CHICAGO — The week following the inauguration of Donald Trump as President, I faced a preschool classroom that was nearly half empty compared to the days before. Families who had heard the new administration was going to fulfill its promise of mass deportation, starting with Chicago, kept their kids home.  

In other classrooms, teachers witnessed second graders refusing to put folders away because their parents had instructed them to hold onto their legal documents at all times in case something happened.

Despite Chicago being a sanctuary, the fear that was felt had families hiding in attics, not leaving their homes, and skipping attendance at school.

That changed when news broke that federal agents attempted to enter Hamline Elementary and were turned away.  

Kids came back. 

Trump border czar Tom Homan went on the news to complain that Chicagoans were “educated” about our rights, and families got to see that school could be one of the safest places for them.  

But that didn’t happen because of school district leadership. It was the result of provisions we at the Chicago Teachers Union won in our contract the last time Trump was in power.

Now, our members just ratified a new, historic contract that expands those protections, improves our schools, and pulls public education in the opposite direction of the WWE executive in charge of scrapping the Department of Education.

For the first time since 1994, Chicago educators had the right to negotiate over more than wages and benefits without having to go on strike to do so.  

What we ended up winning is a ”turning point” for our district and a standard setter for other cities.  

Chicago Public Schools will double the number of its bilingual staff. We will more than triple a Sustainable Community Schools model that integrates community organizations to convert schools into neighborhood institutions beyond the regular school day. By the end of our contract, the school district will have 90 new librarians, hundreds more in teacher assistants, counselors, clinicians, and a better chance at keeping experienced educators in the classroom by revamping our salary system.

We’ll also have expanded the sanctuary protections that encouraged children to come back to school this winter. CPS will now have protocols for LGBTQIA+ Safe Schools that prevent discrimination and protect young people on their journey of self-discovery. The district will enshrine our ability to teach our children history that reflects their identities. For the first time in Chicago, we bargained over climate justice. 

It’s not what you would expect as the content of a usual union contract, but it is what you would expect from a group of mainly women workers who are the product of public schools, whose children attend public school, and who care about our classrooms and communities.

The message that I received as a child growing up in the Puerto Rican diaspora, and as an educator of children within the Latine community, is that educación holds a value greater than any material item. Our parents, who had little else to give, despite so much hard work, saw educational opportunity as what they could provide their children.

Given the centuries of underfunding of our public schools, our families have taken different approaches to how best to get that opportunity. 

Some of us have invested our life’s work into improving public schools. Others hoped that the charter school movement would provide what public schools, starved of resources, never could. But 30 years into the experiment carried out on our kids, Chicago’s recent history is a lesson for the rest of the country on that question, too. 

One of our more famous Latine-serving charter companies already had to rebrand years ago because of its CEO’s financial misdealings. Last fall, it abruptly announced it would shut down seven campuses that served 2,000 Latine students at the end of this school year.

What became evident is that when kids become commodities, bondholders come first. Despite $10 million in their savings account, the company expected to close its doors and walk away. 

However, parents and educators fought together. And for the first time in our city’s history, our first-ever elected school board voted to keep schools open instead of letting them close and take off with public funds.

In no way has the battle for public education in Chicago been fully won. The sad reality is that we’re still winning things that should already exist and that wealthier white suburbs already take for granted.

However, we can begin to see the fruits born from when our union really challenged ourselves with how we might best serve every student, family, and community member in Chicago. 

These contracts build on top of one another. They have built a system where my own Latine children might see themselves reflected in the curriculum; the unhoused will receive housing assistance; libraries will reopen with actual librarians; and so much more. 

When everything at the national level is made to feel big and scary, it can be helpful to look from the macro to the micro level, to see if students are reporting to class, if families feel secure, and if learning is happening. 

Victories are still possible in this moment.  

If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that we have to fight for them.

Dr. Diane Castro is a bilingual early education teacher with 18 years of classroom experience. She served as a member of the “big bargaining team” that negotiated the Chicago Teachers Union’s new contract.

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100 Days of Latino Resistance: On Thursday, the Latino Community Fund announced the “100 Days of Latino Resistance” week-long activation from April 26 to May 2 that will “uplift Latino voices and priorities and showcase our leadership, from los barrios to Capitol Hill,” a release noted.

“This is a space for Latinos and all allies to honor the power-building movements that have driven and will continue to drive us forward towards a multi-racial democracy,” it added.

Disclosure: LCF was the Season 1 sponsor of The Latino Newsletter podcast. For more about our donor transparency policy, click here.

Puerto Rico Blackout: Our correspondent Carlos Berríos Polanco posted photos from this week’s island-wide blackout in Puerto Rico. As of Friday afternoon, close to 99% of power has been restored.

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