The 140-member UTLA Bargaining Team met with LAUSD tonight, April 1, over Zoom for the fifth bargaining session. 

For a significant portion of the session, UTLA asked why LAUSD objected to so many of UTLA’s reasonable proposals that are important to educators, such as district procedures for responding to school-based traumatic events. 

LAUSD presented five counterproposals, including reiterating bad proposals that would undermine chapter chairs’ ability to conduct union business.

The UTLA team rejected a district proposal that would have brought greater uncertainty to the discipline process for employees and accepted some clean-up language on summer/winter intervention and extended learning program sessions. We think we are close on protecting planning time during PD from top-down mandates.

Five sessions in, LAUSD still has not presented any substantive proposals on urgent issues deeply felt by educators and parents, like salary, workload, class size, staffing, immigration rights, and more. UTLA presented our full package of demands in Sessions 1 and 2. 

Now, with Trump-Musk trying to dismantle the Department of Education and their most recent threat to cut federal funding to schools that do not eliminate all programs they deem as “unlawful” for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s even more clear that our contract demands directly resist their agenda.

We know that nothing LAUSD is doing is “unlawful,” and we will not back down from teaching accurate history and supporting marginalized communities in our schools.

We also know that what happens at the bargaining table is shaped by the power we build beyond it. While billionaires are trying to dismantle public education and corporate interests are pushing a message of austerity, this is the moment to stand together with the community.

The next bargaining session is April 28.