World studies teacher Andrew Martinek had considered taking a personal day Friday to join thousands of protesters rallying for labor and immigrant rights in Union Park, joining an international wave of May Day demonstrations.
Instead, he opted to remain in the classroom, chaperoning a morning field trip to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the storied civil rights organization founded by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson. Friday’s field trips across Chicago Public Schools were “a chance for our students to identify their power,” Martinek said.
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“All the history and the activism that is in this space, I couldn’t pass that up,” said Martinek, a teacher at John Hancock College Preparatory High School in Clearing. “I know that they’re going to have a powerful experience here.”
About 40 civic engagement field trips on Friday were approved for 2,200 students, according to the district. The activities — spanning from walkouts to labor history lessons — capped weeks of back-and-forth between district officials, school board members and the Chicago Teachers Union.
In the end, CPS said that about 13% of teachers were absent, about 700 more teachers than this week’s average, according to early data. The district deployed more than 2,600 substitute teachers and about 940 substitute educational support professionals to fill in at 76 schools.
High school attendance also dipped. Roughly 72% of students were marked present in at least one class, which is slightly down from 75.8% last Friday, a district spokesperson said.
For months, the union had pushed to designate May 1 as a professional development day so that staff could join afternoon protests.
Newly appointed CPS CEO Macquline King pushed back, insisting that Friday should remain a full day of instruction to minimize disruption across the district. Meanwhile, Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer, seemed to signal support for the proposal.
Eventually, the district and CTU reached a compromise: Classes would continue as scheduled, but schools could arrange field trips to rallies and other civic engagement events. The district agreed to provide buses and bagged lunches, while teachers could take personal days, as they would on any regular school day.
The district said field trip requests were vetted and approved through early morning Friday.
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May 1, also known as International Workers’ Day, has long been a cornerstone for the progressive labor movement. But CTU and its allies have come to regard the day with heightened reverence under the Trump administration. The national “no school, no work, no shopping” action aims to advocate for immigrant and worker rights.
The Union Park rally was organized by a broad slate of progressive groups and labor unions. Throngs of demonstrators filled the Near West Side park before marching shoulder-to-shoulder with homemade signs to the Loop.
Sarah Garza Resnick, a CPS parent, pulled her 12- and 9-year-old sons out of school so they could attend alongside her. The country is at a “very serious inflection point,” she said, and she wants to use her voice to speak up. As a single mom, she said she wants a country that’s centered “around the well-being of children.”
“Working families cannot afford life right now, and we as the wealthiest country must do better,” she said. “And we have to protect workers’ rights to do that.”
Garza Resnick noted her youngest son learned about May Day in class. “Civic education might be the most important thing my children are ever going to learn,” she added. “We have to teach the next generation to step up and to fight.”
A group of students from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, located just a few blocks away, ambled through the crowd and interviewed attendees on activism for a school assignment. Dozens of other attendees donned CTU red.
As a social studies teacher at Senn High School in Edgewater, Frances Bartolutti watched immigrant students stop coming to school because they were “terrified” amid intensified federal immigration enforcement. Bartolutti said it felt important to attend the rally to advocate for them.
“I told them, ‘Hey, I’m not going to be here tomorrow because I’m going to these protests,’” Bartolutti said. “They were receptive to that. They want more people to be out there fighting for them.”
Parents weigh May Day
The district’s agreement with CTU had been subject to some debate, with concerns swirling around curriculum and staffing. A contingent of parents, backed by the centrist, pro-school choice group The Urban Center, argued that CTU was imbuing schools with progressive politics.
The agreement allowed teachers to incorporate curriculum on civic engagement. But CPS stressed to families that any new materials would align with district-approved requirements and the state’s learning standards, and that students could opt out.
Nina Sánchez, 47, decided to keep her daughter, a third grader at Inter-American Magnet School in Lakeview, in class on Friday — even though she said she knew other parents who had organized trips to protests.
Sánchez noted she decided to keep social justice and worker rights a “home topic.” She’s taken her daughter to rallies before, but she said she thought her daughter would benefit more from the classroom on Friday than at a protest that wasn’t necessarily geared toward kids.
Sánchez added she thought her daughter might not be as motivated to march or might not grasp what the speakers were saying in the same way that adults would.
“At the end of the day, I think that as a parent, it should be our choice,” Sánchez said. “Do we want to take them out for this or any other march?”
Rainbow PUSH
One of the largest CTU-organized field trips was held at Rainbow PUSH, where hundreds of students — ranging from kindergarteners to high schoolers — spilled out of yellow buses and filed into an auditorium. Many sported red CTU pins.
A lineup of speakers, including Johnson and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, addressed themes of Black and labor history, youth activism and Jackson’s legacy. High schoolers were given the opportunity to pre-register to vote, while younger students filled out coloring sheets on civil rights history.
“The future that we are fighting for is yours,” Johnson said to the crowd. “The creativity and the courage and the willingness to speak out is shaping a brighter future for you all. So continue to organize. Carry on the legacy of our ancestors.”
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Ashley Harris, a second grade teacher at Parkside Community Academy in South Shore, took a personal day to help organize the event. Her principal supported her decision, because she also believes in what democracy is, Harris said, referencing Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that largely hollows out the Voting Rights Act.
“We think kids should be in the classroom, but if we don’t stand on these things, kids might not have a classroom to be in this upcoming school year,” Harris said.
Seventeen-year-old Jahari McLaurin, a sophomore at King College Preparatory High School in Kenwood, said she doesn’t follow district politics and wasn’t sure what to expect for the field trip. But she said she felt excited to delve into civics.
“I’m not in the news that much, but I always look in confusion at what’s happening,” McLaurin said. “Like, why is (President Donald Trump) allowed to do this? Why are we not doing anything to stop it? I feel like this is a part of that, right?”