LA teachers poised to end strike https://t.co/LgUBcbk50Q
— POLITICO (@politico) January 23, 2019
Los Angeles Unified is the second largest school district in the United States (New York is the largest). A week ago Monday, the 31,000 teachers and teaching support staff employed by LAUSD went on strike for the first time in 30 years. The main issues were smaller class sizes, pay increase and school resources, including librarians and nurses. (Just for reference, the district was proposing to take classes that were already at 45 students and raise them to 49.) Most of our libraries were closed or open only part time and staffed by a parent volunteer. The fight to improve conditions has been going on for years. The threat of strike has been active since 2017. The district offered very little in the way of the teachers demands, banking on the teachers refusing to abandon their classrooms. Finally, the United Teacher Los Angeles, headed by Alex Caputo-Pearl, called the district’s bluff and walked out. Yesterday morning, a deal was ratified by both sides and teachers returned to their classrooms.
About half a million students and 30,000 teachers will reunite Wednesday.
After nearly two years of talks, a strike that sent tens of thousands to the streets and intense last-minute marathon bargaining brokered by LA’s mayor, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the union representing its teachers tentatively agreed on a deal to end the district’s first teacher walkout in 30 years.
The Board of Education was set to vote on the three-year deal next week.
(Alex) Caputo Pearl said the tentative agreement addressed the union’s core issues.“We have seen over the last week something pretty amazing happen,” Caputo-Pearl said. “We went on strike in one of the largest strikes the United States has seen in decades. And the creativity and innovation and passion and love and emotion of our members was out on the street, in the communities, in the parks for everyone to see.”
The deal includes a 6 percent pay raise for teachers, with 3 percent retroactive to the 2017-18 school year and another 3 percent retroactive to July 1, 2018. It also includes provisions for providing a full-time nurse at all schools, along with a teacher-librarian. The proposal also calls for the hiring of 17 counselors by October.
The proposal also outlines a phased-in reduction of class sizes over the next three school years, with additional reductions for “high needs” campuses.
Caputo-Pearl said the issue of class size is a key element of the pact. He said the district agreed to eliminate contract language he dubbed an “escape clause” that would allow the district to increases class sizes in the future.
A main thrust of the union’s strike was a call for increases in the number of nurses, counselors and librarians at campuses. According to the district, the proposed agreement’s provisions for reducing class sizes and hiring nurses, librarians and counselors will cost an estimated $175 million from 2019-21, and $228 million for 2021-22.
The strike, which lasted eight days in total, cost the district $125 million because of the amount of parents that kept their kids home from school ( the district is paid based on attendance.) The district and UTLA negotiated all weekend, with the final all-nighter culminating in a tentative deal being singed at 6:15 AM Tuesday morning. I believe the district was counting on parents not supporting the strike because of the chaos it would bring to our lives and in the end, that’s where they lost. A huge number of parents supported the strike fully. It’s probably obvious that I sided with UTLA on this. That’s not to say I don’t respect LAUSD or that I don’t understand the district’s challenges. And I fully acknowledge that UTLA incorporated as much propaganda as the district throughout. However, I feel UTLA acted in our students best interest. And I think a power move was necessary to get the district to budge.
Many, many people from other cities and states posted their support for the LA Strike. It was amazing.
