BRIDGEPORT — A group of neighborhood parents with children at Mark Sheridan Academy are planning to clean up school grounds Friday to protest the first of three unpaid furlough days Chicago Public Schools employees are being forced to take.
“Teachers should be there, and our kids should be there,” said Vincent Johnson, a Bridgeport father with a first-grader at Sheridan. “We can’t take a day. We’re still showing up.”
The protesting parents of Sheridan Academy plan to meet at 10 a.m. at the school, 533 W. 27th St., with rakes, gloves and garbage bags to pull weeds from the school’s garden area and surrounding areas.
“There’s some greenery in front of the school,” Johnson said. “They’re a little traveled.”
Set to begin Friday, the furlough days will save $30 million, according to CPS officials. That number amounts to a 1.6 percent pay cut for teachers, according to the Chicago Teachers Union.
Neighborhood parents said giving teachers unpaid days off is no way to fix the district's financial shortfalls.
“We can’t take days off to try and solve our problems,” Johnson said.
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