When I went on strike with thousands of other teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on January 14, 2019, I had no idea how long the strike was going to last, especially because Austin Beutner, the District superintendent, seemed to have no interest in negotiating with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) in the days leading up to the strike. Beutner’s unwillingness to negotiate during the year and a half of contract negotiations before the strike as well as his support of charter schools made it appear that he wanted to destroy public education.

The teachers’ strike ended Tuesday, January 22, lasting six days, in what the Los Angeles Times called a “decisive political victory.” Another Los Angeles Times article says the effects of the teachers’ strike has created a ripple effect across California and beyond. This new contract is an amazing victory for teachers, students, and their families. Here are the highlights of what striking teachers won.

Class size reduction: Before the strike, principals were allowed to override the rules about class size in an emergency. As a result, classes were huge. The new contract eliminates the part of the contract that allowed principals to do that. Now the rules about the maximum number of students are enforceable. For example, the maximum class size for kindergarten in non-magnet schools is twenty-seven. If there are three kindergarten classes and two of them have twenty-seven students and one of them has twenty-eight, the principal must hire another teacher.

Special education: The new contract gives special education teachers more time to assess and meet the needs of their students. It also has improved language on caseload caps.

Itinerant teachers: Itinerant teachers are teachers who travel to different schools to teach their subject matter. There are many elementary teachers who teach art, music, theater, dance, and physical education at a different elementary school each week. The contract provides a reasonable workspace for itinerant teachers. It also creates a task force that addresses the concerns of itinerant teachers.

A nurse in every school every day: Before the strike, the District paid for a nurse at every school only one day a week. Schools had the option of using their own money to pay for additional nurse days or hiring a nurse’s aide. At some schools, office personnel were used in place of a nurse. The new contract provides for a nurse at every school every school day. At a school where I worked, I remember hearing an announcement over the intercom asking anyone who knew CPR to come to the office because a student may have needed it. All of us teachers were scared, but the child turned out to be okay and did not need CPR after all. We were grateful, but teachers are even more grateful that we will have a nurse at school all the time to take care of our students.

Librarians: The new contract provides a teacher librarian in every secondary school.

Counselors: The new contract decreases the counselor student ratio from 1 per 1,000 to 1 per 500.

Support for immigrant students and their families: The District agreed to create an immigrant defense fund and will provide a dedicated attorney and hotline for immigrant families and collaborate with UTLA.

Less testing: Teachers in LAUSD spend a large amount of instructional time testing their students in reading, writing, math, and science. The new contract includes the creation of a task force that includes representatives from the District and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and has been charged with lowering testing by fifty percent.

Charter schools: With this new contract, schools will be notified in advance of the threat of co-location. A UTLA co-location coordinator will be elected to help facilitate the development of the shared use agreement. Charter schools are schools run by private corporations that get money from LAUSD. They cause problems because as students leave public schools to enroll in these independently run charter schools, the public schools lose teachers. Some independently run charter schools also co-locate, which means they occupy empty classrooms and other space on public school campuses. Additionally, at the most recent LAUSD board meeting, the District kept the promise it made during negotiations and passed a resolution to encourage the state of California to put a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools.

Community Schools: The new contract mandates the creation of thirty community schools, which are schools with parent engagement and wrap-around services.

Green space: UTLA and the District agreed to remove asphalt and bungalows at schools to create more green space.

Six percent raise: In the new contract, the District agreed to give teachers a six percent pay raise. UTLA’s original request was a six and a half percent pay raise.

This contract win is amazing! Most of the past negotiations between LAUSD and UTLA have resulted in 50-50 compromises. UTLA won these negotiations on most of the contract issues, and as a result, so did students and their families. During the year and a half of contract negotiations, UTLA had a contract campaign that generated an unprecedented amount of public support, without which I do not believe we would have won. Parents and community members understood that this strike was not about the money. They knew teachers were fighting for better schools for their students.

When the teachers of Los Angeles won this strike, we didn’t just win a great contract; we became part of a national movement to improve students’ learning conditions and teachers’ working conditions. Now that the teachers’ strike in Los Angeles is over, it’s time to stand in solidarity with teachers in Oakland and Denver who are preparing to strike. ¡La lucha continua! (The struggle continues!)

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