But this is LA, so of course the whole strike read like a screenplay. SCENE: The strike started during a very rare LA downpour that lasted three days. Thousands of red-wearing strikers stormed City Hall and District headquarters as the clouds opened up. Children sang to the striking teachers from balconies, reached out just to touch their beloved teachers. Celebrities threw their support to the teachers. And on the day negotiations resumed between the leaders, the sun came out, bringing with it blue skies. The protesters danced, drums were beat. Then, in the distance, a fire engine’s siren rings out. Following behind it are countless Los Angeles Firemen marching in solidarity with the teachers. The mayor steps in, bargaining continues round the clock. Finally, in the early morning hours, a deal is struck. And when he vote takes place applause, cheers and tears explode from the crowd. END SCENE
Seriously, talk about who got snubbed for Oscar nominations…
The mood was intense: Parents, students, UTLA members and supporters protest in front of School Board President Monica Garcia's El Sereno home in Los Angeles today. #LAUSDstrike #UTLAstrike pic.twitter.com/eWconob2gQ
— Marcus Yam 火 (@yamphoto) January 17, 2019
This is the power of public education when parents, students, and educators join forces. This is the power of unity. #WeAreLA #UTLAstrong #Red4Ed pic.twitter.com/7fb74YVpv1
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 14, 2019
"Very powerful picture taken by one of the teachers at my school. This student just wanted to feel connected to us and hold the teacher's hand." – LA Teacher #LAUSDStrike #UTLAStrong #WeAreLA pic.twitter.com/urTmiJKUnU
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 19, 2019
When you walk back into schools tomorrow, do it proudly! "Together we said we deserve better, our students deserve better. We must keep our expectations high and not let go of this moment, because the next struggle is right around the corner." #UTLAStrong https://t.co/ljH9LwEhCx pic.twitter.com/CPReBskuVS
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 23, 2019
Check out this #PublicEdDanceChallenge. Students from Venice are challenging all of Los Angeles to learn these steps and show up on picket lines at your local neighborhood school. #WeAreLA #LAUSDStrike #UTLAStrong pic.twitter.com/qQcHXr8s7H
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 15, 2019
It’s official, the firefighters have joined the teachers. #UTLAStrong #LAUSDStrong pic.twitter.com/uhv40wI6bD
— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 22, 2019
Photo credit: Twitter
Good for the teachers. I can only imagine (as a retired teacher) what it would be like to have 45 students in a class. You cannot possibly be able to interact with each student each day with that many students. As a former high school teacher, multiply that by the number of classes you have a day, the grading alone would be overwhelming much less dealing with discipline and all the other things you have to deal with on a daily basis. Also it was good to see all, especially the parents, who supported the teachers.
Seriously that’s insane. My son just started kindergarten this year and I think there are around 23 kids in his class and it feel like total chaos when I’m there. I can’t imagine trying to get anything accomplished with almost double that.
California has a 76 billion dollar education budget funded by property taxes, federal funds and marijuana taxes. There is zero reason why they can’t properly fund education, pay teachers, provide supplies and appropriate class sizes. They rank insanely low for their quality of education 40th in the nation and 50th for overall educational attainment.
There needs to be more accountability for how all of this money is being spent in the first place so teachers are not continually having to beg for appropriate bare minimum conditions.
I am on a small school board in California. We would love to pay for everything that our teachers want in terms of of benefits and pay. But with increased costs we’re seeing, it makes it difficult.
I am also a teacher. I completely support LAUSD. And in our district we went to impasse before solving our contract issues. Thankfully we settled, before striking, but it was definitely divisive as I live as small blue dot in a red district with lots of students regurgitating crap from their parents about what teachers make. Different district than the one I am on the board on as conflict of interest.
In addition, school districts are having to pay back Strs/Pers pensions. We never lost that money in the first place. Our small school district has about a 10 million dollar budget. We have three schools and about 1400 students. We’re small and rural. By the time our percentage payments max out, we’ll be paying almost a million dollars a year back into the retirement system. So our budget is instantly reduced.
This year alone because of the butthead in chief, we lost Title I funding, which now has to come out of out budget for programs we already have in place. We can’t just stop doing outreach and intervention programs. We’re paying more for special ed services that we didn’t use to have to pay.
What we should always be talking about is why one of the biggest unions in the state, of which I am apart of isn’t lobbying at the table along side the school boards association to raise funding amounts for Preschool through 12 education.
I’d also like to add you had the statistic that the quality of education 40th in the nation. Per pupil funding in the state of California is 42nd in the nation. California needs to spend more on per pupil education.
Lawmakers consider the funding for california to be the ceiling of what they spend. It should be the floor.
My aunt was a teacher for the LAUSD for over 30 years. Before she retired five years ago, she told me that teachers in her school were livid over a report that LAUSD elected officials and their staff AND people in managerial positions would have lunch Monday through Friday at fancy restaurants OR have lunch catered in by high-end catering companies, all paid for out of the LAUSD budget. Yes, LA teachers have had to buy their own school supplies (paper, pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, etc) for years, go without staff nurses and school librarians, and deal with 30-40 students in their classes, but these asshats were spending school money on their gourmet lunches. When higher-ups were finally prevented from doing this, they bitched and moaned that it was “unfair” and “punative.”
