award-winning newspaper of united teachers los angeles ... · together, we made history by alex...

INSIDE

• Scenes from our strike: Pages 4-8• Agreement delivers wins: Page 4

Award-Winning Newspaper of United Teachers Los Angeles • www.utla.net Volume XLVII, Number 4, February 8, 2019

PULLOUTPOSTERPAGE 12

WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WINRain or Shine, We Walked the Line!

WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WINRain or Shine, We Walked the Line!

United Teacher • for the latest news: www.utla.net February 8, 2019

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President’s perspective

Together, we made historyBy Alex Caputo-Pearl UTLA President

Our strike won an overwhelming victory on the issues. We launched the teacher strike movement in California and accelerated the teacher strike movement nationally. We made history.

But what remains etched in our brains and hearts most indelibly is the together-ness, love, pride, and creative spark we felt on the picket lines and in the rallies. The co-workers at Los Angeles Elemen-tary who got to know each other so much better on the line that they decided to step up and broaden their chapter leadership at the school as a permanent move. The chapter leaders at Augustus Hawkins High School who said that, when it rained the week after the strike, their col-leagues missed striking together (“picket line withdrawal”). The parents at Lillian Street Elementary who brought pozole to the line for a collective feast. The entire school community at Arleta High School and Romer Middle School dancing in the rain and contributing to the social media dance contests. The members at Nevin Elementary who made “Thank You” cards for parents, stating, “Thank you for sup-porting our schools during this historic strike. Together, we will build a better and more equal world for our students and our community. UTLA Strong!” The members at Stagg Elementary and so many sites who said the strike was a tremendous boost in morale. The members at Carpenter El-ementary who collectively created a social media phenom with carpool karaoke.

Every one of you on the picket line embraced your ability to be an agent of change in the world. So many of you embraced your leadership—motivating your co-workers, organizing elements of your picket line or the work supporting your picket line and rally attendance. You are incredible.

It is so important that we nurture these relationships that developed during the strike. It was our collective power, our togetherness across over 34,000 educators and tens of thousands of parents, and our strengthened relationships to each other that gave us the power to win the strike. It is also what will give us the power to win the next steps in the struggle for edu-cational justice. So, take time to remember the picket lines and be intentional about building those relationships even stronger.

We’ll need those relationships, that dis-cipline, that pride, and that energy for our next steps:

• Educate ourselves and parents about the new contract and implement it ag-gressively.

• Elect Jackie Goldberg to LAUSD School Board District 5.

• Support the possible Oakland teacher strike.

• Pressure the state for a charter cap and additional funding for schools.

What we achievedWe began our contract campaign with

member, parent, and community surveys in February 2017. We had three overall goals

for the campaign.1. Win on key

contract demands.2. Win on key po-

litical and common good demands outside the contract.

3. Build the movement for public education.

We achieved all of our goals.

Over my 22 years of teaching and community organizing, and four and a half years of being UTLA president, I have been a part of, and closely observed, many unions’ contract campaigns and many community campaigns to change policies. I have never seen a victory with the depth and breadth of what we won together in our strike.

For months between July and Novem-ber 2018, we blanketed the city with the “United, We Act Now” flyer, outlining seven of our key demands. We won on all of them.

Pay: A 6% retroactive increase without contingencies and without conditions that undermine healthcare.

Class size: Elimination of Section 1.5 of the class-size article, leading to the first enforceable class-size caps in decades, along with the first systematic reduction in class sizes in decades over the course of three years.

Staffing and school safety: Increased staffing, including a nurse in every school every day, a teacher librarian in every sec-ondary school, and a first-time enforceable student-to-counselor ratio.

Testing: A 50% reduction in standard-ized testing.

Privatization: A School Board resolu-tion calling on Sacramento to implement a moratorium on new charter schools, a first-time article in our contract giving public district schools more rights in charter co-locations, and a commitment to remove unused bungalows.

