UTLA  2024 ENDORSEMENTS!! 

REMEMBER TO VOTE ON OR BEFORE 

MARCH 5TH 2024

JOIN US ON SATURDAY 2.3.24

Hello wonderful SLPs!

You may have seen (and hopefully participated in!) canvassing outings by school sites for the three UTLA-endorsed school board candidates running in the 2024 election. This weekend it's our turn to show that LAUSD SLPs are in this fight! This is a huge moment for us and WE have the power to influence district policy for years to come by getting the word out for these fantastic candidates!

I was with my elementary school a couple of weeks ago, walking in the rain and knocking on doors for Karla Griego. It was so exciting to help advance a SPED teacher to the School Board! This weekend, we will be knocking on doors for Scott Schmerelson in the Valley. Scott has been a consistent ally of UTLA and he's facing a serious challenger backed by the deep pockets of the charter school industry. We don't have those deep pockets, but we do have people power! Our voices as educators are valued in our communities, so let's get out and use them!

Here are the details: 

• Meet at 16340 Roscoe Blvd, Van Nuys 91406 and get trained

• Head out with your colleagues to knock on some doors (people are almost all really nice and we have some great conversations!)

• Head off to enjoy the rest of your Saturday with those good feelings of having done your part, or head back to the original address for a free lunch and raffle (I won a hat once!)

If you plan to join us, let us know by responding to this email with your name. We look forward to seeing you there!

--Sara McDonald, on behalf of the UTLA LAS Chapter Chairs

Call City Hall — Don't Delay Funding for Housing

Last November, Los Angeles voted to pass Measure ULA for a tax on the sale of real estate above $5 million. To address the housing crisis in LA, the revenue from the tax (estimated to be between $600 million and $1.1 billion per year) will be used to fund new affordable housing, resources to prevent homelessness, and tenant protections.

It's no surprise that billionaire real estate corporations are not happy about the voters' choice to pass the tax and are challenging the measure in court. They contributed to the housing crisis our city is facing and want to continue profiting from it. But it's not likely these billionaire corporations will win their case.

Meanwhile, our City Council has the power to front fund $150 million of the "mansion tax" and provide immediate help to our neighbors who need it most. 

Call your City Council Member today to demand they fund emergency financial aid, legal support for tenants, and affordable housing development. Urge them not to bend to billionaire scare tactics!

Use this tool for a direct call to your City Council Member.

UTLA Members to Elect Officers and Board

Voting begins February 7 for UTLA officers and members of the Board of Directors. Voting will be conducted online.

To learn about the candidates: Visit the utlaelections.org website and review their photos, flyers, statements, and links to their websites and social media. Citywide officers and special directors will also have videos posted. A UTLA election guide will be mailed to your home in January with candidate statements, photos, and information. 

The online voting website will be open for voting at 8:00 a.m. (PT) on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Your vote must be submitted no later than 8:00 a.m. (PT) on Tuesday, February 28, 2023.

Questions regarding membership or eligibility to vote should be directed to UTLA at https://utlaelections.org/members/

IVS is an independent vendor providing election services to UTLA. UTLA does not create or have access to secure PINs.

On behalf of United Teachers Los Angeles, thank you for voting. UTLA hopes you will encourage UTLA collogues to vote in this election as well.

It's Official: Dr. Rocío Rivas Sworn in on the School Board

This week, Dr. Rocío Rivas officially took over the School Board District 2 seat. Months of our grassroots organizing and talking directly to voters beat out millions of dollars from corporate privatizers and solidified an active UTLA supporter on the school board.

Dr. Rocío Rivas stood with UTLA educators during our historic 2019 strike, walked the picket line with us in October, and spoke at our December 5 rally calling on the district to bargain our Beyond Recovery demands. We look forward to working with Dr. Rocío Rivas in the coming months to fully staff schools with teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, and social workers, and fund a foundation of support for every student at every school.

