Los Angeles Teachers Strike for More Pay and More Help

The strike affects roughly 500,000 students at 900 schools in the district, the second-largest in the nation. The schools remained open, staffed by substitutes hired by the city, but many parents chose to keep their children at home, either out of support for the strike or because they did not want them inside schools with a skeletal staff.

The impact of the walkout is likely to ripple across California and the rest of the country. Teachers mounted large-scale strikes in six other states last year to protest low pay and demand more money for public education.

The decision to walk off the job came after months of negotiations between the teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although educators on all sides agree that California should spend more money on education, the union and the district are locked in a bitter feud about how Los Angeles should use the money it already gets.

Despite its reputation as a liberal state, California spends less than many other states on public education.

— Why Are Teachers Striking?

Union leaders have complained about large classes, which have grown to more than 40 students in some of the district’s middle and high schools, and have said the system needs many more nurses, counselors, librarians and other support staff as well as teachers.

Although district officials have agreed to come closer to meeting some of the union’s demands, they say fulfilling all of them would bankrupt the system, which is already strained by rising health care and pension costs.

District officials have tried for weeks to avert the strike, putting political and legal pressure on the union to stop teachers from walking off the job. Instead of encouraging a walkout, district officials argued, the union should direct its energy and its frustrations at the state government in Sacramento, which determines the district’s annual budget.

— Priced Out of the Neighborhood

In a downpour, dozens of teachers, wearing ponchos and waving green and red placards — “We stand with LA teachers” — picketed outside the Paul Revere Charter Middle School in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. One teacher waved a large American flag, others held bullhorns.

Steven Bilek, a union representative and math and science teacher at Paul Revere, said that for some teachers the main issue is pay, but others are just as concerned with class size or the lack of support staff like librarians or counselors.

“For some people it is salaries,” he said. “For others, it is class size. The idea that teachers just want raises is just not true.”

Paul Revere is a charter school affiliated with the district, and students attend from more than a hundred ZIP codes around Los Angeles, he said. The school is in one of the city’s wealthiest areas and most if not all of the teachers cannot afford to live nearby.

“I don’t think any of our teachers live in this area,” Bilek said. “We’re lucky to live within an hour.”

Some parents and students joined the teachers on the picket line.

“We are here fighting for the future of public education,” said Dennise Weir, a parent whose children, Olivia and Edward, were by her side.

Weir lives in Beverly Hills and can afford private school, but she sends her kids to public school, because, she said, “they are the last civic institutions that are available to everyone.”

There are about 2,100 students enrolled at Paul Revere, but on Monday about a third showed up for class.

Each grade was gathered in large assemblies, overseen by the few adults on duty — substitute teachers, campus aides and technicians. On a normal day the school has 95 teachers, but Monday there were only 10 adults on hand with teaching credentials.

— Three Ways This Strike Is Different

At first glance, Monday’s massive strike in Los Angeles looks like a continuation of the teacher protests held across the country in 2018. While some of the issues — stagnant salaries and low classroom funding — are similar, this urban strike is far different from the recent statewide walkouts in conservative and swing states. Here’s why:

1.These teachers are picketing their bosses, not politicians. The six state walkouts in 2018 featured teachers traveling to state capitols to lobby legislators and governors for higher taxes and more school funding. In contrast, the Los Angeles action is a traditional strike in which teachers are protesting against their bosses: the district’s superintendent and Board of Education.

2.The Los Angeles union is strong. In the six walkout states, teachers’ unions were weak and the majority of teachers in many districts were not members. That’s not the case in California, a strong labor state where public employee strikes are legal. The president of United Teachers Los Angeles, Alex Caputo-Pearl, is part of a group of more strident local union leaders who have, for years, been criticizing school-reform priorities such as the expansion of the charter school sector — a major issue in Los Angeles — and the growth of standardized testing. These issues were simmering in the nation’s second-largest city for years before the West Virginia walkout that began in February 2018.

3. Los Angeles is trying to keep schools open. It is unusual for a district to keep all schools open during a strike in which all teachers are expected to participate, but that is what Los Angeles Unified is trying. This allows the district to continue serving meals and providing child care to its high-needs student population, 82 percent of whom come from low-income families. But with far fewer adults than usual, there probably won’t be much traditional instruction going on. Students may be grouped together in cafeterias and auditoriums, perhaps watching movies or playing games.

— The Decision to Stay Home

Some parents who chose to keep their children at home said their reasons included not wanting to cross a picket line and also being concerned about their children’s safety.

