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Good morning and happy Friday!

Chalkbeat Chicago has some local education news to close out your week, and it’s Makiya Seminera here to deliver it (if I’m typing out this newsletter, does that qualify as a hand delivery?) There’s a lot happening in this final stretch before Election Day on Nov. 3, and if voters didn’t have enough reasons to throw their support behind a school board candidate, the Chicago Board of Education squeezed in one last monthly meeting and made some important decisions.

It was a celebratory day Thursday for the 1,800 lunchroom workers across Chicago Public Schools whose union contract was unanimously approved by the board, my colleague Reema Amin reports. The vote comes after a year of negotiations, culminating in a $64.8 million contract with Unite Here Local 1, which represents CPS’ lunchroom workers. Not everyone was happy with the board yesterday though — and I encourage you to read more about it in Reema’s story!

Also, we have an exciting development on our “Zine for CPS teens” project. And to make the announcement, I will break out some skills I learned from my City Colleges of Chicago Conversational Spanish 1 class. Here it goes…ahora, tenemos las instrucciones para imprimir nuestro zine disponsible en español!

As always, let us know what tips you have on potential stories for us to pursue by responding to this email!

Local education coverage is disappearing. Chalkbeat helps families and educators understand what’s changing. We can’t do it without you.

Local News

Chicago Board of Education adopts new union contract for lunchroom workers

The board also heard criticism from the Chicago Teachers Union over what it described as a lack of advocacy for state funding.

¿Cómo está Chalkbeat Chicago informando a los estudiantes de CPS sobre su junta escolar? Zines para jóvenes.

Con el zine de Chalklbeat Chicago, los estudiantes de las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago cuentan con una nueva forma de informarse sobre las elecciones a la junta escolar. Este recurso gratuito puede imprimirse en cualquier lugar.

Around Chalkbeat

A proposal to close a Harlem high school could signal wider wave of enrollment-related closures

The Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce has just 112 students. City officials said the proposal to close the school is not yet finalized.

Supreme Court to decide if religious schools can take public money and still discriminate

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Colorado case on whether states can require religious preschools receiving public funds to follow LGBTQ non-discrimination rules.

The Trump official who compared ed-tech to the tobacco industry

The Trump administration is divided over classroom technology, with some promoting AI in schools while others warn about harmful screen time.