CFT leaders condemn Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade

CFT President Jeff Freitas, Secretary-Treasurer Luukia Smith, and Senior Vice President Lacy Barnes released the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court decision today in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade and ruling that there is no constitutional right to abortion:

“We condemn the radical decision delivered by the Supreme Court today. In eliminating the constitutional right of a woman to choose an abortion settled nearly fifty years ago, the Supreme Court has made our country less safe for our members, our students, and the families we serve. This decision strips women of their right to reproductive healthcare and the constitutional right to due process. Both are essential rights that our union stands for.

“We will continue to do everything in our power to organize in our union and in our communities to protect the rights we all deserve

The UTLA House of Representatives — the largest policy-making body of our union — voted overwhelmingly to endorse the following candidates in the June 2022 primary.

• Dr. Rocío Rivas for LAUSD Board of Education Member for District 2

• Kelly Gonez for LAUSD Board of Education Member for District 6

• Greg Good for Los Angeles City Council in District 11

• Hugo Soto-Martinez for Los Angeles City Council in District 13

• Danielle Sandoval for Los Angeles City Council in District 15

• Henry Stern for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in District 3

• Karen Bass for Los Angeles Mayor

Check out additional endorsements from our state affiliates

5.13.21

Huge victory for Deaf Ed community

The Deaf Ed community scored a victory this week after the LAUSD School Board unanimously voted to restructure Deaf education. The new plan creates a centralized Deaf Education Department and ensures that ASL/English bilingual education is offered along with listening and spoken language as the standard for early intervention with deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

"This was a movement that was started by the Deaf Community to improve educational outcomes for Deaf students in LAUSD,” said Mallorie Evans, an Educational Audiologist and UTLA Board member. “It was incredible to see our Deaf students engage in this important lesson of organizing and realizing their power. I was inspired by the whole movement, and grateful that the school board was open and willing to publicly declare that they value equity for all Deaf students."

Supporters of the change provided compelling testimony as to why the changes were needed to elevate language access for all LAUSD Deaf students.

“I did not learn American Sign language in elementary school because we were not allowed to use ASL there,” said 11th-grader Vera Campos, who is trilingual. “My teachers were worried that if I signed, I would never learn speech. American Sign Language is a language that lets me communicate without limitations. All deaf and hard-of-hearing students deserve to have access to ASL at a young age.”

05.06.22.

Support equity in Deaf Education

On May 10 the LAUSD School Board will vote on a resolution for equity, language access, and services for LAUSD's Deaf students and teachers of the Deaf. The motion is the result of ongoing organizing by educators, parents, and community members to support equitable education for Deaf students, and it aligns with a motion passed by the UTLA House of Reps.

The motion would restructure Deaf education in LAUSD, including establishing a centralized Deaf Education Department to elevate language equity and access for all LAUSD Deaf students.

Stand with the Deaf Ed community and encourage the LAUSD School Board to vote yes. Click button below and go here for more info.

Communities unite against school closures

Last Friday after school, educators, students, families, and members of the Pio Pico Middle School community put on their walking shoes, brought out their signs, and rallied together to call on LAUSD to stop plans to close their school.

This move by the district is just one of several they have planned to close neighborhood public schools around Los Angeles, including Orville Wright Middle School and Trinity Elementary School.

LAUSD continues to systematically exclude educators, students, families, and school communities in these closure decisions — which are all threatening schools in historically marginalized communities of color. However, after the past weeks of collective action and solidarity, the LAUSD Board of Education walked back its initial plan to put the Pio Pico and Wright school closures on their February 8 meeting agenda.

But, until they firmly commit to keeping all of these sites and any schools threatened in the future open, the fight is not over. Stand in solidarity with these school communities and show LAUSD that we educators stand firmly opposed to any and all public school closures.

Congressional briefing on the need to Fulfill the Promise

Members of the Fulfill the Promise coalition, including United Teachers Los Angeles, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association, took part in a virtual congressional hearing to discuss the need for Congress to increase funding for Title I and to meet the original promise of 40% funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) — and to urge members of congress to cosponsor the Keep Our Promise to America’s Children and Teachers (PACT) Act.

The Keep Our PACT Act would put Congress on a path to fully fund Title I and fund IDEA at 40%. Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Susie Lee introduced the bilateral bill to Congress earlier this year, and the bill is supported by over 30 education, civil rights, and disability rights organizations nationwide. Visit vanhollen.senate.gov and susielee.house.gov for more information.

