Chicago mayor demands teachers return, union offers proposal

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday that the city was reviewing the teachers' union latest proposal on COVID-19 safety protocols to return to classrooms, a development hours after her demand for a deal by the end of the day.

Lightfoot had accused the Chicago Teachers Union of refusing to give her office and school district officials a straight answer on its demands after hours of waiting.

“We need to get a deal done and get it done today. I expect to hear from them, no more delay," she said at a news conference. A statement later in the day from Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson said a counter proposal was received and officials were “working on a response.”

But while Lightfoot seemed to threaten the union with action, she declined to say what she would do if no deal was reached by day's end.

Part of the reason could be that students do not have class Friday. That means the union and the city could continue to negotiate through the weekend, though Lightfoot made it clear she's not interested in Sunday night negotiations.

The nation's third-largest district and union have been fighting for months to reopen city schools, which went fully remote last March. The district has rolled out a gradual return for pre-K to 8th grade with no definitive plans for high school.

Thousands of K-8 students were expected to return this week. Lightfoot had said teachers who didn’t report for duty would be locked out of online teaching systems, as was the case for pre-K and special education teachers who defied district orders last month. The 25,000-member union countered by saying it would picket if teachers were booted out. But district officials scrapped the threat and called a “cooling off period" that expired Thursday.

The union...