CTU Ends Walkout With Noisy, Downtown Rally: Photo Gallery

CHICAGO, IL -- Thousands of Chicago Teachers Union members poured into the Loop late Friday afternoon for a massive rally capping off a “Day of Action” that postponed classes for 300,000 Chicago Public School students.

• Also on Patch: Chicago Teachers Union Holds 1 Day Walkout

Angry about furlough days, inadequate funding and budget cuts, the union’s controversial one-day strike began early Friday, with teachers picketing in front of other neighborhood schools before heading over to state legislators’ local offices.

In Mt. Greenwood, Beverly and Morgan Park, many parents and students joined the teachers in front of their neighborhood schools, before walking over to their state legislator’s district office at 10400 S. Western Ave. to stage an informational picket line.

Chicago Teachers Union Rally, Thompson Center, Chicago, 04-01-2016

Sen. Bill Cunningham (18th District) went out to greet the union members, whom he said he supported. He agreed with teachers that any changes made to their salaries and contributions to their pensions to be bargained collectively, not outside their union contract.

Cunningham also said he was in favor of completely reconfiguring the state’s school funding formula, which he called archaic.

“There have been other efforts to completely change the funding formula that could provide relief for Chicago and all school districts,” he said. “I don’t want a funding formula that takes money from one district and gives it to another. The teachers are drawing attention to education funding in the state and I agree with them on that as well.”

At the late afternoon rally downtown, speakers, including CTU President Karen Lewis and Rev. Jesse Jackson, addressed the large crowds of teachers, parents, students and their supporters in front of the Thompson Center.

After the speakers, the union members and their supporters then marched from the Thompson Center to Gran Park at the height of the afternoon rush hour, chanting, singing, waving noisemakers and signs that included such slogans as “The Board Is Tripping.”

Chicago Police estimated the crowd at 5,000. Demonstrators briefly shut down a portion of Lake Shore Drive at the rally’s conclusion at 6 p.m.

The rally was rowdy, but peaceful. The biggest danger came from participants stopping abruptly to take selfies or record fellow union members marching down Michigan Avenue.

Police said they arrested four people, three of whom at Monroe and Lake Shore Drive, news reports said.