May Day: Teachers’ Union Closed Schools, Civics Lesson In Student Protest

By Carole Hornsby Haynes          April 30, 2026 

In many lands for many centuries, May celebrations marked the coming of spring and the renewal of earth, crops, and life for the masses of people. In the United States, communists, socialists, and Democrats celebrate May 1. 

In the United States, May Day originated from the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, when a bomb was thrown by leftist anarchists at police during a labor rally for an 8-hour work day. Civilians and seven police officers were killed. 

Communists are plotting their next big protest since No Kings Day. A Sunrise Movement membership meeting calls for a ‘political revolution’ to “structurally change the foundations of this country.” 

Teachers’ unions are taking a highly visible role in this year’s event which targets schools and children across the nation. Protestors will march into schools armed with toolkits and talking points created by the National Education Association while pushing their leftwing nonsensical demands. 

• Stop the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration. 

• Protect and defend Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on.

• Fully fund public schools, healthcare, and housing for all.

• Stop the attacks on our communities, including policies targeting immigrants, people of color, Native people, people with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+.

 The “No Work, No School, No Shopping” protest is aimed at Trump, ICE, and businesses. 

In Chicago, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is joining in as well. CTU Vice President Jackson Potter believes that boots on the ground activism is a better civics lesson than a textbook. The CTU spent weeks trying to get school canceled entirely on May 1 so that teachers and students could attend. 

Technically school will remain open but the students and staff who participate in an afternoon protest will not be penalized by the district. This is what that really means.

One hundred schools will be provided with taxpayer funded buses and bag lunches so that students can attend the 1 p.m. May Day rally at Union Park. If Chicago Public Schools (CPS) does not have enough buses, the city will supply free transit cards for the students. The staff must work the full day but can use pesonal days or other time off to attend the protest.

Here is the zinger. The CPS agreed to designate May 1, 2028, as a teacher-directed professional development day, which means no school for students. Additionally, CPS will create a “May Day Taskforce” to create curriculum and school-based activities in honor of the day.  

May Day has always been a radical left labor movement day. Labeling it a field trip does not make it a civics lesson. It is a leftist day of brainwashing students with propaganda to recruit a Marxist student army.

Parents are fleeing public schools because of the indoctrination that has replaced academic learning. Chicago Public Schools is a struggling district. According to the latest Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 26 percent of 8th graders are proficient in reading and 22 percent are proficient in math. Read that again: 74 percent are not proficient in reading and 78 percent are not proficient in math. 

Contributing to the academic problems is chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% of more of schools days, which reached 40 percent district wide in the 2024-2025 school year. 

Given the severe problems in Chicago Public Schools, students cannot spare any further days away from instruction. It is inconceivable that the majority of the school board sided with the CTU to cancel classes for the day. They are supposed to support student academic achievement.

Parents must kick out woke school board members and replace them with those who care about their children. 

Since the Chicago Public Schools are more focused on indoctrination instead of academic learning, parents should find education alternatives if their children are to be prepared for productive lives as adults.