This strike and its resolution are looooong overdue. There will probably be more abuses of the school district’s budget, but at least teachers and staff know the residents of Los Angeles will have their backs.
Congrats to UTLA! Hecate, thank you for explaining what happened and why parenta like you supported UTLA.
“Teachers are among the last remaining heroes of our culture”— Richard Dreyfuss
Dreyfruss is so right!
I’m so happy for them. Teaching is one of the most thankless, underpaid professions out there, and there’s just not enough support. As soon as strikes happen government tends to do everything in their power to turn the parents against teachers, and it’s disgusting. Nova Scotia last year had a horrible go – the first teachers strike in 122 years of the teachers union history. The government spread a LOT of misinformation and pitted the parents against the teachers in such a ridiculous way. Our NS education minister grew up in my town. He played a lot of lip service to our teachers, telling them he’d take care of them while towing the party line on every single turn. It’s also laughable that he’s an education minister in the first place because he has less education than any teacher on their first day of the job. They were forced back to work on a contract after going without one for years.
Unfortunately there’s a huge drive to destroy unions out there, and it seems to only be gaining traction. Cheers to the teachers of LA – and to any Celebitchy who’s out in the teaching world. You do a job that not many people could do, but unfortunately a lot of people seem to think they could do better.
We must live in the same area of NS. Thank you for that comment. I’m a teacher and it was beyond frustrating to read the propaganda that our government spread last year. Worse than that was being on the receiving end of unjust criticism and accusations from parents and strangers who did not understand the issues or what our union was trying to accomplish. It was so disheartening to be so viciously unappreciated by the parents of the students we spend so much of our time with educating and nurturing. I have had several colleagues change professions this year or are in the midst of exploring a career change as a direct result. So again, thank you for your kind and uplifting comment.
I used to live in Halifax and had several teacher friends – the stories they would tell us about their experiences were pretty awful 🙁
Not to worry, Trump’s big tax cuts for the rich will be trickling down…any day now.
People often gripe that teachers get lots if time off but that’s not always the case. My mom and sister are teachers and the school requires them to work in the summer on curriculum. Meanwhile kids literally threaten to kick their ass and the admin does nothing telling them they’re not listening to their students enough. They are not paid for work they do at home and do not have their own classrooms, supposed to carry supplies to different rooms every period. Teaching sounds awful.
People also don’t realize that teachers are on a 10 month contract. Technically we are not paid for summer months. Most teachers simply choose to have their 10 month salary divided in 12 months. And still, they work over the summer on curricula. Plus many get jobs in the summer to shore up the teacher’s salary.
Once, teachers were treated like professionals. Now, we are treated like we are clueless. I can’t imagine if we did that to lawyers or doctors.
Thank you for covering this! Solidarity works.
And this is exactly why unions are an absolutely necessary part of any industry. I didn’t think so when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I recognize how much their decline has paralleled the wage stagnation. There is power in numbers.
This made me cry. In a time when it feels like selfishness and division are at an all time high, we can and we must continue to fight for the future and for the collective good. Humans are alright sometimes.
Good! For! Them!
It makes me rage to see education budgets be the first things cut in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.
As a nod to the AOC article, this is why we can’t have 60 year old white men deciding every aspect of our budget and laws. Chris Brownback is 62 years old. You think he gives a crap about kindergarten teachers? When was the last time he had a kindergartner? Especially one in a public school with 44 other kids. Never. He can represent the interests of other churchy, old, rich, white dudes, but let’s get a little diversity to care about the other stuff.
I used to work in education until very recently, and that’s with a big emphasis on the used to: I left because I couldn’t take innocent kids (I taught 16-19 year olds) and their hardworking teachers paying the price for every budget cut, cut back, round of firings, and new ‘get educated for cheap’ scheme that came along. It sounds hyperbolic, but it honestly was a lot of toffs and higher ups making decisions on situations that they’d never been in, and on which they’d never see the ramifications, and then it was a lot of good people trying to make the best out of the mess. Admittedly I am UK based so it was a little different, but clearly some same principles apply.