Speakers included Congressman Ted Lieu, Senator Van Hollen, parents, educators, and researchers in the special education field. All spoke about how the historic underfunding of IDEA has negatively impacted students with disabilities and how meeting the promise that Congress made decades ago would significantly and positively impact those students, their schools, and communities.

How you can help

You can help us build support for the Keep Our PACT Act by urging your congressional representatives to cosponsor the legislation now so it is likely to pass in 2022.

Visit Congress.gov here and here and verify that your representatives are cosponsoring the Keep Our PACT Act. If they are not on the cosponsors list, you may find your representatives here. Contact them and urge them to cosponsor the Keep Our PACT Act now.

This Saturday: Town Hall on future of LA schools

As part of UTLA’s building of an ambitious, democratically developed platform of bargaining demands for 2022, Reclaim Our Schools LA is holding a series of Saturday town halls. These virtual sessions are a chance for families, students, educators, and community members to talk about priorities for LA schools and about Common Good demands — the kind of demands that can uplift our communities and shape our students’ lived realities. All UTLA educators are encouraged to attend a town hall and to invite parents at your school to join.

There is one town hall remaining: October 30 from 10 am to noon.

We are at a rare juncture: We are heading into full contract bargaining in 2022 as LAUSD is receiving almost $5 billion in relief funding and has billions of dollars in reserves. This is our time to build a collective vision of what we want to fight for.

SEPTEMBER 2021

Celebrating the No on Recall victory

Educators and other union members were a major part of the voting bloc that overwhelmingly rejected the recall of Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday. The recall was a power grab by forces that want to take back the rights that our communities have fought for and won over the years, like the minimum wage, paid family leave, and a quality system of public education.

The defeat of the recall is a testimony to the power of the labor movement and communities working together to safeguard the common good. When the recall seemed to be gaining momentum, thousands of labor volunteers showed up to phone bank, text, engage voters, and protest across the state to turn the tide and ultimately defeat the recall.

Coalition scores win over Student-Centered Funding

On Tuesday, LAUSD withdrew a proposal for so-called Student-Centered Funding (SCF), which would have dramatically changed how LA schools are funded, undermined neighborhood schools in Black and Brown communities, and undercut core civil rights guarantees in education.

The SCF plan was withdrawn after a tremendous mobilization of public opposition by parents, families, students, and educators, including vibrant rallies at Monroe High School and Dorsey High School. Prior to the campaign, LAUSD was treating the SCF plan as a fait accompli, but after a series of press conferences, rallies, grassroots testimony and board meetings, and policy analyses and reports, the plan was withdrawn because the majority of the school board opposed it.

“Schools are essential to our neighborhoods,” said Eloisa Galindo, a parent leader with East Side Padres Contra La Privatización with two daughters at Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School. “SCF would have produced competition for students, cuts in programs like arts and libraries, and school closings. Any equity plan in LAUSD needs to prioritize strengthening schools in Black and Brown communities and not add to the disinvestment from our neighborhoods. We demonstrated community power by convincing the majority of the board to reject Student-Centered Funding.”

The coalition of organizations involved in fighting against Student-Centered Funding includes UTLA, NEA, AFT, Reclaim Our Schools LA, Students Deserve, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California, 3 branches of the NAACP (Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, and Beverly Hills/Hollywood), Black Lives Matter LA, Labor Community Strategy Center, Fannie Lou Hamer Institute, Eastside Padres Contra La Privatizacion, 3rd World Power, Parents Supporting Teachers, Gamaliel of California, and Network for Public Education.

DeVos-funded consultant pushes internal voucher scheme in LAUSD

This fall UTLA members will be building a vision for how to use the historic infusion of funding to transform education for our students. The privatizers have their own game plan to drive more public dollars to charter operators, and it involves an internal voucher-like scheme connected to Betsy DeVos. Under Trump, Devos’s office funded a grant for an outside consultant to push a competition-based system called Student-Centered Funding in LAUSD.

Basically, funding would move with each student instead of being allocated centrally for staff and programs. It sounds like a good idea when you first hear about it — but in cities like Chicago and Denver, these formulas have led to racially disparate negative consequences, including the loss of libraries and the arts, school closures, and the undermining of school stability, particularly in Black and Brown communities.

