BUT Chicago The mother, who the teachers union claims died when a student who tested positive for COVID was sent home to quarantine as they rallied behind additional COVID protocols, actually died of alcoholism, it was revealed on Monday.
On September 24, Denisha Henry, the 32-year-old mother of an eighth grade student at Jensen Elementary Academy in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood, died.
The day before, Shenita Curry, 44, died of pneumonia caused by COVID, with diabetes and hypertension being contributing factors. She has not been vaccinated.
Shortly thereafter, the Chicago Teachers’ Union said at a rally that both mothers contracted COVID from a child at a school where 11 of 17 classes were in quarantine.
But, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s report obtained by Chicago City Wires On Monday, Henry actually died of chronic alcoholism, a term coroners use to describe a person who died of alcoholism.
Now, parents in the Chicago public school system are saying the teachers’ union should be ashamed that it misrepresented her death in an attempt to ridicule the school system for how it handled the pandemic.
“My God, what a burden they placed on those little children who lost their mothers. Tell them that you actually killed your mothers when you went to school,” said one parent, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
“Shame on them. This proves that they will stop at nothing to get what they want.”
Denisha Henry, 32, died in September from what the Chicago Teachers’ Union called COVID-19, but it was revealed on Monday that she actually died from drinking.
GoFundMe was created after the death of Shenita Curry in September.
Following the two deaths, the Chicago Union of Teachers held a rally on September 28 demanding additional COVID protocols.
Both mothers had children at Jensen Elementary School in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood.
School officials reportedly knew Henry’s death was unrelated to COVID but did not acknowledge it, according to Chicago City Wire, with one telling the publication, “The only positive is that we now have COVID testing for our students.” and teachers.
But the deaths of Henry and Curry from COVID were widely reported in the Chicago media as parents and members of the Chicago Teachers’ Union used their deaths to call for the school to close until stricter precautions could be taken. Block Club of Chicago.
They asked for more testing, “robust school vaccination programs and adequate staff to meet the needs of students traumatized by the severe effects of the pandemic.”
IN Press release In announcing its Speak for Safety rally on September 28, the Chicago Teachers Union said: “COVID has claimed lives [of] one 47-year-old schoolgirl and a second 32-year-old mother died.”
Shenita Curry’s family supported the statement at the rally, with her sister Yasmia Johnson saying, “If the protocol had been in place, she would still be alive.”
Johnson stated in GoFundMe she set up Curry after she was never contacted by a contact tracer after her daughter brought COVID home from school.
Johnson wrote that Curry was “very afraid of COVID-19, didn’t leave the house, and didn’t want her kids to leave the house to go to school.”
But, Johnson said, she “had no choice” but to send her children back to full-time education for the 2021-2022 school year in accordance with Chicago’s reopening plan.
“Her children will have to bury her because they were forced to go to school,” the GoFundMe says.
“All of this could have been avoided if proper safety protocols were in place and/or there was an option to send your child back to school, as is done in suburban educational districts.”
GoFundMe has raised over $6,000 for the Curry family.
The Teachers’ Union of Chicago has become famous for its protest against COVID protocols and demands for school closures amid the COVID pandemic. Vice President Stacey Davis at a rally in October in support of the teachers’ strike.
After the teachers’ union closed schools for four days in January, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced she had reached an agreement to resume in-person learning.
The Teachers’ Union of Chicago has become famous for its protest against COVID protocols and demands for school closures amid the COVID pandemic.
The union closed for four days in January to protest the reopening of the school system. The violent standoff left 300,000 schoolchildren in the city without education, angering both parents and students.
But in the end, the Teachers’ Union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot reached an agreement on COVID safety so that children could return to schools.
The plan will result in both a return to in-person learning and setting the conditions under which any individual school will return to distance learning, which will be determined by lack of staff, students in quarantine, or high transmission of COVID in the community.
In announcing the agreement, Mayor Lori Lightfoot happily returned to face-to-face teaching and thanked parents for their support.
“We will never forget the impact we had on the lives of our children and their families. They should always be front and center,” Lightfoot said. “Every decision should be made with their participation.”
She adopted a conciliatory tone after earlier calling strikes “illegal” and refusing to pay teachers who refused to show up to school after saying the latest COVID surge was putting their health at risk.
CTU Vice President Stacey Davis Gates hailed the agreement as “the only shred of security” in the schools, but called Lightfoot “unable to lead”.
Chicago Teachers’ Union President Jesse Sharkey did not fully approve of the deal, but said it was enough to get teachers back at the school.
Meanwhile, CTU leaders welcomed new measures to increase COVID testing in schools and provided new KN95 masks for staff and students.
But they said they were frustrated by the inability to pass denial testing and some other aspects of the agreement.
Currently, students are not required to take the test and can voluntarily participate in it. The union wants testing to be made mandatory and students forced to forego it if they want to avoid getting swabs.
“It wasn’t a deal that had it all, it’s not a perfect deal, but it’s certainly something we can think of, in part because it was so hard to get,” disputed CTU President Jesse Sharkey, who called relentlessly Lightfoot. stupid’ previously said.
CTU Vice President Stacey Davis Gates hailed the agreement as “the only shred of security” in the schools, but called Lightfoot “unable to lead”.
“The Chicago Union of Teachers once again had to build the infrastructure to keep our school community safe and accountable amid the pandemic,” said Davis Gates. “This is the second January in a row that we have to be hostages, frankly, in hostage negotiations.”
She added: “Parents don’t know that without workers, school workers in our building, you have nothing. This mayor is not fit to lead this city. And she’s on a one-woman kamikaze mission to destroy our public schools.