More than 30,000 Los Angeles teachers and school staff are poised to go on strike on Thursday after nearly two years of failed contract negotiations between the United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The teachers have been pressing for smaller class sizes, more support staff, and a raise. “We want an agreement that works for our kids—that gets to a place where we're not dealing with 50 kids in a classroom, where we're not dealing with 40% of our schools having a nurse for only one day a week,” said union president Alex Caputo-Pearl.
The two sides are negotiating down to the wire, with both the teachers and the district offering some concessions on Monday, and another bargaining session Wednesday.
California has the highest percentage of students learning English in the country, report Jennifer Medina and Dana Goldstein for the New York Times, while “School spending levels, about $11,000 per student in 2016, are far below those in other blue bastions; for example, California spends about half as much as New York on the average child.” Meanwhile, California has been funneling resources to charter schools that often leave the most challenging students in public schools and are an ongoing cause of waste and fraud. The union says the district has $1.86 billion in reserves, while the school district contends that those reserves will be depleted by the next round of budgeting.
District officials say schools will be open even if the teachers strike, with administrators and substitute teachers stepping in. However, the number of administrators and subs available is a fraction of the number of planned strikers.