UPDATE 4-Chicago Teachers Union poised to vote on district's strike-ending proposal

The Chicago Teachers Union said it is ready to present a tentative deal to end a 10-day strike to its delegates on Wednesday if Mayor Lori Lightfoot agrees to make up the lost school days at the end of the year. The third-largest school district in the United States has canceled classes for its 300,000 students every school day since the union went on strike on Oct. 17, after contract talks failed to yield agreement.

"The CTU may have reached a monumental agreement," union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said on Twitter, using an acronym for the Chicago Teachers Union. The district said in a statement it was determining whether it could agree to make up more than eight school days.

The union said the 825 members of its House of Delegates would meet behind closed doors at 6 p.m. local time (2300 GMT) on Wednesday to consider the deal, in just the second such meeting since they walked off the job. It did not immediately release details of the proposed deal.

The district said the members of the Chicago Board of Education would need to vote on adding attendance days. The union represents 25,000 teachers who have been without a contract since July 1. Since the first day of the work stoppage, teachers have picketed in front of many of the district's 500 schools and rallied several times in downtown Chicago.

Chicago teachers had pushed for more money to ease overcrowded classrooms and add nurses, social workers and teaching aides, besides seeking a wage increase. Chicago Public Schools social worker Mary Difino said that "it's a really big win" if proposed enforcible nurse and social work staffing levels are in the contract, which she plans to read thoroughly on Wednesday night.

"Our special education students have been shafted so much in the past. I feel a responsibility after a 10-day strike to make sure that it has all been worth it," she said after learning a tentative agreement had been reached. The union is seeking a contract that runs three years instead of five and more paid prep-time for elementary school teachers.

District officials said on Tuesday they had proposed to spend $25 million to reduce overcrowding in the district and a further $70 million to hire support staff, such as nurses and social workers. Lightfoot has said the district could not afford the union's full demands, estimating they would cost an extra $2.4 billion each year for an increase of more than 30% in the current school budget of $7.7 billion.

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