I’m shocked that they had 45 kids in a class though – 45 to one teacher?! That’s double what it should be, and my fellow teachers and I all noted the correlation between larger class sizes and worse behaviour/output/control, and dreaded any class that went above 20 – I can’t imagine how exhausted those teachers must have been with those classes. This outcome is brilliant, and I absolutely the outpouring of support and success that these teachers have achieved
Hey, we could be the same person! I left teaching eight months ago. It was stressful and I had a weak union, so things were just getting worse.
You’re right, classes over 20 are stressful and I dreaded teaching them. 45 is completely absurd; there is no way those classes were functional. That reason alone is worth those teachers going on strike.
I will support education and teachers until the day I die, but I’m not sure I will ever return to teaching. It is an exhausting and generally thankless profession. (At least when you work with high schoolers…) God bless those teachers and community member s for taking a stand.
Thanks for this Hecate. I am an LAUSD educator and I was on strike. It was challenging in that it was physically and mentally draining. I will say that the positive energy and support from everyone is what kept us going. I’m extremely grateful for the solidarity.
I’m happy with the outcome and hope that this is the beginning in bringing reform and change to public education. Our kids deserve it.
I was a teacher in NYC for 8 years. Yes, it was rewarding in many ways but I’m not going to mince words, It’s a difficult job. I left and went back to school to change careers because it was not for me. As a result, I’ve always volunteered in my kids’ classrooms and donated whatever the teachers need, because I know how hard they work and how valuable they are in our lives. A great teacher is worth her/his weight in gold. They should be paid double or even triple what they get. We should laid them. Our entire foundation rests on our education. Without excellent teaching we wouldn’t have doctors, lawyers, scientists, researchers, lawmakers etc. I owe everything to my parents and my wonderful teachers. I have three cousins who have been teaching for decades and they amaze me with their dedication. Bottom line these teachers were striking for more salary ( which they deserve) but also for better outcomes for their students. Class size matters. Nurses and librarians in every school matters. Bravo to them.
I left teaching eight months ago and don’t know that I will ever return. I taught for four years. It is a tough and often thankless job. My first year, I taught four preps, only one of which had a textboook. The rest of my classes had nothing. No materials, no curriculum, nada. I had to write or buy it all.
There is so much invisible work that goes into teaching, and when you add the stress of increasing class sizes, disappearing school nurses, zero mental health support for kids… teachers end up being a curriculum writer, a therapist, and a nurse, all while trying to teach. Good on these teachers for striking. In their positions, I would have given up far sooner, I’m sure.
Thanks for covering this from one LAUSD parent to another. I think UTLA negotiated a fair deal. The class size reduction is HUGE along with getting rid of section 1.5 of the contract (which said the District could raise class sizes arbitrarily based on ’emergency situations’, whatever that is) So 39 will now be the cap at the high school level (I have a high schooler) which is wonderful. Hoping this means that the two classes he is in now get split into two separate classes as they are overcrowded with not enough desks for the kids.
ALSO, and this is huge, 50 PERCENT REDUCTION IN STANDARDIZED TESTING! A group will get together with recommendations on what to cut to go in effect next year!! JOY AND HAPPINESS! Too many of these tests during the year and they interrupt real learning!
I, however, am dismayed by the number of Facebook friends in this Parents Supporting Teachers group I joined who are not happy with the deal. Apparently, they have never been part of a union or negotiations. A number of them think the teachers should go back on strike in order to get EVERYTHING they asked for. That’s not how it works people!! I kind of think this is a symptom of what is wrong in the ‘larger America’ right now, especially with this Trump Shutdown. He is ‘my way or the highway’ and doesn’t seem to understand how negotiating works. You just can’t get everything you want. Frustrating on many levels.
Overall, I am pleased and thankful to everyone who was on the picket lines daily, especially in the rain! I was able to take last Friday off though and my son and I attended the Rally downtown. An incredible experience and my son was truly touched by how many people were there and fighting for the students, like him!
Christine, I’m also in that Facebook group and I couldn’t believe all the negativity. I think it was a good deal, not perfect but that’s ok. I understand that in negotiations, it’s impossible to get everything you want. I’m just glad it’s over and I’m back at work 🎉
Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs out there. So many teacher friends tell me about having to purchase so many of their classroom supplies, being underpaid, being understaffed… and a lot of the times it’s a thankless job. Well, I’m saying “Thank You” to all those amazing teachers out there. Thank you for educating my kids under not always the best of circumstances.