The funding scheme was sold in Chicago as a way to achieve greater equity for Black and Brown students, but it’s done the opposite. Former student Styles Avant-Pinkston lived through a similar scheme — called student-based budgeting in Chicago — that led to under-resourced schools being starved of support and then often shut down. Avant-Pinkston was forced to travel across town to attend a school outside of his neighborhood.

“I shouldn’t have to take a 50-minute bus ride — I should just be able to walk to a good school,” Avant-Pinkston says. “These funding schemes are an attack on kids of color and minority communities. You never hear about schools in wealthy neighborhoods shutting down — they invest in those schools. Schools can be turned around if they see value in doing that — some people just don't see the value in communities of color. The message is clear: Student-based funding schemes shut down neighborhood schools.”

The LAUSD School Board has yet to vote on the internal voucher scheme, but a decision could come as early as September. With a highly paid consultant leading the way, the district has fast-tracked the plan, and families and educators have been left out of the discussions and development. Even some Board members have been given little information about this monumental shift in funding.

This internal voucher scheme has destabilized community schools wherever it’s been tried and has not proven to improve student outcomes. If implemented the negative effects would be:

Marketing Over Student Needs: Students would be turned into “backpacks full of cash” and schools forced to compete for market share. With every year a hustle to protect enrollment, school principals would have to prioritize marketing over student needs.

Downward Spiral: Schools that are already struggling with inadequate resources and that serve under-resourced communities would be hit hardest. Every time a student leaves, the school would have even fewer resources to support the students who remain, triggering cuts to staff and essential programs and pushing out other families.

School Closures: Drops in enrollment lead to the closure of neighborhood schools and the destabilization of communities, particularly in Black and Brown neighborhoods. LAUSD has already been targeting small schools like Trinity Elementary in South LA for permanent closure, citing dropping enrollment figures. Closed schools are then handed over to a chapter operator. That trend will accelerate under this internal voucher scheme

Veteran Educators Pushed Aside: The scheme creates incentives to hire lower-salary educators and other staff. That’s what happened in Chicago, where principals are prioritizing hiring less expensive inexperienced teachers over the overwhelmingly Black veteran teaching staff.

Privatization on steroids: LAUSD has told the Department of Education that they plan to allow dollars to follow students to independent charter operators, a further threat to neighborhood schools and the stability of the public school system. The operational funding shift also lays the groundwork for money to eventually follow students to private or religious schools. This is why market reformers from both political parties — from Arne Duncan and Betsy DeVos to ALEC — support the formula: It is an important step down the road to achieving their longtime goal of dismantling our nation’s historic commitment to public education and freeing those dollars for the private sector.

Look for more facts & fight-back coming soon

Take the pledge to #TeachTruth

Survivor Viola Ford Fletcher testified before a congressional committee this week on the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. “I have lived through the massacre every day,” she said. “Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.”

This week the three known survivors of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, appeared before a congressional committee to call for justice, compensation, and for the country to officially acknowledge the massacre ahead of the 100th anniversary on May 31 and June 1.

Survivors Viola Ford Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle described the absolute horror of the violence they saw that day in Tulsa, during which white mobs gunned down Black people in the streets and Black-owned businesses were burned to the ground. The massacre, which is rarely mentioned in history textbooks, was among the worst attacks of racial violence in U.S. history.

These survivors are sharing their brutal but necessary stories while at the same time as lawmakers in 15 states are trying to pass legislation that would silence teachers from talking to students about the role of racism, sexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.

In response, educators across the United States are organizing a day of action on June 12 and signing a pledge to teach the truth. The pledge states:

We the undersigned educators will not be bullied. We will continue our commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society, and to develop collective solutions to those problems. We are for truth-telling and uplifting the power of organizing and solidarity that move us toward a more just society.

Mothers & educators put Dept of Ed on 90-day notice to address racial inequities

UTLA is a proud partner in a new coalition of educators, parents, and unions driving a national civil rights campaign for Special Education, Fulfill the Promise.

