Chicago schools reopen after yearlong COVID-19 shutdown

CHICAGO — After multiple delays and a battle with the teachers union, Chicago Public Schools opened its doors Monday to tens of thousands of kindergarten through fifth graders — most of whom haven’t seen the inside of a CPS classroom in nearly a year.

At Hawthorne Scholastic Academy in the Lake View area, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson greeted returning students, the mayor could hardly contain her joy over the reopening.

On the drive to the school, Lightfoot said she saw young kids “skipping ahead” of their parents with excitement. In the building, Lightfoot said a second grader told her he wanted to make new friends.

“This is exactly what we fought for,” Lightfoot said, alluding to the bitter fight with the Chicago Teachers Union over the return to in-person learning.

Lightfoot thanked teachers and staff at schools and told parents that her administration was listening to them, even if it may not have seemed like that at times. She also reflected on the long delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“When schools closed a year ago, none of us thought it would be yet another year. We thought and hoped it would be weeks, then we thought it would be months, then we thought surely by the start of this school year we’d be back,” Lightfoot said. “But fate had another plan.”

CPS spent $100 million to make sure classrooms were ready for in-person learning, Lightfoot said. The schools have offered vaccine opportunities to 18,000 employees, the mayor said.

Hawthorne is not representative of the district overall in that more than 55% of families said they would send their children back when schools reopened, according to CPS figures. District-wide, only about 30% of students have chosen the in-person option among the children eligible to return by March 8, when sixth through eighth graders are due back.

Also, about 50% of Hawthorne students are white, compared to about 11% of all CPS students. That disparity — in which the parents choosing to send their students back for in-person classes have tended to be whiter and more affluent — has been seen throughout the Chicago region.

CPS leaders have also pointed to data on grades, participation, access and attendance to make the point that the limitations of remote learning have also affected students of color disproportionately.

On the other side of the city, outside Sutherland Elementary in the Beverly area, many parents arrived on foot with their child’s hands in theirs.

Outside, masked staff members and teachers, some with clipboards, others with tablets, helped make sure parents and children knew where they were supposed to be on this first day of school.

Some children cried as school security took temperatures at the front at the main entrance. Other children bounded away from parents with plastic shopping bags in tow full of school supplies like paper towels, tissues and other cleaning supplies.

Most parents and children seemed excited that in-person learning was resuming.

“My oldest son, Miles, is a fourth grader. He really wanted to go back. We were in the car today and he was like, ‘I’m so excited, I can barely stand it,’” said Beverly resident Patrick McNulty. His second grader, Colin, was a bit more nervous with first-day jitters, so McNulty walked both boys to their designated doors, not leaving until they were comfortable saying goodbye. He said the teachers did a good job with remote learning, but it just wasn’t the same doing social interaction with the kids.

Chris and Angela Iverson, Beverly residents since 2012, walked their first and third grade daughters, Amelia and Juliana, up to school with their preschool-aged brothers. Angela Iverson said remote learning wasn’t ideal, but she didn’t have horror stories about it either. The couple didn’t second guess bringing their girls for in-person learning because the family already endured the coronavirus.

Dezsiree Jones was getting teary-eyed dropping of her second grader Kandace. As Jones was heading home going to get ready for work, she said her daughter is excited to be back in school.

“She’s excited about being back, so I’m excited for her,” she said.

John Campbell is a parent with three children, ages 3, 5 and 8. He’s having to deal with bus pickups and drop-offs with his two oldest at Sutherland. Before the pandemic, if he was running late, his children could wait inside the school, but protocols now don’t allow for that, he said.

“I got to make sure that I’m here on time,” he said. “It’s a blessing and a curse, but I do believe the kids need this. The break has been detrimental to their development. I know it’s all about choice, how the parents feel bringing the kids back. I pray that this works out so next fall, we will have a familiar first day of school. I miss normal. It has to get better.”

At Lincoln Elementary, scores of families lined up outside, waiting in a street that was blocked off by police and a firetruck to accommodate social distancing. Students spread out behind orange cones designating classrooms and entered the Lincoln Park school one by one to get their temperatures checked.

With his lunchbox in hand, fourth grader Veer Zaveri said he’s most excited about learning in a classroom because he’s tired of working at the desk in his bedroom. Bundled up in a puffy jacket and a Christmas-themed face mask, the 10-year-old said the only downside is “frostbite” from standing outside — one of the school’s new drop-off procedures.

Veer’s mother said she’s also ready for the change. Kruti Zaveri, 42, said she is less concerned about infections now that vaccine distribution is underway and that more is known about how COVID-19 spreads. Only nine students will be in her son’s classroom.

“It’s good that it’s back to a routine and that we can get back to work,” said Kruti Zaveri, an interior designer. “Some semblance of normalcy ... I think we’re all ready.”

With about 71% of students expected to return, Abraham Lincoln Elementary boasts one of the district’s highest percentages of families choosing in-person instruction, according to preliminary CPS data.

Rozenn Heathcote, 46, chatted with fellow parents after dropping off her third grader. Her son Marcello was so excited to return that he packed his school bag last night and woke up early this morning, Heathcote said.

For her family, the resumption of in-person classes couldn’t come soon enough. She also has an eighth grader at home who will return to school next week in a subsequent wave.

“I really think that they learn better in class,” Heathcote said. “All the protocols are in place and there’s no reason to be worried. ... This was only supposed to be a temporary solution, and it lasted for a year.”

Similar to other CPS elementary schools, Lincoln students opting for in-person learning receive two days of live instruction and three days of remote teaching. The classes are split in two, with half of students attending in-person for two consecutive days and everyone learning remotely Wednesday.

Heathcote, however, wants to see students receive a full week of in-person classes.

“My son will learn better in school. I’m not a teacher and I’ve been supervising what he was doing while working next to him,” she said. “I’m relieved that he is going to be getting what he should be getting. I’m worried we have been missing a lot of time.”

With most returning elementary students in classrooms two days each week — and still no return date for CPS high school students — remote learning will continue for the foreseeable future. CPS officials say they hope to bring them back before the end of the school year.

Concerns about the quality and equity of remote learning are among the reasons some parents and advocates held a protest outside the Board of Education meeting last week after submitting a list of demands to the mayor’s office.

Other parents indicated on social media that they were participating in a “sick-out” on Monday, keeping their children out of class to protest the district’s reopening plan and seek improvements to remote learning.

The parent-organized “sick-out” protest demands “equitable education for students in all settings, especially the Black and Brown students who have been hit the hardest with failures and truancies during this pandemic,” according to a press release from a parent group. The group also sent a protest letter to the district and the mayor.

The parents say the agreement reached between CPS and the CTU addressed vaccinations and staff safety concerns but not the learning needs of students, most of whom are opting to remain virtual.

“Mayor Lightfoot and Janice Jackson have repeatedly stated that CPS will not focus on improving remote learning even though over 70% of students will continue in full virtual setting, and the remaining students moving to hybrid mode will still have remote learning three days a week,” the release said. “This is unacceptable.”

Up to 37,000 kindergarten through fifth graders were expected to return to school Monday, though actual turnout has tended to be lower than the numbers of those who said they would return. Before Monday, only a few thousand preschool and special education students had returned to classes, though that group’s return was suspended by teachers’ earlier refusal to work in person.