CPS parent’s death was not from COVID-19, despite CTU’s claim

CHICAGO — As COVID-19 cases rose in the fall of 2021 and the Chicago Teachers Union fought for enhanced safety protocols and testing, the union used the death of a 32-year-old Jensen Elementary parent as an example of the danger posed by COVID-19 in the city’s schools. 

However, the Cook County Medical Examiner now says that parent died of drinking too much alcohol and not COVID-19.

Two Jensen Elementary parents died within days of each other in September, prompting the union to hold a rally at the school at 3030 W. Harrison Street.   

“Local School Council convenes ‘Speak-Out for Safety’ after two school mothers die of Covid” CTU declared in a press release in September 2021. 

However, the medical examiner now lists “chronic ethanolism” as the 32-year-old mother’s cause of death and she did not have COVID-19. WGN News is not naming the woman because she is not a public figure and her family did not take part in the Chicago Teachers Union event. 

Relatives of a second Jensen Elementary parent who died, 44-year-old Shenitha Curry, spoke at the event after they said she died of cardiac arrest following a positive test for COVID-19 the previous week.

“Both mothers had children sent home from quarantined Jensen classrooms,” the teachers union said at the time.  

A spokesperson for the Chicago Teachers Union did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the medical examiner’s newly released findings.