CHICAGO — Teachers are tired, parents are angry, and the mayor seems to be at wits' end as Chicago Public Schools on Thursday marked the 11th day of a strike that has idled academics, sports and college prep for about 350,000 students and their families in the nation's third-largest school district.

Negotiations came to a dramatic head late Wednesday night at a "raucous," hourslong meeting of the 700-member governing body of the teachers union. Delegates voted by a slim majority to accept a tentative agreement with City Hall, but to continue striking until the mayor agrees to make up lost instructional time — essentially, the mayor says, paying them for the days they were striking.

"We really feel like important things were accomplished over the last 10 days — things that would never have been accomplished if we hadn’t walked the picket lines," Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said in a Wednesday night press conference. "Now, we feel like we’re just being punished because we had the audacity to defy the mayor.”

Sharkey said that, if the mayor could agree to make up lost school days, teachers would return to work immediately.

"If the mayor calls, and she says that we have an agreement on that, we'll be back at work tomorrow," Sharkey said.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, however, said that she does not intend to extend the school year or cut into scheduled breaks.

"I’m not compensating them for days that they were out on strike," Lightfoot said Wednesday night. "We’ve given them a historic deal, by any measure. ... At some point, the negotiations have to end."

Teachers have gone without pay throughout the strike, and, if it lasts into Friday, they could lose their health coverage, too.

Now that CTU has voted to accept the tentative agreement with City Hall, the union's more than 25,000 members will vote on the contract.

Separately, the Service Employees International Union Local 73 — which represents school staff workers such as bus aides, custodians, security officers and special education classroom assistants — announced Wednesday that it had voted to ratify its contract. The union went on strike with CTU on Oct. 17 to demand higher pay for its members, who are among the lowest-paid workers at CPS.

CTU has called on all members and supporters to demonstrate outside City Hall at 10 a.m. Thursday.

What concessions have teachers won?

Sharkey said Wednesday that while the tentative agreement has not met all CTU demands, it addresses many of the union's largest concerns, such as limiting class sizes and hiring more support staff.

“We believe that this is an agreement which will produce real, lasting benefits in our schools. It’s a contract that we can believe in," Sharkey said.

In addition to guaranteeing all CTU members a 16% raise over the life of the five-year contract, the offer invests $35 million in class size supports — up $10 million from the city's previous offer.

On staffing, the city's offer guarantees that every school will have a nurse and social worker by 2023. The offer includes 120 new "equity positions" for highest-need schools— such as counselors, restorative justice coordinators and librarians — and additional staffing in bilingual and special education.

How are parents feeling about the Chicago teachers strike?

Classes have been canceled during the strike, but school buildings have remained open and meals have been served. 

Parents expressed frustration about kids' long interruption from classroom learning, which they said also upended their kids' college applications, sports playoffs and more. CPS student-athletes whose state tournaments continued or started during the strike were not allowed to participate.

"My kids are stir crazy, it is like cabin fever without the bad weather," said Rebecca Eden, who has 14-year-old triplets in the city's northside neighborhood of Lakeview. "Every day when I tell them school isn’t in session the following day, there are groans, the loudest of which may come from me."

Life without access to CPS' special education resources has been "very challenging" for Shani Blackwell, a single mom who lives with her 8-year-old son in Austin, on the city's West Side. 

"My autistic son's anxiety is increasing, and because he has limited speech, I'm expecting his meltdowns to also increase this week. Being out of school negatively impacts my son's development and progress," Blackwell said. "I want teachers to have what they need to do their jobs well. I blame the city and the district."

For Scott Walter's 16-year-old daughter, who is in the throes of college application process, the strike "has made an already stressful situation much worse."

Like Blackwell, Walter puts the onus on City Hall.

"We have become increasingly sympathetic to the CTU position as we have seen CPS and city leadership appear to act in a manner that does not recognize the impact this ongoing strike has on students and parents," Walter said.

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At the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club on the city's South Side, which has been running a strike camp for kids, enrollment has increased from about 40 kids a day last week to nearly 70 kids a day this week, according to the club's director, Angela Habr. The camp also cut its price in half this week to accommodate more students and support parents who may have exhausted other free options.

Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input.