School funding: An endorsement by the district and Mayor Eric Garcetti for the Schools and Communities First statewide measure in November 2020 that would bring $11 billion to schools and social services, and an unlocking of LA County monies for mental health services.

Community Schools: Investment in 30 school communities to transform into Community Schools, as a model for great education, and as a proactive alternative to charter schools.

There were contractual wins beyond these, including for special education, greater educator voice in magnet con-version, early education, workspace for itinerants and health and human services

professionals, ROC/ROP teachers, adult education, substitute educators, ethnic studies, and expanded chapter chair rights regarding budgets, speaking at district meetings, and more. Read details on page 4.

In addition to the privatization, school funding, and Community School victo-ries above, there were additional victories on political and common good demands outside the contract, including expanding green space on school campuses, expand-ing the number of schools where school safety alternatives to so-called random searches would be used, and creating an immigrant defense fund.

On our third goal of using our contract campaign and our strike to build the move-ment for public education, we scored an unambiguous victory. Tens of thousands of parents picketed and marched with us. We fundamentally shifted the media narrative about public schools in LA and around the country. The new narrative: We must invest in our schools, not privatize them; in the richest state in the richest country in the world, it is clearly possible to do this; and, educators will strike for our students. We have helped inspire teacher movements and possible strikes in Oakland, Denver, Virginia, Texas, Maryland, and more.

Lessons from our strikeWe learned many lessons from our

strike, and we did our learning on a public stage, so that the US labor movement, teacher unions everywhere, and move-ments everywhere can learn with us.

Strikes work: We live in a period of history in which the right wing is at-tempting to take away the right to strike, and liberals are often too scared to utter the word “strike” for fear that it will be too “disruptive.” With a massive, ef-fective, strategic, and well-organized strike, we have helped put striking back on the map. And, we have shown that strikes work. We would not have won 80% of our contract demands without

(continued on next page)

Our collective power gave us the strength to win the strike.

United Teacher PRESIDENT Alex Caputo-Pearl NEA AFFILIATE VP Cecily Myart-Cruz AFT AFFILIATE VP Juan Ramirez ELEMENTARY VP Gloria Martinez SECONDARY VP Daniel Barnhart TREASURER Alex Orozco SECRETARY Arlene Inouye

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jeff Good

BOARD OF DIRECTORSNORTH AREA: Karla Griego, Chair (Buchanan ES), Mark Ramos (Contreras LC), Rebecca Solomon (RFK UCLA

Comm. School), Julie Van Winkle (LOOC Liason)

SOUTH AREA: Maria Miranda, Chair (Miramonte ES), Aydé Bravo (Maywood ES), L. Cynthia Matthews

(McKinley ES), Karen Ticer-León (Tweedy ES)

EAST AREA: Adrian Tamayo, Chair (Lorena ES), Ingrid Gunnell (Salary Point Advisor), Yolanda Tamayo

(Lorena ES), Gillian Russom (Roosevelt HS)

WEST AREA: Erika Jones, Chair (CTA Director), Georgia Flowers Lee (Saturn ES), Noah Lippe-Klein (Dorsey HS), Larry Shoham (Hamilton HS)

CENTRAL AREA: Stacie Webster, Chair (West Vernon ES), Kelly Flores (Hawkins HS), Tomás Flores

(West Vernon ES), Claudia Rodriquez (49th Street)

VALLEY EAST AREA: Scott Mandel, Chair (Pacoima Magnet), Victoria Casas (Beachy ES), Mel House (Elementary P.E.), Hector Perez-Roman (Arleta HS)

VALLEY WEST AREA: Bruce Newborn, Chair (Hale Charter), Melodie Bitter (Lorne ES), Wendi Davis

(Henry MS), Javier Romo (Mulholland MS)

HARBOR AREA: Steve Seal, Chair (Eshelman ES), Karen Macias (Del Amo ES), Jennifer McAfee