As we go from global pandemic to recovery in our schools, now is the time for the federal government to fulfill the promise made in 1975 to America’s students to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act at 40% and to provide a free and appropriate education for all students with disabilities.

This week, educators and mothers of students with disabilities from across the country filed a legal petition with the US Department of Education to repair the damage of dismantled civil rights protections sustained through the DeVos/Trump years and to rebuild the Department of Education under President Joe Biden and Secretary Miguel Cardona by fully funding IDEA at the levels promised in 1975.

The unique parent and educator coalition is supported by disability rights organizations and bolstered by a groundbreaking report, “Disabling Inequity: The Urgent Need for Race-Conscious Resources and Remedies,” published by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, an initiative of the Civil Rights Project, UCLA. The report reveals serious preexisting conditions of inadequate support that are likely to be exacerbated by the current pandemic; summarizes the pandemic’s disparate impact, which is resulting in greater losses of instructional time amidst increasing experiences of trauma; and argues for additional post-pandemic steps to ensure that all students with disabilities receive the needed supports and services

The coalition is circulating an open petition urging President Biden and Education Secretary Cardona to take action for sustained, permanent funding of IDEA. Add your voice through the link below.

“My daughter deserves better than to be an afterthought”

As part of the filing of the legal petition with the US Department of Education in support of Special Education, a press conference was held that amplified the stories of mothers from Los Angeles, Boston, Austin, San Antonio, and Madison, Wisconsin. As parents of students with disabilities, the women have learned to be advocates for their children in a system that far too often lets them down. Here’s an excerpt from the remarks by Melina Espiritu Azocar, mother of two from San Antonio, Texas:

I believe that my child deserves the opportunity to be successful in the Texas public school system, but we are at the mercy of the decision-makers and lawmakers that have continued to devalue my daughter’s education by underfunding public schools and by failing to fulfill promises to properly fund IDEA.

Students of color that need extra support and receive Special Education services have been hit the hardest during this pandemic, and lack of funding and resources created a domino effect for children like my daughter. Proper IDEA funding could have provided extra staff, training, and resources to ensure that kids like my daughter had a plan to be properly serviced during this pandemic. Instead districts were left scrambling to try and figure it all out without extra funding.

My husband and I made the gut-wrenching decision to withdraw her from school to homeschool her because we saw zero options. I am a strong advocate of public schools and it broke my heart to have to pull my child out of school, but no options were provided or given to us. What was needed to make this successful was transparency, proper funding, extra staff, and resources, all of which were not available.

In the face of this pandemic, the system turned its back on our children needing and deserving Special Education services and gave parents like us no pathway to successfully and safely educate our children. My daughter deserves better than to be an afterthought.

Testing win!!!!!! 

SBAC cancelled for most LAUSD students

• Last week, LAUSD announced that it is cancelling the SBAC, or Smarter Balanced Assessment, for this school year for most students. Only 11th graders will take the SBAC for college admission purposes. Elementary grades will use Edulastic and DIBELS and secondary grades will use Renaissance for Math and ELA instead of the SBAC.
   

• The cancellation of the SBAC is good news for our students because a healthy and healing return does not involve students taking stressful, high-stakes tests that are of little use in this unique year of education. Standardized tests are harmful and wasteful in the best of circumstances, so it was essential that the physical reopening of schools not be compromised by asking students to take the SBAC.
   

• UTLA members and parents helped make this happen with our Assessment Pushback Campaign that included coordinated emails, texts, and phone calls and which resulted in the Testing Taskforce being reconvened. The Testing Taskforce met with the district to push for this decision and will continue meeting with the district to push for reductions in testing overall.

It’s time to #CancelTheTests

Throughout the school year, we have been working with our state and national affiliates to waive standardized tests this year. Unfortunately, the federal government has continued down a path that would require students, families, and educators to endure high-stakes stressful tests that will not be an effective barometer of student needs and accomplishments.

Standardized tests have never been a valid, equitable, or reliable measure of what a student knows or can do — and they are especially unreliable now that these tests cannot be administered safely or with any consistency. Standardized high-stakes testing should not come at the expense of precious learning time that students could be spending with their educators.

The National Education Association is rolling out a campaign to Cancel The Tests. Add your name to the open letter calling for all standardized tests to be canceled during the pandemic.

