Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey Says He Won't Be Seeking Another Term
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey announced Wednesday that he will not be running for reelection to his post.
"I am not sure I would have believed anyone had they told me I would be where I am today back in 2010, when I was elected vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. I grew up on a dirt road in rural Maine, raised by a single mother who was an elementary school teacher and editor of a poetry journal. I was just a kid who wanted to change the world," Sharkey wrote. "Those were pretty big aspirations, I guess, but I never imagined life would unfold the way it did. But here I am, and I am forever grateful. And now, it is my time to move on."
Sharkey took over as vice president of the CTU alongside the late Karen Lewis as president. Sharkey became president of the union after Lewis stepped down in 2018, and was reelected the following year.
He wrote that he was inspired to get involved in organized labor on teachers' behalf in 2004, when the Chicago Public Schools announced a plan to close numerous neighborhood schools. Senn High School, where Sharkey was a teacher, was set to be turned into a military academy.
"So I began organizing, and found a group of like-minded and strong-willed teachers doing the same," Sharkey wrote.
Sharkey credited the union with changing the "the narrative around public education in Chicago," with teachers at the lead.
Still, Sharkey said it is time for him to move on – noting that his mother died in October 2020, followed by a "brutal" reopening campaign and Lewis' death in February 2021.
"My youngest son, now an underclassman in high school, was a toddler when I first took office. My oldest son is navigating college life hundreds of miles away," he wrote. "So my fourth term in CTU leadership will be my last. I will serve until June 2022, but will not seek re-election as president of the Chicago Teachers Union."
Sharkey wrote that he will not be leaving the movement or the union, but will rather return to the classroom.
