Canceled Classes Predicted as Teacher Talks Stall in Chicago

A contract stalemate continued Sunday in the nation’s third-largest school district, leading officials to cancel classes today.

Chicago school board spokesman Robert Saigh said the two sides did not meet Sunday after a 10-hour negotiating session Saturday produced little progress.

“It doesn’t look good,” Saigh said.

Meanwhile, strikes continued in six other states, with only one district, in Michigan, reporting a tentative settlement. Nearly 47,000 teachers had taken to the picket lines, affecting about 737,000 students.

In Chicago, Saigh said the two sides would meet later in the week when federal mediator Wesley Jennings calls them back to the bargaining table. Mayor Harold Washington said he believed the two sides would meet Tuesday.

Saigh said minor progress was made on non-monetary issues during Saturday’s session, but he declined to provide details.

The school board’s financial position had not changed, he said, and it is unable to provide the 15% raise teachers are requesting over a two-year contract. The strike by the 28,000-member Chicago Teachers Union forced school officials to cancel the first week of classes for the city’s 430,000 public school students.

In Michigan, union negotiators in Richmond agreed to a tentative settlement, reducing the number of teacher strikes in that state to six.

Michigan Education Assn. spokeswoman Jacqui Johnson said the 89 teachers would be joined by the district’s nearly 1,700 students in classes today. A ratification vote would be held Wednesday or Thursday, she said.

In Detroit, Michigan’s largest school district, the strike affects 11,500 teachers and 193,000 students.

Bus Driver Strike

In Boston, schoolchildren faced another day without school buses as the bus driver strike entered its second week. About 27,000 private, parochial and public school students have been affected.

Teacher strikes also continued in two Massachusetts school districts with 519 teachers and 6,600 students.

About 2,000 teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers were on strike in the northern New Jersey school district of Elizabeth, affecting 15,000 students.

Strikes also continued in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Washington state with little progress in sight. A total of 3,962 teachers and 66,150 students were affected in those walkouts.