MOMS UNITE by Victoria Rierdan Hurley

CA Takes More Money from Schools - More Bad News for LAUSD

You have probably heard talk of more layoffs, pay cuts and furlough days for LAUSD staff.  I wish I could say that it’s not true, but I can’t. Over the summer, the State government took an additional $225 million dollars out of the budget for education throughout California. The money that was originally designated for next school year now must be used to cover this year, which leaves us with a serious shortfall for next year and the year after.  Frankly, it’s probably for the foreseeable future unless something pretty amazing happens.

Keep in mind that nothing has been decided yet. The LAUSD proposal to the unions asks for four furlough days between now and the end of the school year to avoid layoffs.  These days are designed to be taken when the students are not at school so that they don’t miss any instruction.  For example, the staff gets three weeks paid time off for winter break and a week in the spring.  The proposal suggests that some of those days be without pay.  The proposal for next year includes a 12% pay cut. The unions can opt to take some of these as furlough days and some as salary reduction. It’s horrible. And no matter how you slice it, students will suffer and so will teachers. And at the end of the day, California will suffer.

There is a tiny spark of good news.  The arts programs will not be cut.  Some of the instructors may be laid off, but the programs will somehow survive and all talk of cutting them has been taken off the table.  For now at least.

Here’s the thing. The District cannot impose furlough days but they can issue layoffs.  It’s really up to the unions to decide what they will accept. SEIU, which represents much of the support staff on campuses, has already agreed to vote on a compromise to save jobs.  UTLA, which represents the teachers, has not. That particular union has historically been adverse to compromise – even to the detriment of its members. It is not yet clear what will happen.  According to a spokesperson for LAUSD, if UTLA will not accept some sort of compromise made up of furlough days and pay cuts, over 7,000 jobs could be lost.

And as long as I’m giving bad news, I may as well add that class size for grades K – 3 will also be going up next year.  We’ve gone from 20:1 to 24:1 and next year it is scheduled to be 29:1. Grades 4 -5 will not be increased.

It’s an untenable situation – for the teachers and for us as parents.  The bottom line is that decisions are being made regarding the education of our children and the employment of our beloved teachers that we are not a part of.  There are two culprits here. One is our state legislature and the other is UTLA. Sure, we have options. We can consider private education, we can move out of state or we can try to make our voices heard.

I urge you to make calls and send email to not just your state representative, but to all of them. Insist that education be made a priority. Explain that if they think we have economic problems in California now, just wait until we have a whole population of under-educated people and unemployed teachers. 

Victoria

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MOMS UNITE is a grassroots parent advocacy group devoted to improving public education in California.

To join, please send your contact information to join@moms-unite.org and follow us on Twitter @MOMSUNITE.

Prepping for our meeting with Supt Ramon Cortines

Today Ginger and I meet with Superintendent Ramon Cortines of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It’s exciting.  And, kind of unprecedented. Most “parent groups” that work with the district are really special interest groups. They’re about special needs children, English-learners, economically disadvantaged kids, etc.  All of the interests are important, but the district has learned to hear the term parent group as code for special interest group.  It’s also code for group of angry people who will yell at you and look out for ONLY their own interests.  I’m sure there’s a lot of history that makes this so, but this is what it has evolved to today. I’ve sat in “parent” meetings and can honestly say that I’ve been the only actual unpaid, unaffiliated parent in the room.  Public education is a very complex beast.

 

It is rare, if not unheard of, for the Superintendent to reach out to a grassroots group like MOMS UNITE for a private meeting. Things in the district have reached such a dire state that he is willing to look outside of the same old channels for new ideas.  Fortunately, we are definitely not lacking in ideas.  The challenge is to bring an idea that will work within the very stringent confines of the system. I hope to slowly expand that system, but for now, we must be happy to do what we can within the system to make some changes.

 

We’ve researched, spoken with other parents, teachers, principals and other interested parties to determine what’s truly most important. Naturally, we’ve gotten a ton of different responses, but everyone is in agreement on one thing – class size.  At our school, we’re look at stuffing 36 kids in the 4^th and 5^th grades into a single classroom. Research has repeatedly shown that 17 is the optimal size for learning.  I understand that 17 kids in a class can’t happen in the LAUSD, especially now, but come on! 36?  That’s pretty untenable, even for the most resilient and experienced teacher.

 

I like Dr. Cortines. I’ve spoken with him many times and I’ve heard him speak even more times.  I truly think that he’s doing the best that he can do with a very bad set of circumstances.  UTLA (the teacher’s union) villanizes him and so do a lot of school principals, but if there is one thing I’ve learned in all of this, it’s that everyone has an agenda. 

 

Stay tuned to find out what we present and how it’s received!

 

Victoria

Trying to offer clarity in the confusion

In the months that Ginger Bower and I have been focusing nearly full-time on MOMS UNITE, we've noticed the unbelievable amount of misinformation that has been circulating about LAUSD, UTLA, the budget, the stimulus money, strikes, etc.  Just last week a friend emailed me a flyer from some parents at a school in LA about a protest based on information that was two months old! None of it was relevant.  Parent groups are popping up, rallies are being held, and while I absolutely applaud this and encourage it, it's important that we understand what we're really up against.  This will make everyone's efforts more effective.

As one of the founders of MOMS UNITE, I started this blog to let parents, teachers and concerned LA taxpayers know, to the best of my ability, what's actually going on.  So much has happened with MOMS UNITE and we've had some amazing successes.  I regret that I'm late to start the blog, but better now than never.  Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go.

Yesterday, LAUSD filed an injunction with the Court to prevent a teacher walk-out planned for Friday, May 15th.  The Court ordered that the teachers would be in breach of contract and subject to termination if they strike. The union is unhappy with this, and from what I understand, is still encouraging teachers to strike.  I sincerely hope that they don't.  I'd advise parents to check with your school principal to find out exactly what the situation at your school will be that day.

Ginger Bower and I are meeting with Superintendent Ramone Cortines to discuss a variety of issues that affect the classroom experience at Los Angeles elementary schools.  Class size reduction is a key issue and equalizing reduced class size across the district will be a priority for us.

I'll report back with an update on our meeting.

Victoria