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Chicago Public Schools will announce ‘very soon’ if in-person classes will resume next quarter, CEO says: ‘We know that parents are anxious’

Little more than three weeks remain of Chicago Public Schools’ fall quarter, but CEO Janice Jackson and Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday would not say when they will let everyone know if schools will reopen for the winter.

“We know that parents are anxious to hear from us on this, and we’ve committed to making an announcement very soon,” Jackson said during an unrelated news conference at City Hall. “We know that the second quarter is approaching quickly and we want to be sure that the plan that we put out will be as thoughtful as our parents anticipate.”

When a reporter pressed for specifics, asking, “This week?” Lightfoot simply said, “Soon.” Fall quarter ends Nov. 5.

While praising what teachers and principals have done to make remote learning work, Lightfoot said some students are struggling, especially the youngest and those in special education programs. In addition to monitoring the course of the pandemic, she said the district is looking at Catholic schools and other private, charter and preschools that have been partially or fully open.

“They need the touch of being in a classroom with their teacher, with their colleagues,” the mayor said. “… The focus, of course, is on the data and public health guidance, but it’s also around equity, and I am concerned about whether or not we are doing enough for certain categories of students, particularly our youngest learners and our diverse learners, and we’ve got to make decisions that maximize the opportunities for everyone but particularly those students who I think are the most vulnerable and I think are having the biggest challenges in a remote learning environment.”

Jackson reiterated that remote learning can’t replace in-person school. While her priority is to get students back in school as soon as it’s possible to do so safely, she said there’s a lot to consider.

“We want to be intentional about that,” Jackson said. “There is a lot of data, most notably the data around health conditions that we’re looking at. We’re also looking at how our students are engaging in the current model.”

And despite efforts to support students, the district is aware of continued inequities affecting participation.

“What we know about this is that some students do very well in an environment like this because they have a lot of resources and support in order to make it work, but there are a lot of students in Chicago Public Schools, the majority of our students, that need an extraordinary amount of support in a regular setting, so making that work in this remote setting has been challenging, the screen time, just the disparities in what people experience,” Jackson said.

hleone@chicagotribune.com