Los Angeles High School UTLA Newsletter

Budget Cuts Fight Back!

These proposed budget cuts mean potentially bad news for schools…unless we stand up against them!

What the District is Saying:

Yesterday, the Governor announced his revision of the state budget. While it professes to “fully fund education”, according to Proposition 98 requirements, it would actually cut state education funding by $3 billion (or about $300 million to LAUSD). UTLA along with LAUSD Superintendent and Board President denounced the new budget as unacceptable.

What are they NOT Saying?!

Deep cuts…if we don’t fight back now. Not just the kind we are used to (i.e. electives, field trips, conferences), but bigger – class size norm increases are definitely being talked about. A raise in the class size norm means that we would not have district funding for as many teachers.

It could mean cuts in health care coverage. The district attempts this in fat times – we are almost assured they will attempt it in lean times. And beyond education, it could mean cuts in public services that directly hurt our students and their families (as well as many of us!)

What have we DONE?!

On May 4th, there was a big caravan to the Governor’s house in Malibu to let him know that he wouldn’t be safe from angry teachers ANYWHERE!

May 14^th, the DAY OF THE TEACHER – We did amazing picketing!

What else do we need to DO?!

May 29th – Parent Leafleting at PHABAO/Parent Night. We need to build a relationship with parents that is on-going, not a one-time thing. Unfortunately, right now, we do not have a fully functioning parent center, so we have to get out there and let parents know what is going on and how it could impact their kids…especially in preparation for the June 6^th job action.

June 6th AM Job Action –

On that day, UTLA members across LAUSD will stay outside of school with our parent/community allies and picket for the first hour of school. Here’s what’s at stake if the budget cuts go through:

□ There will be NO RAISES for the foreseeable future.

□ LAUSD will aggressively move to cut your health care benefits.

□ Class sizes will increase dramatically.

□ LAUSD can and will declare a state of emergency, which allows them to lay off permanent teachers without notice.

□ The jobs of thousands of talented probationary teachers—the future of our profession—will be in jeopardy.

By standing strong on June 6^th, we can go a long way in pushing the district to back off their potential cuts. Let’s show them our strength NOW. For one hour, we can stand together, outside LAHS, together with students and parents, and then walk back inside in order to remind the district what life would be like without us. (more discussions to come on this – including at UTLA meetings)

Call Somebody!

Give ‘Em a Piece of Your Mind!

Tell a CA Assembly Person or Senator to oppose the $4.8 billion in budget cuts and to make sure they continue to support Prop 98 which guarantees funding for schools in the state budget!

Mark Ridley-Thomas 213-745-6656

senator.ridley-thomas@sen.ca.gov

Gilbert Cedillo 213 612 9566

senator.cedillo@sen.ca.gov

Karen Bass 323 937 4747

Assemblymember.bass@assembly.ca.gov

Coordinator Elections Context

Thursday morning a panel of arbitrators met with Jean Moore, Ms. Anthony, Ms. Solomon and Ms. Perez. The arbitrators were: 1 UTLA Retired Teacher & 1 LAUSD Retired Principal. They conducted individual interviews with the aforementioned parties and decided who our Title I Coordinator will be for the next year. During the interviews your UTLA Co-Chairs strongly aired opposition to the process by which our current Title I Coordinator was informed of not being put forth on the ballot by Ms. Anthony. The results of the elections and the poll gave us a strong sense that the faculty of LAHS are not going to stand for Local District influence on our staffing and a lack of administrative support. We heard that what we need is an administrative team that provides support and just punitive responses. We were told during the arbitration process that the panel would not tell us why they reached the decision that they did but that their ultimate decision would be final.

In the end their final decision was to support the principal’s nomination of Ms. Karla Spivey. She will be in the position for one year and then will need to be re-nominated for a 2 year term in the Spring of ‘09. Over the last few weeks the contract procedure has been discussed, but the question is how did this mess get started?

Sold away our rights
In the 90’s, in the midst of pay cuts and budget cuts, not unlike now, UTLA bargained away competitive elections for coordinators. As part of a deal to get raises, this was generally supported by the membership. After a 10% cut, many people were happy for something. Since then UTLA hasn’t negotiated around elections in a decade.

Timeliness

We are a year round multi-track school which causes all kinds of mess on a daily basis. In the case of elections, it’s worse. Due to reasonable B-track pressure on the Elections Committee, people had until 9AM on Friday, April 25^th, to turn in their letters of intent to be coordinators (and could have turned in letters as early as February). This was, not coincidentally, the first day of elections. As the principal had until noon to choose her candidate, no one knew her choice until the polls opened.

Timeliness Pt II

The administrator’s decision to wait until the last minute to make a choice about candidates threw everyone into confusion…and generated a lot of frustration and resentment. Many teachers have stated that the reason they registered a “NO” vote on election day was because they felt that there had been insufficient notice given to the current Title I Coordinator about his non-selection. Others stated concern that the Local District 3 High School Director was playing too large a role in the personnel decisions of LAHS. Many said that a “NO” vote was a rejection of a flawed process, not a person.

The Future

As a union, we need to press accountability, timeliness, and transparency with ourselves and our administrators. This kind of debacle cannot happen again.

The position of Title I Coordinator can have a powerful impact on a school – not just in making sure that copies are done right, though this is important too. It has the potential to be a location for parents to engage with the school and to offer creative tutoring and remediation programs, as well as interesting after-school opportunities.

These are priorities for our school in general, and Title I in particular. Too many students are not getting the outside-class academic support they need, too few parents are involved in the life of the school, and currently there is no fully-functioning campus-wide parent center. It has fallen on the SLCs to deal with these issues. However, a school-wide program like Title I can go a long way in coordinating that effort and offering resources and support services that SLCs do not have access to.

Title I should be about a lot more than copies, whoever fills that position.

UTLA Meetings on Wednesdays

at lunch in Room 259!!