Results tagged “UTLA” from School Notebook

United Teachers Los Angeles members have voted to hold a "work stoppage" on May 15 in protest of recent budget cuts in Los Angeles Unified School District.

In what the union billed as biggest UTLA ballot turnout in recent history, nearly 74 percent of 26,815 ballots supported the work stoppage. UTLA represents about 48,000 teachers in the district. Votes were tallied Thursday.

"This wasn't an easy decision for our teachers to make, but we were pushed into it by a superintendent who has decided to raise class size and bring chaos to schools even though the District has the money to maintain class sizes and avoid these layoffs," UTLA President A.J. Duffy said in a union press release.. "We have to stand up for our students because the District won't. But it's not too late -- we're calling on the superintendent and the School Board to change course and make the right decision for our schools."

The action comes after the Board of Education earlier this month approved laying off thousands of new teachers, administrators and aides in response to a looming $600 million budget gap. UTLA has said the district should use federal stimulus money to avert layoffs.

Earlier this week, the board backed away from a plan to ask legislators to make it easier to fire teachers.

If you see teachers at your local South Bay school marching around the campus, waving signs and wearing various shades of mauve, fuchsia and rose, that's because today is "Pink Friday."

Public school instructors across the state are taking today to protest the potential layoff of some 25,000 teachers in California.

Since the state budget came out last month, slashing billions of dollars in education funding, school districts have been sending out preliminary layoff letters to teachers before the statewide March 15 notification deadline.

(School districts will have a better sense of their budget situations -- and the number of layoffs they'll have to actually follow through with -- after voters weigh in on budget ballot measures May 19, and after the governor issues and revised budget in June.)

The California Teachers Association, the statewide union, is leading spearheading today's rally. In a press release, CTA highlighted four of our local school districts -- Hawthorne, Lennox, El Segundo and Lawndale -- which have teachers unions that will be protesting from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Hawthorne Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue.

United Teachers Los Angeles, LAUSD's union, held a press conference this morning and a dramatic protest at Tuesday's board meeting.

Teachers at schools elsewhere across the South Bay will be taking action as well.

We'll have a compilation later today of number of layoff notices issued thus far by local school districts. More layoffs of non-teaching staff will likely be coming in the next weeks.

The first thing that struck me upon arriving at today's LAUSD board meeting -- where almost 9,000 initial layoff notices were on the agenda -- was the LA Schools Police officer with the handheld metal detector.

Every single parent, teacher, employee and journalist got the once-over with a wand before entering the board room. Wow.

Then, once the meeting began, board President Monica Garcia read a statement blaming the state budget for the votes board members were about to take.

"This year Sacramento put schools first in line on the chopping block and it will do it again in May," Garcia said.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines started his report on the cuts when United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy approached the lectern, refusing to leave.

"What is going on here is a travesty," Duffy said, speaking over Garcia, who attempted to restore order.

Teachers, waving anti-layoff signs, chanted "We won't let you cut our future" and "Shame on you."

Garcia took the meeting to an adjacent room that's usually used for closed sessions.

(Board member Julie Korenstein, a big union supporter, stood looking sadly at the chanting audience with her hand on her heart. "Don't go, Julie!" union members chanted until she left.)

Then ... a verbal skirmish broke out between a set of well-dressed district mothers and Duffy.

"Why are they disrupting this to the point that we can't hear what's going on?" one mom cried. "This is about communication. You guys are preventing communication."

Teachers then went in for another round of chanting, led by UTLA organizer and Carson Councilman Mike Gipson: "You say cut back, we say fight back!"

What theater.

I went to the press room and then the cafeteria to watch the meeting at that point, leaving a board meeting room full of protesters.

Anyway, as you probably know by now, the board voted to send out the notices. Cortines stressed that he hoped he would not have to actually lay off the number of people who would receive preliminary notices.

Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar focused her anger at Sacramento: "This is what we have been handed by the state of California," she said. "there needs to be outrage, but the outrage is misplaced. It needs to be at the state level."

Much of the board debate centered on questions about seniority and "bumping rights," perhaps prompted by today's LA Times story on the cuts.

The district faces $718 million budget shortfall over the next 17 months. Through the end of the school year, the district has a negative $140 million balance, officials said.

NOTE: I was at the meeting to report on plans for a 128-unit apartment complex that may get built on the north end of Gardena High School's campus. It was approved, and I'll have more on that later this week.

The Los Angeles school district today published its agenda for the March 10 Board of Education meeting at which staff cuts will be weighed.

The board will decide whether the following groups should get notices that they may be laid off, effective June 30:

• 1,996 elementary school teachers


• 3,477 nonpermanent certificated teachers


• 498 support staff

The board will also vote to notify all administrators, supervisors, staff lawyers (and a few other Beaudry-type groups) that they "released or reassigned" in the 2009-10 school year.

Note: The agenda was sent to media, but hasn't been published online yet. When it is, it should be here.

Los Angeles Unified announced this morning that the school district will not be cutting teaching positions midyear, a drastic and unpopular move that had been discussed earlier this month in response to state budget cuts.

"Due to the lack of clear information from Sacramento, the need for stability at schools in the second semester, and the high level of interest in a retirement incentive program, there will be no mid-year teacher layoffs," Superintendent Ramon Cortines said in a statement.

The statement said that more than 2,000 certificated employees are interested in early retirement, which would help the district financially.

The Board of Education voted last week 4-2 (with Harbor Area/South Bay rep Richard Vladovic dissenting) to approve firing up to 2,600 nonpermanent teachers and 2,000 substitute teachers -- most of them in elementary schools.*

At the time, Cortines said he was seeking alternatives to the cuts, which would have been based on seniority.

The district has already cut more than $400 million from its budget this year, and is looking to cut another $400 million now, depending on what happens in Sacramento.

United Teachers Los Angeles had vowed to fight the layoffs, and the union has planned a march in downtown L.A. next week to protest state and local budget cuts.

*Numbers from UTLA

"We're going to be down at the board next week en masse."

That's what columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson said he's hearing from the African American constituency over the potential ouster/buy-out of Los Angeles Unified Superintendent David Brewer, who is black.

He spoke on an informative segment of KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?" tonight, saying there is no doubt the school district will see some kind of backlash from black residents if Brewer is forced out.

Also on the program was Connie Rice, head of the district's Bond Oversight Committee. She criticized the Board of Education for micromanaging and compared the state of the district to that of King/Drew Medical Center before its collapse.

The district "is mainly a bureaucracy and a jobs engine, just like King/Drew became," Rice said.

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teacher Los Angeles, said Brewer seemed to have his heart in the right place but wasn't up to guiding such a trouble ship. (He echoed Rice's thoughts on this.)

The district "needs somebody like Ray Cortines -- or Ray Cortines," he said of the senior deputy superintendent who came on board in April.

Anyway, the whole program is definitely worth a listen. It's about 20 minutes. Go to the main page to listen.