CORE: The Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators 0000
Under CORE’s leadership, the CTU has won class size protections, more bilingual education provisions and sanctuary schools protections, the first healthy green schools provisions in our new contract LGBTQIA+ protections and other crucial provisions. CTU members will see big COLA raises in our current contract and bigger raises for paraprofessionals while keeping healthcare costs down and expanding healthcare access and benefits. We’ve secured added salary steps to address stagnant veteran pay, with a step in place for every year of service up to year 25, plus longevity bonuses for teachers with more than 25 years. We are adding special education staff, librarians, social workers, counselors, bilingual and class-size TAs, fine arts and physical education teachers, technology coordinators and more. Additionally, all elementary teachers will receive more time to prepare and collaborate.
Our current contract advancements, which passed with record turnout and approval, would not have been possible without the last 15 years of work by CORE leadership. We finally won back the bargaining rights taken from us in 1995, and we helped elect public education champions as members of Chicago’s first elected school board, with others appointed by the mayor (and former CORE member) we helped elect. And we are working with our allies in Springfield to improve school funding, fix Tier 2, and dismantle REACH. But we’ll have to fight to win if we are to make the most of those opportunities. That’s why we need CORE to keep leading!
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CORE Congratulates the campaign to stop General Iron
For Immediate Release
What: Media Alert about the victory on the General Iron permit
When: May 10th
Who: The Caucus of Rank and File Educators. www.coreteachers.org
The Caucus of Rank and File Educators congratulates the environmental justice movement that stopped the metal shredder, General Iron, from adding to the already excessive pollution on the Southeast side of Chicago. The hard fought battle was won due to the heroic efforts of students and teachers at Washington High School and the entire Southeast Side who had to go to the extreme of waging a month-long hunger-strike to have their voices heard.
The herculean efforts of the coalition led President Biden’s new administrator for the EPA, Michael Regan, to pressure Mayor Lightfoot Friday to halt the permit for this notorious polluter. He stated that the pollution on the Southeast Side “epitomize[s] the problem of environmental injustice” and Mayor Lightfoot finally listened, suspending permits for the metal shredder indefinitely, pending a study of health impacts on the community.
CORE members helped lead the fight for environmental justice and illuminate the disproportionate harm faced by the Black and Latinx communities in and around the city from so many corporate polluters. According to CORE member and teacher Lauren Bianchi “this has been a righteous fight but one that only has just begun. We will not rest until all our schools, students and their families have a healthy and green alternative to these polluters, including free solar panels, updated school HVAC systems, clean air, removal of lead pipes, and the medical care too many low income families lack. Our students are demanding that the schools and city use the more than $3 billion in Rescue Act funds from President Biden to address these historic disparities and listen to the people.”