(Dodson MS), Elgin Scott (Taper ES)

ADULT & OCCUP ED: Matthew Kogan (Evans CAS)

BILINGUAL EDUCATION: Cheryl L. Ortega (Sub Unit)

EARLY CHILDHOOD ED: Teri Harnik, Cleveland EEC

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: Mallorie Evans (Educational Audiologist)

SPECIAL ED: Lucía Arias (Sub Unit)

SUBSTITUTES: Benny Madera

PACE CHAIR: Marco Flores

UTLA RETIRED: John Perez

AFFILIATIONS American Federation of Teachers National Education Association

STATE & NATIONAL OFFICERSCFT PRESIDENT: Joshua Pechthalt

CTA PRESIDENT: Eric Heins CTA DIRECTOR: Erika Jones

CFT VICE PRESIDENTS: Arlene Inouye, John Perez, Juan Ramirez NEA PRESIDENT: Lily Eskelsen Garcia AFT PRESIDENT: Randi Weingarten

AFT VICE PRESIDENT: Alex Caputo-PearlNEA DIRECTOR: Mel House

UTLA COMMUNICATIONS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Alex Caputo-Pearl

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Anna BakalisCOMMUNICATIONS SPECIALISTS: Kim Turner,

Carolina Barreiro, Tammy Lyn GannADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Laura Aldana

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Get connected to UTLA Facebook: facebook.com/UTLAnow

Twitter: @utlanow

YouTube: youtube.com/UTLAnow

4 Ground-breaking agreement reinvests in public education Details of the new contract.

4 Strike 2019 timeline Highlights of our six days on the line.

6 My time on the strike line Bell High teacher Lisa Culpepper on the unity, the chants, the honks—and yes, the rain.

7 Accelerated teachers lead first charter strike in the state New contract will help stem extreme teacher turnover at the charter schools.

In this issue

PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE (continued from previous page)

a strike. We would not have forced the non-contractual political and common good demands onto the table without a strike. We would not have galvanized the movement we did and shifted the media narrative without a strike.

Building systems and structures pays off: All of the work we have done over the past four years to build systems and struc-tures—recruiting chapter chairs at every school, building contract action teams at our schools, building cluster systems for communication—were essential to orga-nizing a successful strike.

Parents, youth, and community are es-sential: Four years ago, we initiated the Reclaim Our Schools LA coalition of com-munity and civil rights organizations, and we began a process of training our members to do school-by-school parent connection and communication. This paid off in the strike with tens of thousands of parents involved. ROSLA did an amazing parallel set of actions during our strike, including protests in the rain at Monica Garcia and Austin Beutner's homes and a teach-in at the offices of a well-known privatizer. We must double-down on this work to continue to build the movement for our schools.

Collective action is the key to social change: We live in a society that celebrates celebrities and individual leaders. No celeb-rity or individual leader could have won the victories we did, or galvanized the attention and movement we did. We were able to do that through the collective, organized action of tens of thousands of people.

Both major political parties need to be aggressively challenged: The Arizona, West Virginia, and Oklahoma teacher walkouts of last year were called “red state strikes” against Republican legislatures. Though Democrats are supposedly more sympa-thetic to public education and unions, it took our strike for elected officials in Los Angeles and California, overwhelmingly Democratic, to take the underfunding and privatization of our schools seriously. We have to keep on challenging them.

Being bold and pushing political imagina-tion matters: The district refused to bargain school funding, Community Schools, ele-ments of charter schools, and our common good proposals, claiming they were “outside the scope of bargaining.” They took us to court saying that we couldn’t bargain standardized testing because it is a permissive subject of bargaining, not a mandatory subject. We were bold, pushed through, and reached agreement on all of these. We are imagining a new future in which social movements bargain on more and more issues that matter to people.

