Breaking: Chicago Public Schools officials are planning to resume in-person classes for elementary school students Feb. 1, sources tell the @Suntimes. The is the city's most concrete move yet to reopen schools for the first time during the pandemic. https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/11/17/21571873/cps-back-school-public-schools-in-person-covid-19-coronavirus-remote-learning

This is updated. Some thoughts:

The mayor/CPS (weirdly, I must say) tried to make it clear that its decision to reopen 2 months from now instead of today has nothing to do with Chicago's rapid rise of infections. Yet for the first time, the city's top doctor seemed more hesitant

We also finally have a threshold for when schools can safely reopen. Dr. Arwady said she's comfortable with CPS bringing students back when cases are doubling every 18 days instead of the current rate of 12 days. The threshold no longer has to do with cases/positivity

More than 66% of families with kids in preschool and special education cluster programs don't want to go back to school right now. And 28% of teachers/staffers in those programs have formally requested accommodations or leaves of absence. Numbers for gen ed are TBD

Lightfoot told @BrandisFriedman on @wttw a couple hours ago that there have been staffers in buildings this whole school year and there have been no problems.

There were 87 cases at schools last week, and CPS has ignored an arbitrator's ruling to allow those workers to stay home

City officials have correctly pointed out that thousands of students at Catholic schools, other private schools and suburban districts have been in school this whole time. There have been outbreaks here and there, but generally speaking there haven't been huge problems.

CPS is a different animal though. CPS has higher populations of special education students, low-income students, homeless students and English learners. The needs are much greater and the work it takes to meet those needs is much harder.

Lastly, and least importantly, it was insinuated here that this news was dumped in my lap by CPS to curry favor with me. Not the case, never will be. 500 principals had a meeting, it was bound to leak. I said it last time, CPS needs to roll this out better https://twitter.com/SSKedreporter/status/1328838444102127616?s=20