Some members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted Monday in favor of a tentative agreement with the Chicago Public Schools on their next contract — something that they have been negotiating for almost a year.

The union announced on social media that on Monday evening, its Big Bargaining Team and executive board voted in favor of the agreement. The union's House of Delegates is set to take the next vote on the agreement on Wednesday, and the full union membership votes after that.

The Big Bargaining Team is a smaller group of CTU members who are able to look over a contract and decide if the deal is worth taking.

Since talks started in the fall of last year, the union has been pushing for a laundry list of items — while CPS kept insisting the money to fund it all just does not exist.

In an announcement Monday night, the CTU called the tentative agreement "historic."

"It included smaller class sizes, a better elementary school day, special education, and a non-biased REACH evaluation," said CTU Big Bargaining Team member Quintella Bounds.

Meanwhile, as far as teacher raises, CTU members will get 4% raises in the first year and then up to 5% in the next three. CPS said this will be the largest raise for teachers in 13 years.

However, it is a rate lower than the starting demand from the CTU.

"There are teachers waiting to get their retro pay that they haven't received, or they're waiting to receive a new contract that gets settled," said Reema Amin, a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago.

In terms of class sizes, the CTU was able to lower the threshold at every level — and limit the number of students to a maximum depending on the grade.

The maximums are:

• 25 students for kindergarten
• 28 students for grades 1 to 3
• 30 students for grades 4 to 8
• Between 29 and 31 students in grades 9 to 12

"We have language that is going to support our veteran educators, as well as our [paraprofessionals and school-related personnel], in terms of pay and benefits," said CTU Big Bargaining Team member Vicki Kurzydlo.

Teachers also wanted more prep time. Elementary teachers currently get 60 minutes of prep every day, and under the proposals in the agreement, they will get an extra 10 minutes for a total of 70.

Yet teachers fought for much more prep time originally.

Resources were another sticking point. The CTU insisted every school deserved a librarian, and the agreement guarantees 90 new librarian positions over the next three years — adding about 30 each year.

Amin earlier said there could also be provisions in the agreement to protect students and teachers from policy changes at the federal level.

"What's the actual language in the contract that would speak to the issues the federal government is talking about?" she said. "You know, an example is protections for LGBTQ+ students."

The union had also called for adjustments to teachers' evaluations after criticism that Black teachers were disproportionately negatively affected.

As far as the funds for the deal, details have not yet been released.

The CTU will hold a news conference on the deal Tuesday morning.