There is no textbook way to end a strike: On the Tuesday that was the last day of the strike, the voting on the tentative agree-ment was very rushed and frustrated some members. We understand this, embrace the criticism, and are reflective. We had three options on how to end the strike: (a) have the Board of Directors end it alone, which would have been unacceptable because our members owned this strike, and that would have been undemocratic; (b) extend the strike through Wednesday, which would have given people more time to read the agreement and vote, but would have added an additional day unpaid; or (c) Use that 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. period on Tuesday to try to rush the voting. In the intensity of the end of a 24-hour bar-

Alex on the first day of the strike with his daugh-ter, Ella, an LAUSD student. Many families walked the line together and embraced the strike as a living lesson that people can lead by taking to the streets. As so many rally signs read: “Los maestros luchando tambien están enseñando”—The teachers who are fighting are also teaching.

8 UTLA Leadership: We Are #UTLAStrong

14 Passings

16 Note from the UTLA-Retired president

18 Involvement opportunity: CTA State Council elections

19 WHO awards

20 Committee events

21 STRS preretirement workshops

23 Grapevines

gaining session at the end of a weekend of bargaining, pressure from the media, pressure from elected officials, and trying to balance the centrality of our members being able to read and understand the agreement with the value of minimizing our members’ loss of pay to the degree possible, we went with option (c). We apologize for the rushed voting and are reflective about this difficult choice.

Wins must be used as platforms to con-tinue the struggle: We cannot rest on our wins. We must use them as the foundation to aggressively push forward in these and other critical areas.

• Class size: The strike would have been worth it even if our only win had been eliminating Section 1.5 on class size. Class size is that important to working conditions, learning conditions, building coalitions, limiting RIFs, limiting charter co-locations, and so much more. Killing 1.5 will result in reductions in class size at every level next year because the class size caps in the 2017-18 Memorandum of Understanding will be enforced. The 3½-year process to close the gap between the caps in the 2017-18 MOU and the caps in our permanent contract will result in additional reductions of up to seven students. These are huge wins—and, as the civil rights movement of the 1960s and other movements have taught us, sometimes huge victories are imple-mented gradually. But we will not rest with these wins. Now that we have the win of enforceable class size caps, we can press to lower them even further in future bargaining, from TK-12 and adult school, from core subjects to elective classes.

• Special education: We opened up the special education article in our contract for the first time in 38 years. We should be proud

that we did this, for students and educators who have, for too long, been neglected. We made significant gains on articulating district norms for class sizes and caseloads, getting release time for teachers to do assessments, requiring the district to provide data on caseloads, gaining the ability to bargain on instructional delivery models, addressing for the first time the varied needs of autis-tic students, and accelerating the response time the district has to address class size and caseload problems. But there is much more to do. We will use the current wins as a platform to fight aggressively for more.

• Psychologists, PSWs, and PSAs: In the past four years, we have won key victo-ries for our members in these groups with regards to beating back RIFs and winning additional hiring. With our strike, we won the guarantee of work space for these members, a contractual workload commit-tee that will drive toward reducing ratios and unnecessary paperwork, and the ability to be a part of the innovative Community School model. We will need to work to ag-gressively build on these victories.

• Bilingual and multilingual education: We will forcefully work to make improvements in these key areas. This will require deeply educating the district on the needs of our students, and the educators serving them.

I will end where I began. We just expe-rienced something together that very few in life do—an incredible, victorious, and movement-building strike. I couldn’t be more honored to have done this with you.

And now we move to our next steps. Every one of us needs to personally involve ourselves in each of these. Reach out and get precinct-walking, text-banking, and informational picketing at your schools on your calendar for these next steps:

• Educating ourselves and parents

about the new contract and implement-ing it aggressively.

• Electing Jackie Goldberg to School Board District 5.

• Supporting the possible Oakland teacher strike.

• Pressuring the state for a charter cap and additional funding for schools.

You are wonderful. Move forward with pride. You did something so few others have done. You are going to help build on it. You embraced your ability to be an agent of change in the world—and you made a change. I will see you soon, and let’s keep moving forward.

