The 140-member UTLA Bargaining Team met with LAUSD on Monday, March 24, over Zoom for the fourth bargaining session, following Session 1, Session 2, and Session 3. 

LAUSD gave us eight proposals (linked below). With the exception of Special Education Inclusion, none of their proposals even begin to address the critical issues that UTLA members have brought forward in our Win the Future Platform.

Instead of addressing the staffing, resource, and financial needs of our schools, LAUSD’s proposals focused on contract language cleanup and asserting that educators’ own auto insurance should cover the liability for car accidents when transporting students! 

We pushed LAUSD on our proposal for school closures during natural disasters.  While they have given us a counterproposal, it falls far short of what we need in the times we are now living in. The UTLA Bargaining Team reminded the district of the chaos, uncertainty, and trauma that staff and students endured (and continue to endure) from the fires. We will inevitably have more of these disasters. We are proposing solutions to help manage the chaos: clarity on MSND days for impacted staff, proactive plans for emergencies, care centers, and more. But, LAUSD seems intent on leaving these questions open — which will only lead to more chaos and trauma.   

While their proposal on Special Education Inclusion was woefully inefficient, we do appreciate that LAUSD has agreed to engage on this issue early in negotiations — it has been too low on the priority list for too long. However, it’s disconcerting that LAUSD thinks that inclusion will work without making the necessary investments for it to succeed. The district proposal says nothing about class-size caps, how schools currently doing inclusion can readjust and develop a plan that involves interest holders, or how to support educators or schools who are increasing or plan to increase Inclusive Practices.

With $6.4 billion in reserves, LAUSD has the resources to make the Win Our Future platform a reality — and we know from our collective experience that it will take our organized power to force LAUSD to move on salary, staffing, workload, and other critical demands.

We meet with LAUSD again next week on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.