The Chicago Teachers Union kicked off the Little Village Car Caravan for Safe Schools Tuesday afternoon, 31st and Kedzie, to demand that CPS put its dangerous reopening plan on hold while it bargains with the CTU on a truly safe plan to return to school buildings. Participants decorated their vehicles with solidarity messages to teachers locked out of Google Classroom in Little Village and citywide. The overwhelmingly working class Latinx neighborhood is home to thousands of frontline essential workers and multi-generational households — and among those hardest hit by the pandemic. The CTU has tallied reports of COVID cases in more than 50 CPS schools in the wake of the school district’s move to start forcing a second wave of workers back into unsafe buildings on January 4. Those returning teachers continue to report shortages of PPE, cleaning supplies, portable HEPA filters for their classrooms and more.