The 85-member UTLA Expanded Bargaining team met with the district August 25 for another frustrating session. The district finally presented a package of counterproposals — but they were mostly non-economic proposals and they were woefully insufficient. Their proposals included an additional hour of work on campus for classroom teachers on Mondays and Thursdays and a refusal to reduce Special Education class sizes and caseloads. The district also refused to bargain over many of our proposals, including stronger regulation of charter co-locations, greater investments in Community Schools and Black Student Achievement Plan schools, a new autonomous schools article, stopping the overcriminalization of students, making our schools environmentally sustainable, and language to address issues of equity for our students. The district rejected every transformative proposal in our package of demands, yet didn’t provide even one proposal of their own, reflecting their lack of concern and understanding of what educators, students, and communities need. We made a counterproposal on the calendar in response to Carvalho’s unilateral extension of the school year. In contrast to the district’s bad faith bargaining, we made a good faith attempt at compromise by proposing that one voluntary day for students and educators be added to the end of the year and proposing areas where the district could and should spend the $91 million they would save by dropping the other 3 voluntary days from the calendar. We don’t expect the district to agree to our proposal because they never intended to bargain in the first place, which is why members have overwhelmingly voted for C-Basis members to boycott the voluntary day and A, B, and E-Basis members to engage parents on October 19. The district said it will bring a comprehensive package of economic counterproposals to our next session on September 8, including a response to our salary, class size, and staffing demands.
