After four weeks, LAUSD still did not have a response to virtually any of our proposals. They did agree to end the practice of not giving salary point credits for point projects completed in situations where the district pays the tuition or reimburses the costs of participation, but we hammered them on the urgency of reaching agreement on our full package of proposals.
We had previously asked for a response to our salary and class size proposals at this session, but that didn’t happen. Six teachers on the bargaining team shared personal stories about how being drastically underpaid by LAUSD is making it impossible to live almost anywhere in LA, let alone in the communities where they work. Members shared the challenges of being new parents, carrying tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, not being able to help their kids pay for college, having to commute daily from the Inland Empire because of housing costs, being pushed out of an apartment by rent increases and having to move out of the county. Yet, LAUSD still did not commit to responding next week.
We presented our proposal on Master Plan, with dual language educators presenting the details. The presentation emphasized recruiting and retaining educators capable of providing the programs that our linguistically diverse students have a right to. These educators deserve fair compensation, as do teachers who provide targeted language instruction in dual language classes, including ASL and ELA teacher partners in dual language classrooms. Dual language teachers are currently required to create language curriculum on their own time, which also deserves compensation. Compensation for language-certified HHS providers is also included in this proposal.
LAUSD is still insisting on an extended school year, but they still can’t tell us what those days will be used for or really anything about how the accelerated days will work. We reiterated our position that the school calendar shouldn’t be extended and that the district’s proposed extension is about Carvalho getting headlines, not helping students succeed. One member shared that since administrators at her school don’t know what they are supposed to do on the accelerated days, they’re discussing what movie to show and whether or not they can do PE all day.
