Unacceptable: Zero raise offer and zero solutions from LAUSD

The 140-member UTLA Bargaining Team met with LAUSD on Wednesday for the first bargaining session since June.

The district had all summer to prepare and come back to bargaining with real movement on our demands that reflect their $4.9 billion in reserves — and they failed.


LAUSD presented 21 counters [LINK], but those proposals represented minor movement, missed opportunities, or unacceptable proposals like cutting programs. After 10 bargaining sessions, LAUSD has no meaningful solutions to the issues UTLA members and parents identified in the Win Our Future platform.

  • No salary offer — insulting after six months of bargaining.
  • No commitment to invest in Special Education by addressing caseloads and more.
  • Refusal to fund Community Schools after this school year — a program that Carvalho likes to tout in the media but apparently doesn’t care about funding.
  • No concrete proposals to expand support for immigrant students and families — even after an LAUSD student was kidnapped off the streets and detained.
  • Rejection of every proposal to limit workloads and testing.
  • No meaningful commitment to BSAP.
  • No movement on our LGBTQIA+ proposals — which is especially neglectful in light of heightened right-wing attacks.
  • Refusal to contribute a penny to parental leave.  

The district is content to sit on the largest school reserves in the country while our communities are under attack, educators are overworked and underpaid, and students and schools are underresourced.

Today’s unacceptable proposals come on top of attempts by LAUSD to cut healthcare funding. LAUSD is proposing to freeze district contribution levels and make modifications to include a high-deductible plan. Increased healthcare costs would be shifted onto individual employees — every LAUSD employee could end up paying hundreds of dollars a month just to keep our health benefits. 

Now the ball’s in our court. Every member needs to be ready to escalate collective action to put pressure on LAUSD. First step up the escalation ladder: Big Red T-shirt days on August 26. After that: parent leafleting the week of September 8 and school-site picketing on September 16. The district will listen when we use our collective voice and build the power to force them to do the right thing.