Lucas Rivera said that his 6-year-old daughter would not be going to school at Toluca Lake Elementary for as long as the strike was happening. He said that he and his wife were told that children would be sequestered in four areas, including some that were outdoors, with three people supervising them at most. Students were advised to bring extra books for entertainment, he said.

“That was unacceptable to us,” Rivera wrote in an email. “It will be chaotic, and likelihood of any education occurring will be minimal.”

Janae Bakken, a television writer whose son is in fifth grade, said that it was important to stand in solidarity with fellow union members.

“I support the teachers wholly in their endeavor and I will not cross that picket line,” she wrote in an email. Bakken works from home for now, but she said that could change quickly if she was called in to work on a show. “In that case I’d have to rely on the kindness of friends,” she said.

— The District, by the Numbers

The sprawling district goes far beyond the Los Angeles city limits, stretching some 720 square miles from wealthy coastal areas like Pacific Palisades to working-class southeast suburbs like Montebello.

The district is overwhelmingly low income; some 82 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Latinos account for roughly 72 percent of enrollment, whites make up about 10 percent, African-Americans about 8 percent, and Asians about 6 percent.

About one-fifth of all students in the district are English-language learners — more than 90 percent of those students are native Spanish speakers, but there is also a significant population of Korean, Armenian, Tagalog, Cantonese, Arabic, Vietnamese and Russian speakers.

Overall, 92 languages other than English are spoken in the district’s schools.

— On the Picket Line in Koreatown

At Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, a large campus in Koreatown, hundreds of teachers and supporters held signs declaring “We demand respect” and “Striking for our students.” The picket line was a sea of umbrellas, with many covering their signs in plastic wrap to protect them from rain.

The teachers’ union has urged parents to walk the picket line in support of the strike, and it was unclear how many of the 500,000 students would show up at schools, which will have only a skeletal staff on campuses.

By 8 a.m., dozens of students and parents had gathered along the sidewalk to support the teachers, but there was also a steady stream of students entering RFK, which houses several small schools on its campus.

Once the students entered, they were shuffled inside to the campus library, cafeteria or another large gathering area. It was unclear whether any instruction would be given.

Sophie Chiang, a 10th-grade student, arrived well before the 8:20 a.m. first bell.

“Oh God, it’s really happening,” she said as she approached the line of teachers in red ponchos shouting “Whose schools? Our schools!” She was momentarily worried that she would be stopped from entering, but nobody on the picket line stopped her. And the campus security guard who is usually at the entrance was not at his post.

— How Does Teaching in LA Stack Up?

Union leaders say teaching in the city is unsustainable, with salaries far outpaced by a high cost of living, large class sizes and not enough resources to help struggling students. Here’s a look at how Los Angeles Unified compares nationally:

Teacher pay: The average teacher salary in Los Angeles Unified was $75,000 during the 2017-18 school year, according to the California Department of Education. This is far higher than the national average salary of around $59,000.

But remember: Los Angeles is an expensive place to live. When you compare the city with other high-priced urban centers, its teacher pay no longer looks so extraordinary. The average salary in San Francisco last year was $73,000, while New York City teachers earned an average salary of $88,000, according to their union.

Beginning salaries matter, too, for attracting and retaining young talent. In Los Angeles, the entry-level teacher salary was $44,000 last year, compared with $47,000 in San Francisco and $57,000 in New York City.

Los Angeles Unified has, so far, offered teachers a 6 percent raise.

Class size: An independent report noted that the two sides cannot agree on how to calculate class size, but it is clear that classes in Los Angeles are big. The district has offered to cap classes at 35 students in grades 4-6; 39 students in middle and high school English and math; and 32 students at elementary schools that serve many low-income children. Nationally, average class sizes in urban schools ranged between 16 and 28 students, depending on grade level and how the school was organized, according to the National Teacher and Principal Survey for 2015-16.

Professional staff beyond the classroom: One of the union’s main demands is for the district to hire more guidance counselors, nurses and librarians. With increased pressure over the last two decades to raise standardized test scores, many public schools have funneled funds into math and reading instruction, and suffer from a dearth of such professional staff.

Across the United States, there is an average of 482 students per guidance counselor, according to a report from the American School Counselor Association and the National Association for College Admission Counseling; the organizations recommend no more than 250 students per counselor.

The situation is worse than average in California, with more than 600 students per counselor across the state and more than 500 per counselor in Los Angeles County, according to an analysis from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. There are nearly 2,000 students per every school nurse in the county.

Los Angeles Unified has offered to add an additional academic counselor to each district high school and to make sure each elementary school has daily nursing services. The district also offered to ensure library services at each middle school. Currently, such staff often travel between multiple schools, and this offer might not change that reality.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.