This week, as our students and parents present us with cards, gifts and treats, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, it’s important to express our deepest gratitude for the mountains all educators move each and every day for our schools and our city.
We are truly thankful for the dedication, skill and love you shower on your students every day. For how you show up for your communities, fighting to demand policies at the city, state and federal level that put our families first. And for your unwavering commitment to this union, working in solidarity and unity to build power and hold elected officials accountable to the people they represent.
We’re especially thankful this Teacher Appreciation Day for how educators showed up on May Day, making it one for the record books. We organized field trips for students, participated in rallies, marches and actions in your communities, then joined a mass rally and marched through downtown, where the entire city witnessed our power and unity.
Serving our students, as an educator, PSRP, or clinician, is more than a job. It’s a calling. And we do more than educate our students. We feed them, clothe them, help them find places to sleep and help their families access social services. We purchase critical supplies for our classroom when the school budget doesn’t have enough.
At the same time, we are often the target of powerful right-wing forces. They blame educators for the ails of society, when every problem in our community finds its way to the classroom door.
While we fulfill our commitments to students every day, the state of Illinois continues to fail its commitment to our students. By the state’s own calculation, CPS is underfunded by nearly $2 billion, at a time when the state’s richest individuals have received an $8 billion Trump tax cut.
Taxing the wealthy to fully fund our schools would cost less than the money Illinois billionaires are pocketing, but Gov. JB Pritzker refuses to act. CPS faces a $700 million budget deficit, risking layoffs to schools that are already starved to the bone.
As educators, we can’t just hope for more funding or imagine better schools. We need to actively build them. We do that by showing our power. On May Day, at the school board, and in the state legislature, we show up to fight for our students and our communities. We have two more opportunities to press state lawmakers to do right by our schools. Please join one of our last two Lobby Days: May 13 and May 27.
Thank you for stepping up, but our work isn’t done. We must continue to fight for the schools and communities Chicago students deserve.
In solidarity,
Your CTU Leadership
President Stacy Davis Gates
Vice President Jackson Potter
Recording Secretary Vicki Kurzydlo
Financial Secretary Dr. Diane Castro