COVE

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On strike for our students: Prep-Day 1

Details of the new contract.

Our contract agreement is ground-breaking in its focus on meeting student needs and its embrace of strategies to foster a thriving, sustainable public school system. For more than 20 months at the table, LAUSD refused to bargain on any-thing but the most narrow of topics, but our strike forced the district to engage on issues critical to the survival of public schools in LA. By winning on our demands to reinvest in public education, we pushed back on the privatizers’ agenda to defund and destabilize our schools. Here are the critical elements of the agreement:

Fair wages• 6% raise with no contingencies

We fought off district demands to tie the raise to additional work, and we defeated the district’s priority to start cutting healthcare (Rule of 87 for future employees), which LAUSD’s Hard Choices report claims is 44% too generous. LAUSD only moved to the 6% salary offer in the fall, after our strike prep intensified. For months before that, LAUSD had stuck to its offer of a 2% raise and 2% one-time bonus.

Lower class sizes• Elimination of Section 1.5, which allowed

the district to ignore class-size averages and caps in the contract and unilaterally increase class size. This will impact all grade levels and subjects by creating real, enforceable class-size maximums.

• All English and Math classes reduced to 39 students effective 2019-20 (there are nearly 600 classes this year with more than 39 students)

• Progressive class-size reductions for grades 4-12 over the next three years: reduction of one student per grade level in 2019, two students in 2020-2021, and four students in 2021-22, compared to current levels. The steady reduction of class-size maximums will naturally reduce class-size averages.

• Additional targeted class-size reductions in 75 high-needs elementary schools and 15 high-needs middle schools

• Agreement sets the stage to push class sizes lower in future bargaining, now that Section 1.5 is eliminated (before, any negotiated class-size reductions were meaningless because LAUSD had the power to ignore them).

Getting rid of Section 1.5 is the biggest victory in this contract. We now have hard class-size caps for the first time in 25 years. The elimination of Section 1.5 was the last item we negotiated at the table—LAUSD held onto it until the bitter end because it is such a powerful tool for them. Section 1.5 is why we have more than 800 classes this school year that violate our contract agreement. None of this will be the case at the start of the new school year. With Section 1.5 gone, all class sizes will have hard caps, and those hard caps are enforce-able through the grievance procedure.

More nurses, counselors, and librarians

• A nurse in every school every day by 2020-21 (at least 300 new nurses hired)

• A teacher librarian in every secondary school every day by 2020-21 (at least 82 new teacher-librarians hired)

• Contractual guarantee of student-counsel-or ratios of 500:1 at every secondary school

The contract makes solid progress in fully staffing our schools with the professionals needed to give students the supports they deserve and to build the kind of schools parents want to send their children to.

Less testing & more teaching• Agreement forms parent, teacher, and ad-

ministrator task force to create an inven-tory of tests not mandated by the state or federal government and to analyze their effectiveness and cost.

• Task force will make recommendations to cut up to 50% of standardized tests not man-dated by state or federal government

LAUSD took legal action to try to push our testing demands off the table, but our strike forced them to engage on the issue.

Funding for schools• Formal commitment that LAUSD and

the Mayor’s office will jointly advocate for increased county and state funding, including additional funding for nurses, mental health, special education, and Community Schools

• Mayor will endorse the Schools and Com-munities First ballot initiative in 2020 that would bring $11 billion in new state revenue for education and community needs

Ground-breaking agreement reinvests in public education

Forecast calls for “picket umbrellas”

50,000+ strong, we march to Beaudry

The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah calls our demands “the most reasonable ever”

Last-minute sign-laminating at Lakeshore

Rain or shine we walk the line!

(continued on page 10)

More than a strike, a movement: Every day we put tens of thousands of people in the streets for huge marches (above), regional actions (below), and daily morning and afternoon picketing at schools.


