United Teachers Los Angeles | |
Founded | 1970 |
---|---|
Headquarters | 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90010 34°03′45″N118°17′40″W / 34.062421°N 118.294575°W Coordinates: 34°03′45″N118°17′40″W / 34.062421°N 118.294575°W |
Location | |
Members | 35,000 (2013) [1] |
Key people | Cecily Myart-Cruz, President |
Affiliations | California Federation of Teachers (AFT), (CTA), (NEA) |
Website | utla.net |
United Teachers Los Angeles is the main representative of certified, non-administrative staff in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Incorporated in 1970, UTLA represented a merger of American Federation of Teachers local Los Angeles Teachers Alliance and National Education Association local Associated Classroom Teachers of Los Angeles. [2]
On May 30, 1989, approximately 20,000 UTLA members went out on strike for higher pay and more administrative control. [3] [4] [5] The strike lasted nine days starting on May 30, 1989. The months preceding the strike were highly contentious. Numerous negotiation tactics were deployed by both sides including teacher demonstrations, threats to withhold grades, threats to dock teacher pay and many hard fought court battles. Union demands included pay increases and better school conditions. Thousands of substitute teachers were mobilized in preparation for the strike, and teachers prepared by saving money to endure a long walk-out. Many of the city's 600 schools reportedly remained open but with lower attendance. The district reported that 8,642 teachers crossed picket lines, and public rhetoric by both sides was critical and intense. [6] After negotiations, a settlement was reached and a three-year contract produced. Both sides claimed victory. Despite successful teacher pay raises obtained in the settlement, a massive economic recession in 1990 caused negotiations in 1991 to focus on preventing massive layoffs due to hundreds of millions in budget deficits. [4]
In August 2018, under the leadership of progressive UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, [7] 98% of UTLA members authorized a strike following months of contract negotiation disputes. [8] Though teachers were also striking to highlight issues like demands for pay raises, public discussion became predominantly focused on the union's opposition to charter schools. [9] Though one in five LAUSD students attended a charter school at the time of the strike, [10] UTLA argued that largely highly-performing charter schools were siphoning money from underperforming unionized schools. [11]
A fact-finding report failed to resolve matters and UTLA stated that a strike would proceed on January 10, 2019. [12] The school district attempted to stop the strike on legal grounds, but a judge allowed it to proceed. [13] 30,000 teachers walked out of class and onto the picket line in what became the first such strike in Los Angeles in thirty years, [14] which would last six days. [15] Following the six days of crowded rallies, [16] UTLA and the school district reached a deal on a new contract on January 22, 2019, [17] which included teacher pay raises, full-time librarians for middle and high schools, a commitment to provide full-time nurses for every school, and the establishment of thirty "community schools" in the model of Austin, Texas and Cincinatti, though UTLA failed to impose a binding cap on charter schools. [15]
San Pedro is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located within San Pedro. The district has grown from being dominated by the fishing industry, to a working-class community within the city of Los Angeles, to a rapidly gentrifying community.
Pico-Union is a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. The name "Pico-Union" refers to the neighborhood that surrounds the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Union Avenue. Located immediately west of Downtown Los Angeles, it is home to over 40,000 residents.
Birmingham Community Charter High School is a charter coeducational high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was founded in 1953 as a 7-12 grade combined high school and became solely a senior high school in 1963. The school has a Van Nuys address and serves Lake Balboa, parts of Encino, and Amestoy Estates. It is within the Los Angeles Unified School District but operates as an internal charter school.
University High School Charter, commonly known as "Uni", is a public secondary school, built 1923–1924, and founded 1924, located in West Los Angeles, a district in Los Angeles, California, near the city's border with Santa Monica. University High is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The campus also holds Indian Springs Continuation High School. The school contains the Serra Springs, a sacred site of the Tongva–Gabrieleño native people and a registered California Historical Landmark.
Palisades Charter High School is an independent charter secondary school in Los Angeles, United States. The high school serves the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades, Palisades Highlands, Kenter Canyon, and portions of Brentwood. Residents in Topanga, an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, may attend Palisades or William Howard Taft Charter High School.