This Saturday, February 20, join a car caravan of parents, students, and educators to demand that schools reopen only when they are safe for all students and families – especially Black and Brown communities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19. LAUSD parents and communities are being left out of the school reopening debate and are organizing to make their voices heard through actions such as Saturday’s car caravan.

The car caravan, put together by Reclaim Our Schools L.A. and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, will meet at 10:00 am in front of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in downtown LA. The Chamber is the target because of their reckless push to reopen schools that is putting profits over people’s lives. For more information, contact info@reclaimourschoolsla.org

What: Not My Child-Schools Aren’t Safe Car Caravan

When: Saturday, February 20 from 10:00 am to 12 noon

At a recent press conference, parents from low-income communities of color voice their concerns about a premature and unsafe reopening of schools

“The people speaking out are not part of our communities”

Parents call for reopening schools only when safe

Parents and educators from across California held a virtual news conference recently to urge that schools not be reopened amid what they call “critically high community transmission rates,” as well as virus variants, lack of safety measures, and unclear vaccine distribution plans.

At a virtual press conference hosted by CTA, parents from low-income communities of color expressed strong reservations about reopening prematurely and called out media outlets for featuring the voices predominately of white, wealthy parents.

“I'm here to represent many parents who don't agree that schools should be reopened because we know that COVID-19 is still impacting us and our communities ... are still the epicenter of this pandemic,” LAUSD mother Maria Osorio said. “Frankly, a lot of those families who want schools to be reopened are probably more financially stable, they’re more well off, and they live in communities where infection rates are much lower. And so the situation that we’re facing is very different to the situation that they're facing.''

Osorio, who has four children and lives in South Los Angeles, also noted that many LAUSD students take public transportation to school, so the risk of infection will not only come from learning inside classrooms, but from commuting to campuses.

Several parents stressed that those calling for immediate return to in-person instruction, particularly in the name of “equity” around distance learning, do not speak for them or their communities and are not hearing their voices.

“While distance learning is undoubtedly inequitable, the devastation of this virus is inequitable as well,” said Dawniel Carlock-Stewart, a Native American and parent of three. “We need to be listening to voices in these communities — not just picking out whatever equity talking points meets our agenda.”

“The people speaking out are not part of our communities,” said Pecolia Manigo, an Oakland parent and executive director of Parent Leadership Action Network. “We need to hear Black, Latinx, immigrant and Indigenous communities before we assume we know what they need. We stand with teachers who call for safety measures that are critical.”

Make the call to LAUSD:

End Overassessments

Overtesting of students is a long-standing issue for educators, but this year it takes on new meaning as teachers and students are stretched to the max and the district is mandating unnecessary and counterproductive assessments.

Students do not need more tests — they need more time to focus on engaging and relevant curriculum.

These assessments are negatively impacting our students by taking up synchronous instructional time and forcing teaching schedules to be rearranged.

UTLA educators are organizing with parents to call on LAUSD to eliminate the second and third installments of the Edulastic and Renaissance assessments — two tests that are not required by the state or federal government.

Alison Towery, the head of instruction for LAUSD, can make the call to stop forcing educators to use Edulastic and Renaissance during this pandemic. She needs to hear from educators and parents!

LINK BELOW takes you to an automatic dialer and sample scripts and talking points. Make the call today to end overassessments!

Black History Month comes after a righteous reckoning on racism and the unjust killing of Black people by the police.

As educators we acknowledge that Black History Month should not be one month — it should be all the time. Year-round we need to mark the achievements of Black people and celebrate those who are still rising and blazing trails. Year-round we need to commit to action — to dismantling the scaffolds on which white supremacy is built‚ including in our systems of education, and to keep pushing ourselves as educators toward anti-racist practices in our schools.

Check out resource links below, including a link to Black Lives Matter at School, which shares curriculum and strategies to uproot institutional racism year-round. ​Black Lives Matter at School means teaching from an abolitionist framework and teaching our students to critically think about the events in history from a place of trauma, injury, and truth.

