Nearly every Detroit public school is closed on Monday during a mass “sickout” among teachers protesting pay. All told, 94 of Detroit’s 97 schools will be closed, the Detroit News reports.
Over the weekend, teachers learned $48.7 million in emergency funding given to the school system by the state would run out by June 30. As a result, teachers would not be getting paid past that date and summer school programs would be canceled. The Detroit Federation of Teachers called on all 2,600 teachers to stage a “sickout” in protest, during which a group of teachers call out sick on the same day, the Detroit Free Press reports.
This isn’t the first sickout for Detroit schools this year. In January, teachers called out sick in protest of what they call “deplorable” conditions including mold and dead vermin. The January sickout shuttered 88 schools.