James A. Garfield High School is a public, year-round high school founded in 1925 in East Los Angeles, an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, California. The proportion of advanced placement by students at Garfield is 38%. Students who are in unfavorable circumstances, with regard to financial or social opportunities, comprise about 93% of the student population. The minority comprehensive admission is 100%. Garfield is one out of 254 high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District as of 2020. The magnet program in the high school focuses on serving students who plan to study in the Computer Science field. The school was made famous by the film Stand and Deliver about the teacher Jaime Escalante and the HBO film Walkout. The homecoming football game known as the East LA Classic has taken place since 1925.
Alliance College-Ready Public Schools is a not-for-profit organization which operates charter schools in Los Angeles. Based at the Frank E. Baxter Education Complex, it is governed by a board of 27 directors and represented by president & CEO Dan Katzir.
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is a labor union that represents teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians in the Chicago public school system. The union has consistently fought for improved pay, benefits, and job security for its members, and it has resisted efforts to vary teacher pay based on performance evaluations. It has also pushed for improvements in the Chicago schools, and since its inception argued that its activities benefited students as well as teachers.
Daniel Pearl Magnet High School (DPMHS) is a magnet school within the Los Angeles Unified School District in Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, near Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley.
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in the United States, with only the New York City Department of Education having a larger student population. During the 2022–2023 school year, LAUSD served 565,479 students, including 11,795 early childhood education students and 27,740 adult students. During the same school year, it had 24,769 teachers and 49,231 other employees. It is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County after the county government. The school district's budget for the 2021–2022 school year was $10.7 billion, increasing to $12.6 billion for the 2022–2023 school year.
The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, called the RFK Community Schools, is a complex of public schools in Los Angeles, California. This was formerly the site of the Ambassador Hotel, the site of the June 1968 assassination of presidential candidate United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
A parent trigger is a legal maneuver through which parents can change the administration of a poorly performing public school—most notably, by transforming it into a charter school.
Austin Michael Beutner is an American businessman who served as Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent from May 1, 2018 to June 30, 2021. He previously served as the first deputy mayor of Los Angeles from 2010 through 2013, and briefly ran in the 2013 Los Angeles mayoral election. Prior to entering politics, Beutner was an investment banker and would later become the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The 2018–2019 education workers' strikes in the United States began on February 22, 2018, after local activists compelled the West Virginia state leadership of the West Virginia branches of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association into holding a strike vote. The strike—which ended when teachers returned to their classrooms on March 7—inspired similar, statewide strikes in Oklahoma and Arizona. It also inspired smaller-scale protests by school staff in Kentucky, North Carolina, Colorado, and led to a school bus driver strike in Georgia. Additionally, around this time, adjunct professors at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia protested over pay.
More than 30,000 public-school teachers of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) went on strike from January 14 to 22, 2019. Protesting low pay, large class sizes, inadequate support staffs of nurses and librarians, and the proliferation of charter schools, the teachers went on strike for the first time in the district in 30 years. The strike was authorized by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).
Michelle King was an American educator. She was the first black woman to serve as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the United States. She was appointed in January 2016 by the Los Angeles Board of Education.
The 2020 Los Angeles elections were held on March 3, 2020. Voters elected candidates in a nonpartisan primary, with runoff elections scheduled for November 3, 2020. Seven of the fifteen seats in the City Council were up for election.
Nick Melvoin is an attorney, former teacher, adjunct professor, and a current member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education representing District 4 since May 16, 2017. He is the second youngest member of the board after Kelly Gonez.
Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez is adjunct professor and a former member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education representing District 5 and former president of the Board. He resigned from both positions on July 23, 2018, after an accounting scandal.
The 2019 Los Angeles special elections were held on March 5, 2019, and June 4, 2019. Voters elected candidates in a nonpartisan primary, with runoff elections scheduled for May 14, 2019 and August 13, 2019. One of the fifteen seats in the City Council were up for election while one of the seven seats in the Board of Education were up for election.