Sitthixay Ditthavong / AP
Public school teachers rallying at Chicago's Congress Plaza protest against billionaire Hyatt Hotel mogul Penny Pritzker, who is also a member of the Chicago Board of Education on Thursday.
By NBCChicago.com
Updated at?2:42 p.m. ET: Despite optimistic reports from both sides of the negotiating table, the lawyer for the Chicago Teachers Union said a strike deal will not get done on Friday.
"The agreement has not been fully drafted and until an agreement is completed, the House of Delegates will not make a decision on whether to suspend the strike,"?CTU?attorney Robert Bloch told reporters.
The union's delegates still will meet at 2 p.m. as planned, Bloch said, and a report will made to them about the progress of contract talks. Negotiations ended for the day, and Bloch said the two parties hope to have a deal drafted by Sunday. The union's delegates is?a larger consultative body than the negotiating team.
Read more from NBCChicago.com
"If the delegates so vote, we will suspend the strike and students can return to school on Monday,"?Bloch said.
Talks are expected to continue at 9 a.m. Saturday.
That's a big shift from Friday morning. After a late night and early morning of negotiations, school officials had said they were confidently close to an agreement that would end Chicago's teacher strike over education reforms sought by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Thousands of teachers walked off the job Monday after months of negotiations failed to result in a new contract, affecting more than 350,000 students. It's the city's first teacher strike since October 1987.
"There were some creative ideas passed around, but we still do not have an agreement," Karen Lewis, the fiery former high school chemistry teacher who leads the union, told reporters. "We're going to go back to our respective shops and do some numbers crunching."
"It was a really, really long night," CPS?chief education advisor Barbara Byrd-Bennett told NBCChicago.com. "We believe it was a beneficial night. We are so close I do believe it is very, very possible we could have a deal today."
She said she remained hopeful that students and teachers could return to class on Monday.
theGrio: 'Safe havens' for kids offered during Chicago teachers strike
"I think that we made some pretty good progress," Chicago School Board President David Vitale said on Thursday night. "We're closing a lot of gaps."
'A sense of urgency'
A more recent offer included provisions that would protect tenured teachers from dismissal in the first year of the evaluations.
It also altered categories that teachers can be rated on and added an appeals process. Additionally, evaluations could work on a graduated scale throughout the term of the contract, comprising between 25 and 35 percent of a teacher's total score.
"There's a sense of urgency today,'' said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who stopped by the hotel where the negotiators were working Thursday and spoke to reporters. A day earlier, he said the two sides were talking past each other.
?
Question at heart of Chicago strike: How do you measure teacher performance?
?
More content from NBCNews.com:
Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
?
underwood buffalo wings superbowl kick off time 2012 new york giants hot wings recipe 7 layer dip recipe chris carter
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.