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“Despite six months of active, good-faith discussions with the CTU, despite the fact that more than 90 percent of our staff is vaccinated, despite proven and implemented COVID-19 safety measures, and despite little evidence of in-school transmission, our teachers are not willing to report to work,” the CPS statement read.

“Some of them may be fly-by-night pop-up testing, where all they’re doing is taking the swabs and putting it in the reagent, the liquid … and then they’re not taking responsibility for how long it takes to get that test back from a lab that they may not have a very strong relationship with, and that is an enormous problem, and, in fact, some of them are not even returning results at all,” Pritzker said.

On the other end of the spectrum, Valencia Reasnover, who lives in South Shore with her two children and niece, all CPS students, just watched her daughter battle a difficult case of COVID-19 that she thinks was contracted at school. She believes classes should be remote until coronavirus numbers fall, and she has not sent her children back to school yet after break.

At Laurel Hill Elementary School in Hanover Park, music teacher Lynne Schefke,who normally works at Huff Elementary School in Elgin, high-fives student Angel Herrera in a dual language kindergarten classroom while working as a substitute on Jan. 4, 2022. A surge of COVID-19 cases forced Elgin-based Unit School District 46 to close five of its 57 schools because of staffing shortages, including Huff Elementary. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

In the letter, Lightfoot, citing the most recent information available from the sheriff’s office, said 3,400 people are currently released on electronic monitoring and that 2,300 have a “crime of violence” as their lead offense, including 90 accused of murder and 40 of attempted murder. The breakdown of charges also includes 1,480 gun possession cases, though most appear to include aggravating circumstances like being a felon in possession of a weapon.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush announces that he will not be running for reelection when his term ends next year after 30 years in Congress, Jan. 4, 2022. Rush, 75, made his announcement at Bronzeville’s Roberts Temple Church of God In Christ where the funeral for Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Mississippi, was held in 1955. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

CTU’s House of Delegates, its 600-member governing body, is expected to vote on a resolution for members to teach from home from Wednesday until Jan. 18, unless an agreement with CPS is reached or the rate of Chicago COVID-19 cases decreases. If the House of Delegates approves the measure, electronic ballots would open up later Tuesday to the union’s 25,000 rank-and-file members.

Reane Loiselle, a water resource specialist with the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College, filters water near Friendly Valley Beach as she collects samples from Lake Superior on Sept. 22, 2021, in Washburn, Wisconsin. Researchers are trying to figure out why the unlikely threat of harmful algae blooms has arrived in Lake Superior and how drastically climate change is altering one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Rush, 75, an Army veteran and ordained Baptist minister who has served in the U.S. House since 1993, has scheduled an announcement for Tuesday. The Chicago Democrat has dealt with various health issues over the years, notably a battle with salivary gland cancer in 2008, and last week tested positive for COVID-19.

Biology teacher Beth Pogonitz, left, helps Ariela Bielak, 15, with work in class at Ida Crown Jewish Academy on Jan. 3, 2022, in Skokie. The private school mandates COVID-19 vaccines and testing for students and staff and officials said Monday that they anticipate the school’s proactive policies will keep classrooms open for in-person learning. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)