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On strike for our students: Days 2-3

Our power in the streets forces reinvestment in our schools and shifts the narrative on education.

The strike heard ’round the world

Our strike was a watershed moment for public education: In six days, we galva-nized the city, dominated national media coverage, won a ground-breaking contract, and learned that in the battle to reinvest in our schools, the public stands with us.

With 34,000 members out, it was one of the biggest strikes in California history and, despite torrential downpours, com-munity support grew as the walkout pro-gressed from its January 14 start, with more students staying home from school and more parents marching with us, topping 60,000 people at our biggest rally.

Our work stoppage drew national attention to how California, one of the wealthiest and most liberal states in the country, spends shamefully little on its public schools and how our students—pre-dominately from communities of color—are not getting what they need to succeed.

“Teachers tend to be selfless people, and for years we’ve just dealt with issues such as larger class sizes and a lack of funding and resources that led to less and less of every-thing that we need for a thriving school,” Multnomah Elementary chapter chair Lor-raine Quiñones says. “Our schools have been neglected for too long, and the broader public had no idea what our working and learning conditions were like. Our strike sparked a sense of urgency to demand the changes we know are needed and deserved.”

With passion and discipline, UTLA members conducted a strike like the state has not seen in decades. All the joy and creativity that educators bring to their schools were displayed on our picket lines, with intra-campus dance challenges, chant competi-tions, and Instagram-worthy protest signs.

The incredible outpouring of support took myriad forms. A Boyle Heights mother opened her home every day, cooking meals and keeping hot coffee and tea always on hand for the water-logged educators at Mendez High. In Highland Park, strikers at multiple schools were cheered by the anonymous driver who steered his pickup truck around the neighborhood, blasting “We Will Rock You” from a giant speaker aimed out his window. On Day 4 of the strike, parents with the Parents Support-ing Teachers Facebook group organized a 4,000-strong Hands Across Colfax human chain that stretched for nearly a mile. And when the strike was over, one Taper Avenue parent welcomed teachers back with gift-wrapped packages of Epsom salt

for their sore feet, with a note thanking them for standing up for students.

Game-changing contract agreement

Our strike accomplished in six days what years of bargaining could not: Force the district to reinvest in our schools. The agreement reached January 22 at LA City Hall, where Mayor Eric Garcetti and his team had been mediating between the two sides, hits all the defining elements of our contract campaign.

The wins include a 6 percent retroac-tive raise; lower class sizes and the top-priority elimination of Section 1.5, which allowed LAUSD to violate class sizes in the contract; a nurse in every school every day; more funding for librarians and coun-selors; and a 50 percent reduction in the amount of standardized testing (read full details on page 4). We beat back an attack on healthcare, secured support for a cap on charter schools and additional state funding, and made progress on common good demands around support for im-migrant families, expanding green space, and ending so-called random searches.

By withholding our labor, we forced LAUSD to make major concessions on items it had refused to negotiate for months—such as reducing overtesting—and on top-line priorities like eliminating Section 1.5, the last thing we won at the table. The new contract, which was ap-proved in a membership vote by 81% to 19%, is not a narrow labor agreement but a broad compact that sets us on a path to a sustainable public education system and reflects our game-changing strike that saw the community unite behind reinvesting in public schools, not dismantling them.

“People were made more aware of the challenges we face,” says Jee Kang, chapter chair at 186th Street School. “Most of our school’s parents didn’t know that we didn’t have a nurse every day. Now they realize that the state spends more to im-prison people than to teach their children, and I think elected officials will keep these newly energized parents in mind when they make funding decisions. It’s not just teachers demanding that we reinvest in our schools—it’s the entire community.”

Striking a blow against privatizationOur strike was the eighth major teacher

walkout over the past year as the Red for

Ed movement has spread from West Vir-ginia to Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond. Our walkout in Los Angeles—ground zero for privatization attacks by billionaires like Eli Broad—was the first to highlight the destabilizing impact the unregulated ex-pansion of the corporate charter industry has on public education.