With COVID-19 infection and death rates setting tragic records every week, UTLA and a coalition of labor unions, public health experts, and community organizations are calling LA County to take decisive action to save lives, support workers, and prioritize schools by implementing a full lockdown of all non-essential businesses and activities.

• Sign the petition to let the LA Board of Supervisors know we are United Against Covid19, and demand a 4-week ‘Circuit Breaker’ with real safety nets to allow businesses to stay closed and workers to stay safe at home, to suppress the virus and save lives!

As COVID infection rates skyrocket, a group of ill-advised California legislators, under political pressure from privatizer-supported groups, has introduced State Assembly Bill 10 (AB 10), which would require schools that reach the state's red, orange and yellow tiers to implement a plan to physically reopen within two weeks, starting March 1. This is happening at a time when the majority of LAUSD families surveyed say they want to stay with fully online learning and when UTLA, along with other unions and community organizations, has called for a full lockdown in LA County through the month of January in an effort to control the current surge of infection.

The bill ignores the complexities of viral transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic and the logistics of neighboring counties with different levels of infection. It imposes an arbitrary date for reopening during the current surge with transmission rates, hospitalizations and deaths hitting record high levels. AB 10 is ill-conceived and irresponsible and will put at risk the lives of our members, students, and families. Also significant and objectionable is the disproportionate impact that a poorly designed reopening would have on low-income communities of color, already under siege by the economic and health impacts of the pandemic, and who are more likely to think it’s unsafe for schools to reopen and plan to keep their children home if they do.

UTLA, along with other California unions, including CTA and CFT, strongly opposes AB 10 in its present form and will fight to ensure that it is defeated, or drastically changed to reflect the health concerns of our members and students. Both CTA and CFT have sent letters to legislators asking them to address the more problematic aspects of the bill.

• CTA Campaign Join educators in California and send a letter to the authors of AB 10 and the legislative leadership, including Patrick O'Donnell and Al Muratsuchi, to urge them to work with educators to determine how and when to safely reopen our schools.
   

• CFT Campaign Write to Governor Newsom and your elected representatives in Sacramento, expressing your concerns about AB 10. Tell them science and community safety, not political pressure, must be the guiding force in any discussion about reopening our schools to in-person instruction.
   

• Call Assembly Members Patrick O'Donnell at (916) 319-2070 and Al Muratsuchi at (916) 319-2066 and ask them to stop AB 10 because it will put at risk the lives of our members, our students and their families.

RALLY IN PERISHING SQUARE

Americans are on the cusp of making history, electing Joe Biden with the largest number of votes ever cast in a US Presidential election and electing Kamala Harris as the first female, Black, and Asian American Vice President. While we wait for the final ballots to be counted, we hope we have turned a corner in this country — away from the corrupt presidency of Donald Trump and away from the racism, sexism, and xenophobia that defined his tenure. 

But Joe Biden’s clear electoral win doesn’t mean that Trump will concede. We will not accept attempts to undermine the integrity of our US election. Trump has indicated he will do anything to stay in power, up to and including refusing to leave office.

Until Trump concedes, we must show a commitment to democracy by showing our strength through our unity and to engage in actions to support the following demands.

• We demand every vote be counted and the process takes place without interference, intimidation or violence. 

• We demand Trump respects the election results and the will of the people.

• We demand a peaceful transition of power. 

Tomorrow we stand up to demand democracy and a peaceful transfer of power. At 10:30 am UTLA educators are joining labor unions, community organizations, youth and student groups, and advocacy organizations in Pershing Square. It is time that we stand united, not only to defend but to strengthen our democracy by advancing justice and inclusion. The broad-based coalition will lead an action with basic principles that should have long been our standard for all economic and social policy: we care for ourselves, we care for others, and everyone counts.

SATURDAY: Rally and March to Demand Democracy and a Peaceful Transfer of Power

• UTLA members meet at 10:30 am at Pershing Square for march to City Hall

• Special rally program at 10:30 am with students and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz

• Take the Red and Purple Lines

• Wear UTLA red and bring your mask

Facebook event page

THANK YOU FOR JOINING US FOR PHONE BANKING AND HELPING ELECT EDUCATOR FRIENDLY BOARD MEMBERS SCOTT SCHMERLESON !