As the initial excitement of a new school year fades, there is trouble on the horizon. With tension building between CPS and the CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) and no formal deal on the table, for the second time in four years a teachers strike seems imminent. The question remains: how did the communication issues between the two sides reach a breaking point?

Big picture finances play a large role in the issue. The state has accrued around 700 million dollars worth of debt by not making full payments into the teacher’s pension fund over the course of the last 20 years. That problem worsens due to the fact that the state isn’t allowed to declare bankruptcy on that debt or decrease the annual amount contributed to the pension fund (supposed to be about an annual 3% increase). With an ever-growing amount of money owed and no concrete solution in place, Illinois’ legislature has looked around for potential answers in the form of budgetary cuts. Cue the CPS Board of Education.

Faced with an expired contract and pressure from the state to lower operating costs, the Board proposed an eleventh hour deal to the CTU: a 7% pay cut and an agreement from the teachers to pay more into their own pensions.

With the Board and CTU still far from reaching a compromise, the teachers have returned to work under last year’s contract.

That implicit tension has some teachers worried about the looming strike. “It was a little different last time,” an elementary school teacher remarked, “People had more time to plan and get their finances in order.”

With a 90 day notice required before a work stoppage, the earliest CPS could see a strike would be in January.

“Teachers aren’t trusted with their expertise especially when decisions are being made about students,” an anonymous source discloses, “Decisions…are being made by people who have never taught, let alone stepped foot in a classroom.”

This dispute is clearly deep rooted and far-reaching, and no easy solution is in sight.