The strike was a wakeup call for elected officials—one that aligns with the new political dynamic emerging around edu-cation and the charter industry. State Su-perintendent Tony Thurmond has called for a temporary ban on new K-12 charter schools in the state, saying the state has reached a “tipping point” with too many charters, and Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for a review of the impact of charter school growth on district finances.

And locally, in an incredible turn-around, the LAUSD School Board voted 5 to 1 in support of board member Richard Vladovic’s motion to call on the state to impose a moratorium on charters—a lopsided result unthinkable before our walkout. Only board member Nick Melvoin voted against the resolution.

Building on our victoryOur victory was more than a year in the

making and rests on the essential work of building structures at school sites, engag-ing parents and the community as part-ners, and taking escalating actions that built our strike readiness.

“Our expectations were fundamentally raised by this strike,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl says. “Together we said we

deserve better and our students deserve better. We must keep our expectations high and bring the same energy and spirit to our next fights, because the next struggle is right around the corner.”

Some immediate next steps:• A deeper dive into the new con-

tract and implementation issues through chapter meetings and trainings.

• Precinct walking to elect Jackie Gold-berg to the open LAUSD School Board seat in District 5 (see page 7).

• Supporting our brothers and sisters in Denver and Oakland as they move toward possible strikes.

• Taking action in Sacramento to push for more school funding and to answer the LAUSD School Board’s call for a morato-rium on charters in Los Angeles.

We move onto these next steps with deeper relationships—with colleagues, parents, the community—forged on the picket lines. Rosa Parks Learning Center teacher Abigail Massey says that the expe-rience of being on strike has been “trans-formative” for the staff.

“We were united in our cause and by the overwhelming support of our local com-munity, the city, and ultimately the teaching profession across the nation,” Massey says. “We took a huge step forward in providing our students with the environment they need to become successful learners, as well as what teachers need to be successful edu-cational professionals. Despite the exhaus-tion, high emotions, and uncertainty of the strike, I would do it all again, and I’m ready to keep fighting for my students.”

Two rock stars—Diane Ravitch & Steven Van Zandt—join the picket line at Hamilton High 50,000+ protest

outside charter lobby headquarters

Dolores Huerta marches with grandsons in Central Area

Venice High picket-line dance video goes viral

Survey shows deep community support

Students serenade teachers across the picket lines

#UTLAStrong in the streets of LA.


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Benjamin Bratt tweets support (one of dozens of celebs in solidarity) Alex gets standing ovation on the

Real Time With Bill Maher show

60,000+ Let the Sunshine In at Grand Park rally

Parents with Reclaim Our Schools LA hold protest outside Monica Garcia and Austin Beutner’s homes

Video of LAUSD fifth-grader Aryana Fields singing “Strike Song” goes viral

Our passion guides our fight for a better future.

By Lisa Napoleon CulpepperEnglish teacherBell High School

A man I don’t know offers me a tamale. I’m hungry, so I say, “Sure.” I take off my gloves, reach into the cooler, and pick one. I can tell it has been made with love because the shells are tied by hand with skinny strings of husks. I unwrap it just wide enough to see the tamale. I don’t hesitate and I begin eating—slowly, though, because I am still cold and don’t want to drop it from shaking. As I eat, I stand facing north and gaze at the teachers from underneath the protection of the tent. The rain hits my face and drips profusely from the covering’s edges.

