TEACHERS in the US city of Chicago were subjected to a “virtual lockout” on Wednesday after they voted to stay away from classrooms due to coronavirus safety concerns.

City officials cancelled classes for a second straight day today, but were also accused of locking public school teachers out of online teaching platforms after the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted to resume remote learning.

The union’s decision came in the face of the rapid spread of the omicron variant of Covid-19.

Almost three-quarters of union members voted in favour of a resolution which also accused the city’s board of education of withholding data on the spread of the virus and of ditching agreed health and safety procedures.

An agreement made between the union and the school district last year included switching to remote learning if the city’s positivity rate — the proportion of tests that come back positive — rose above 15 per cent.

As of today, the city’s positivity rate was 23 per cent, up more than 14 per cent on the week prior. 

“To be clear, educators of this city want to be in buildings with their students,” a CTU statement said.

“We believe that classrooms are where our children should be. But as results tonight show, Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot and her CPS [Chicago Public Schools] team have yet to provide safety for the overwhelming majority of schools.”

CPS chief executive Pedro Martinez sought to blame teachers for the situation, accusing them of refusing to report to work.

“We want our children back in their classroom as soon as possible,” he said in a letter to parents, adding that he was working with the union to address teachers’ concerns.

But a number of educators reported that they had been blocked from accessing online learning platform Google Classroom, preventing them from holding virtual lessons with their pupils.

“Mayor Lightfoot has started locking Chicago public school teachers and staff out of their Google classrooms,” the CTU said in a Twitter post, using the hashtag #LoriLockout.

Ms Lightfoot has accused the union of “fearmongering and hysteria.”