Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Monday, January 10th. I'm Naila Moodoo. Here's what we're

following today. High stakes talks over Russia's growing sphere of influence. Plus, a judge's striking

sentencing in Georgia. But first, the Chicago Public Schools' deadlock is today's one big thing.

This morning, students in Chicago Public Schools are starting their fourth day with no classes. The

teachers' union, the school district and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, remain in a standoff over whether

not to conduct classes in person for the country's third largest school district. This is a debate

playing out across the country, leaving students, teachers, and parents in limbo. Axios Chicago reporter

Monica Aing has been following the back and forth and is here now with the latest Hey Monica.

Hey Naila. Monica, there's been longstanding tension between the teachers' union in the Mayor's

office that predates the pandemic. What are the sticking points here? The three main sticking

points as of Sunday afternoon are whether or not kids should be able to learn remote or if they

should have to be in school no matter what. Whether testing should be opt-in or opt-out. And lastly,

whether or not there should ever be any metric that would trigger the entire district to go remote.

Why isn't remote school an option right now while this standoff is going on? That's a really

great question because obviously there are districts all over the nation that are going remote.

It seems to be a bit of a personality clash because Chicago Public Schools bought 100,000 laptops

and started the school year early seemingly in preparation for some sort of eventuality of remote.

And yet that is just not something they will accept going to at all right now when we're seeing

skyrocketing record-setting cases. Monica, this has become a huge story across the country. It's

something people are talking about in Washington. Do you think this fight in Chicago is representative

of what's going on between teachers and school districts across the country? I think to a certain

extent it is. I mean, we obviously have similar parameters. We're in a surge. A lot of other places

...