CHICAGO >> For the first time in over a decade, Chicago’s public school teachers have a new contract without a strike or threat of a walkout. The four-year agreement includes pay hikes, hiring more teachers and class size limits.

While negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and the district didn’t escalate this time, there was unprecedented turmoil surrounding the unusual yearlong talks.

The drama included the school superintendent’s firing, the entire board resigning and historic elections that tested the union’s power.

Now, Chicago faces uncertainty with Trump administration education cuts and looming questions about how the nation’s fourth-largest school district will pay for the contract.

While all parties are celebrating the agreement now, there’s been no shortage of turbulence.

Perhaps the main reason negotiations didn’t devolve into a strike, as was the case in 2019 and 2012, was union ally Mayor Brandon Johnson. A former teacher and CTU organizer, the union helped elect him in 2023.

He spent months trying to oust Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, an appointee of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, in a public spat.

“All of that chaos and turmoil there clearly dragged down the bargaining and probably shut it down for a fair amount of time,” said Robert Bruno, a University of Illinois professor of labor and employment relations.

Johnson wanted a $300 million loan to cover the new contract and a pension payment, which Martinez and the board rejected as fiscally irresponsible. District officials and good government groups argue that borrowing would incur high interest rates, but Johnson has pushed back, saying rates are “relatively” low.

In October, the board resigned in protest.

The next month, the city held its first school elections. The transitional board — a mix of union-backed candidates, charter school supporters and independents — includes mayoral appointees until it’s fully elected in 2027.

In December, the board moved to fire Martinez, although he’ll remain until June. At one point, Martinez accused new members of meeting privately with the union and won a judge’s restraining order.

The union started contract talks last year with more than 700 requests, a record for the almost 30,000-member union.

Union leaders say their goal is always equality in the segregated city. Roughly 70% of the 325,000 students in the district are low-income and more than 80% are Black or Latino.

But district officials said those lofty requests would have cost over $10 billion. The district’s annual budget is roughly $10 billion.The new agreement’s price tag is about $1.5 billion.

“We stayed true to our values,” Martinez said after the deal was announced. “We succeeded in keeping the best interest of our students always at the center.”

Both sides touted transparency. For the first time, some bargaining sessions were publicly livestreamed.

It was also the first time in nearly three decades the union was allowed to bargain on issues like class size. In 1995, a Republican-led Illinois legislature passed a law limiting collective bargaining rights largely to pay and benefits. Democratic leaders changed that in 2021.

CTU President Stacy Davis Gates celebrated the contract as a win that protects students, particularly those vulnerable under Donald Trump’s presidency.

“It’s big, it’s complex and it is certainly a step in the right direction,” she said.