Chicago Public Schools students returned to school on Monday. [Colin Boyle/Block Club] 

As Monday marked the first day back from winter break for Chicago Public Schools, parents and some aldermen aired concerns that the school district’s plans for detecting and managing COVID-19 cases are inadequate and were not communicated to members of the City Council. 

Teachers, parents and members of the Chicago Teachers Union speak outside Park Manor Elementary about parents keeping their CPS students remote until Lightfoot’s CPS team provides testing and safety guarantees, on Jan. 3, 2022. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

This article was first published in Block Club Chicago.

Chicago teachers may refuse to work in-person in schools starting Wednesday over concern about COVID-19 spread in schools.

The return to school Monday from winter break comes as the city is experiencing a record surge in confirmed cases and after parents grappled with a chaotic student testing program. Some school districts in other major cities, including Detroit, Atlanta and Cleveland, have delayed reopening or opted to start school with remote learning.

Starting this year, expired smoke detectors with detachable batteries must be replaced with more modern hard-wired devices.

The new year brings a panoply of fresh rules into effect for Chicago residents and businesses, including a litany of measures designed to help the city’s most vulnerable residents while simultaneously making life easier for entrepreneurs.

The following is a roundup of major city legislation that took effect when the clock struck midnight on Friday night, as well as subsequent city policies set to take place in the months to come.

Ald. Jason Ervin (28) speaks during a news conference celebrating the passage of a civilian oversight ordinance [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line] 

A little more than five months after the City Council approved the creation of a long-sought civilian commission to oversee the Chicago Police Department, aldermen are set to open applications for the inaugural interim citywide commission after missing a series of key deadlines. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other city officials announced a vaccine requirement set to take effect Jan. 3. 

People wanting to dine, drink or workout indoors in Chicago will be required to show proof of vaccination beginning Jan. 3, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and public health officials announced on Tuesday.

[Danielle Scruggs, special to ProPublica]

This article was first published in ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The bank’s board meeting on April 28, 2016, started with a prayer. Then it turned to plans for keeping the bank alive.

That week, federal regulators had signed off on a deal allowing new owners to take control of Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan, one of the last Black-owned banks in the country. For more than a year, regulators had warned the bank could be shut down if it didn’t raise capital. They had also ordered it to improve its management.

Caption: Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) is a lead sponsor on a resolution calling for the city to increase its stock of public bathrooms. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Nearly 20 aldermen support a new measure calling for the city to consider a pilot program that would bring more public bathrooms to Chicago.  

A jogger uses a trail in the Busse Woods, one of 22 Cook County Forest Preserves [Facebook/Forest Preserve District of Cook County]

For the second time in two years, Cook County voters are set to see a ballot question in November asking them to authorize a tax hike.

But proponents of a property tax levy uptick to benefit the Cook County Forest Preserves say there’s a world of difference between their campaign and Gov. JB Pritzker’s failed 2020 push for a statewide graduated income tax. For one thing, no one has organized to stop it yet.

 Ald. Matt Martin (47) and Ald. Howard Brookins (21) speaking during a committee meeting on Friday. 

Aldermen, city officials and policy experts last week launched into a discussion on increasing electric vehicle charging stations across Chicago, as stations are currently clustered mainly around the Loop and the North Side.  

Cook County Health will use American Rescue Plan dollars to launch a new department aimed at improving mental health services, including at Stroger Hospital. [Cook County Health]

Cook County leaders plan to spend nearly $36 million in federal dollars next year on a panoply of programs designed to reverse a crippling spike in violent crime — but none of it will go toward policing.

The Chicago Plan Commission advanced Hispanic Housing Development Corporation’s plans for an affordable housing development in Humboldt Park. 

A Humboldt Park affordable housing development plan nearly five years in the making spurred debate on Thursday over the weight that design should play in affordable housing.

Aldermen are set to hold a hearing on Friday to discuss a citywide plan for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And the Zoning Board of Appeals will consider a handful of cannabis-related applications as state licensing remains stalled.

Emails show Mayor Lori Lightfoot learning about the wrongful police raid of Anjanette Young's home in November of 2019. The emails also show efforts by the Chicago Police Department to block the release of body camera footage.

This article originally published in Block Club Chicago.

An outside investigation of the city’s response to the Anjanette Young raid found “failures in oversight and accountability” by the four city departments responsible for responding to the aftermath of the search.

Plan commissioners are set to consider a proposal for a 133-unit affordable senior-housing development in Pullman. 

A 133-unit affordable senior housing development proposed for Pullman and a 73-unit affordable senior housing development in Uptown will both come one step closer to reality Thursday if they net approval from the Chicago Plan Commission. 

Cook County Comm. Larry Suffredin (D-13) speaks during a meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee on Tuesday.

A years-in-the-making push to tighten and modernize Cook County’s ethics rules is inches from the finish line after a fresh round of tweaks designed to further empower the county’s Board of Ethics and bring county lobbying rules in line with a new state law.