actions by the union "a delay of choice that is wrong for our children."
Emanuel contended Sunday that the strike is illegal because "it is over issues that are deemed by state law to be nonstrikable, and it endangers the health and safety of our children."
"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said.
Teachers in Chicago, the nation's third-largest school system, are among the highest paid in the country. The strike has drawn national attention as the teachers negotiate over the length of the school day, object to their evaluations being tied to performance and fret about job loss from school closings.
Parents of the more than 350,000 students in the school system have already juggled schedules for a week, trying to make sure their children are looked after.
"Am I going to school again?" kindergartener Cyani asked her mom Toni and dad Allen Packer on Sunday.
"I just hope they come to a conclusion for the kids as well as the teachers," Allen Packer told CNN affiliate WBBM-TV. "I'm a working citizen myself, so I have somewhat of a duty to be on the working man's side."
Gerre Harte has plunked down more than $100 in day care costs for her daughter Nell, in addition to modifying her work schedule.
Still, she wasn't ready to criticize the teachers for staying on the picket line.
"We're supportive of our teachers and we really like our teachers," Harte said, according to WBBM.
The news still left Nell feeling a bit sad. "I like to go to school," she said.
With the strike now continuing, the school system planned to open 147 "Children First" sites citywide Monday for students to go to, in addition to programs run by the city's park department and neighborhood organizations, Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale said.
But Vitale said that he, like the mayor, is "extremely disappointed" that such programs are necessary. He noted that classes began, for some students, on August 13 and that he didn't understand why they couldn't continue as work continues to finalize a contract deal.
"There is no reason why our kids cannot be in school while the union reviews the agreement," Vitale said.
Members of the teachers' bargaining team detailed the proposed contract to a group of 800 union representatives, called the House of Delegates, in a meeting Sunday afternoon. But Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said that, after extensive debate, the delegates said they wanted more time to discuss the contract with union members.
The House of Delegates will reconvene Tuesday afternoon after taking a day off for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, at which point delegates could decide to end the strike.
If they do, classes could resume at earliest on Wednesday. And even if the strike is ended, the more than 26,000-member union's rank-and-file would still have the opportunity at some point to accept, or reject, the proposed contract.
As of Sunday, though, Lewis said a "clear majority" of union delegates did not want to suspend the strike given the proposed contract.
"They are not happy with the agreement," Lewis said.
Classes were canceled all last week, when the union went on strike after failing to reach a contract agreement with school board officials.
The negotiations have taken place behind closed doors. Publicly, the past week has been marked by sometimes biting remarks, as well as vocal picketing in and around the city's schools, some of which opened for a few hours each weekday to give some students a place to go during the strike.
Both sides indicated Friday that they'd reached a tentative agreement, though teachers union leaders stressed then that any decision to end the strike or not would be determined this weekend.
Lewis said that one problem is that "there's no trust" of school board members. Delegates found several elements of the contract problematic, with the union president calling job security chief among them.
17 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Chicago-schools-go-to-court-to-end-strike/-/1719418/16627462/-/o52bfz/-/index.html
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