Anthony Principal

For the past month your local UTLA leadership has been in negotiations with the Local District 3 office (LD3) regarding the hiring process for our new principal. In the previous hiring process a committee of teachers, parents, students, staff, and a UTLA rep interviewed candidates and made final recommendation to the LD3 Superintendent. UTLA wanted to ensure that the same process we have used in the last hire was honored and repeated this time.

Ideally we want more power than just a recommendation and we would like for the committee to be more than only 5 people from the school site. This is the idea behind the waiver that we submitted and are waiting to hear back about. But until we get approved for such a process we needed to continue to fight for a more inclusive procedure instead of one where we have no say at all and the LD3 Superintendent makes the final decision.

After weeks of back and forth conversations the local UTLA chapter and LD3 finally reached an agreement to put in place an interview committee that would be made up of members from both School Site Council (SSC) and School Based Management (SBM). We also wanted to make sure that those serving on the committee represented all 3 tracks. The final members of the hiring committee and the review of interview questions were decided on at a local UTLA chapter steering committee meeting. The Interview Committee members were: Ms. Reyna Paredes (SBM Parent), Eldrick Bone (SBM Student A Track President), Ms. L. Conley (SBM B-Track Teacher), Ms. L Covington (SSC C-Track Teacher), Ms. F. Perez (SSC UTLA Co-Chair) and 2 school directors from LD3 including Susan Allen.

We met for two days and interviewed 4 candidates: Bob De Pietro (AP Marshall HS), Roberta Mailman (SIF LAUSD), John Plevack (AP SSS Byrd MS), and Elena Anthony (AP LAHS). At 5:49pm Friday May 25th the interview committee recommended Ms. Elena Anthony for hire to LD3. Saturday afternoon Susan Allen made a phone call to both Ms. Anthony and Ms. Perez acknowledging the official hire of Ms. Anthony as our new Principal for next year.

The local UTLA leadership would like to thank all the members of the interview committee for their time and also those members who attended the last 2 UTLA meetings to give their input on the process.

SPACE MEMO

Dear All Faculty and Staff,

This week our local UTLA chapter held two lunch meetings to discuss concerns regarding the full implementation of SLCs with the addition of “contiguous space” (whereby each SLC has a designated physical space in the school/classrooms, offices, outdoor space). Several specific areas of attention were focused on throughout the discussion and they include: equity, process, timing, and need. As your representative I sat in on two separate meetings and did my best to properly represent all of our voices of excitement, frustration, indecision, and most important the need for more information and participation. At this time I would like to share with you a few victories that I think we can claim.

Big victory re ART ROOMS- Overall the Art Department will not be relocating to new areas of the school until an equitable and comparable space is ready for these teachers to move into.

Big victory re participation in room allocation with the SLC- SLCs will be meeting on the 12th on our PD Tuesday day and they will discuss issues including room/space allocation, traveling, etc. Then at an open meeting, that also includes a minimum of 3 folks from each SLC, will meet after school and decide on space issues for the school using the same process exercised in the creation of the Matrix.

Big victory re Magnet and other equity issues- SLCs will all share a rotation into each area of campus. No one SLC will be made to stay in one area of campus that is perhaps the least desirable. We will each have to take our turn everywhere on campus. (Will be better understood after the Wednesday meeting.)

Next week will still have a meeting on Wednesday that will be period by period. Though I pushed for a full faculty meeting the administrative team involved felt that for this amount of detailed information that a period by period meeting was better suited.

In a final note, I feel it is important to mention that this issue of space if but one of several issues that we need to address (others include: security, new leadership, health benefits). It is important that we all participate in each and every way that we can in this process and in the discussions. No one can represent you better than yourself so please share your views and thoughts both in your SLC meetings and get the information you need to make the best decision about what you and all of us need to improve LA High.

Next week we will have our regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday with a visit from our UTLA Treasurer David Goldberg who will be speaking to us about our current contractual situation with our Health Care benefits and paycheck issues. Please come to the meeting with questions prepared. And many thanks to all of you who have been so vital in the growing strength of our local union chapter that has been steadily increasing over the last 4 years! Get involved! Participate!

Felicia Perez/ Chapter Co-Chair