CHICAGO—Parents here scrambled Monday to find activities and day care for their children after learning late Sunday that teachers would be in picket lines instead of classrooms.

The contract negotiations' herky-jerky nature and the late hour of the decision, which came at nearly 10:30 p.m., left many parents little time to figure out what to do with children who had only been in school a week.

The city opened about 140 of its 681 schools to students for breakfast, lunch and basic activities. The centers, open from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., were staffed by nonunion district employees. Local community groups and churches also opened their doors for students displaced by the strike. Some museums and other businesses offered free activities.

Still, a lot of moms and dads arrived late to work Monday, called in sick or arranged impromptu "bring your child to work" days.

Jazmin Curiel, 27 years old, was waiting for a bus Monday at about 10 a.m. in the Pilsen neighborhood, to take her 5-year-old son, Jayden, to day care. A community organizer for restaurant workers, she normally gets to work at 9 a.m. but had to stay with Jayden until the day care opened. "Jayden will have to go to the baby sitter for longer," she said. "It can be hard for parents, but we also get a lot out of our teachers."

Maria Barrera, 40, who has two children in the school system, was in an OK position Monday because she wasn't scheduled to work. But she wasn't sure what she would do with her children Tuesday, when she had a 9 a.m. shift at a bakery in Chicago's southwest corner.

"I guess I'll take them to work with me," she said, adding that she had cleared it with her boss but worried it would be a difficult day.

Parental support was split between Mayor Rahm Emanuel—who has pushed through an extended school day and is trying to institute tougher teacher evaluations—and the teachers who want more job protection and smaller class sizes. Many parents expressed sympathy for the difficulty of teachers' jobs, while others suggested the teachers were asking for too much.

In the Gage Park neighborhood on the city's west side, where many first-generation Mexican-American families live, several mothers said their sympathies were with the teachers.

"They should get more money because the kids talk too much, and the teachers have to teach additional time," said Guadalupe Quintana, a mother of six. "They need the money."

"They work hard," Syreeta Johnson said, of her daughter's second-grade teachers. "They deserve what they're asking for."

Raul Galvin, 54, who lives on the south side and whose son is in the fifth grade, said he didn't support the strike. "They say it is not about money," he said, but he thought the teachers were getting substantial pay increases. Plus, he added "the taxes are way high for the school and park districts."

The city's only demographic that seemed of a single mind about the strike were the students, who appeared to be enjoying the warm, late-summer day, mostly worry-free.

Seventh-grader Omar Espinosa, 13, accompanied his mother on a trip to the doctor's office, then planned to hang out at home. He said he supported the teachers, but was afraid of getting behind in core subjects like math and social studies. "I've already done my homework from the weekend," he said. "I'm going to try to relax for a bit."

Write to Caroline Porter at and Douglas Belkinat