I see the same Bell High crews leading the intersection marches. The traffic light turns green, and hordes of teachers begin walking from one side of the street to the

other. Mr. Soars carries a UTLA flag, Ms. Wilson’s ringlets of soaked red hair are no longer bouncing, and Mr. Moreno is wearing a construction helmet with “UTLA” written on it in capital letters; he blows two whistles while holding a large sign that reads: “I Got 99 Problems and A Lying Superintendent Is One.” I see a migration of defiant whistle blowers, sign- and flag-carriers, five-gallon water bottle drummers, and boom-box holders—they’re chanting to keep them-selves and those around them fired up. They turn to the cars that are passing by and look at the drivers and passengers straight in their eyes. Other teachers walk along the middle

dividers carrying signs that read: “Honk if you support teachers.” A symphony of horns—high, low, short, long, puttering, and cacophonous—spray the air. I hear the rhyth-mic intonations of “We are the teachers, the mighty, mighty teachers, standing for stu-dents and for education.” The groups begin to walk through the intersections again, and underneath the Conroy’s flower shop sign, I see a group of teachers dancing in yellow, red, and white rain ponchos.

Those standing along the sidewalks that enclose Atlantic and Florence raise their fists and chant, “What do we want? A new contract. When do we want it? Now!” The voices and the honking overtake the plummeting rain. The harder it rains, the louder Atlantic and Florence becomes. My senses are overwhelmed.

I’m finishing my tamale, quietly observ-ing the making of history, and a black SUV turns out of an adjacent parking lot with a girl standing up and leaning out of the sunroof. The car holds a mother, daughter, and two younger brothers in the backseat. The SUV stops. All of them get out of the car and they too chant, “UT-LA!” They raise their fists in solidarity, and the crowd next to them goes ballistic. It seems like a scene right out of the movies.

This was Day 4, when neighboring

schools gathered at this central location after morning picketing to plead our case to the people. We took over all four corners of the intersection and amplified our cause by walking relentlessly in a storm, rallying for social justice, and moving as one. The waves of honks made a statement: The com-munity understood what we were doing.

As I stood under the tent that provided very little protection, I felt supported. I felt it in my heart that we, the LAUSD public school teachers, were being heard, but more importantly, that the community was standing with us.

Teachers are very passionate people. We have to be. Whether that passion is perceived as dry and brittle or overboard, it is there. And when more than 30,000 teachers take to the streets in protest, when

more than 30,000 teachers picket in the rain for days, they are telling the world that something is terribly wrong with the educational system and they are damn tired of being blamed for it.

For six days in January, educators for the Los Angeles Unified School District fought back. We won the strike on so many differ-ent levels: for ourselves, our students, our communities, and for education as a whole. It was work that had to be done because our future depended on it. On Wednesday, I was proud to walk back into my classroom. Teachers returned to their work as passion-ately as they had stomped the pavement the previous week. The consistent theme was, “I’m glad to be back.” This work is our passion, and it is this passion that guided our collective action to fight for a better future.

My time on the strike line

Bell High, feeling the community love on the picket line.

On strike for our students: Days 4-5

When more than 30,000 teachers picket in the rain for days, they are

telling the world that something is terribly

wrong with the educational system.

In your own words

Air your opinionWe welcome submissions to “In Your Own Words,” which is an open

forum for members and the community. “In Your Own Words” columns state the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of UTLA, its officers, or UNITED TEACHER.

By mail: Editor, UNITED TEACHER, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

By email: [email protected]


7

Strike makes SNL monologue 1,000 firefighters march from DTLA to Contreras LC

50,000+ cheer contract victory in Grand ParkCarpenter Avenue teachers’

carpool karaoke series keeps spirits high Bargaining team pulls

marathon 24-hour session

Eight-day work stoppage results in big wins.

The progressive leader we need on the LAUSD School Board to fight for public education.

One day after UTLA members hit the picket lines, nearly 80 educators from The Accelerated Schools walked off the job, setting off the first charter teacher strike in California and only the second in the nation.

The strike ended after eight days on the line, with an agreement reached with the support of parents and the mediation of Los Angeles City Councilmember Curren Price.

The new contract includes several im-provements aimed at reducing teacher turn-over by providing increased job security and improvements to teachers’ healthcare ben-efits. Newly negotiated provisions include:

• Three months’ severance package, in-cluding salary and benefits, for any teacher who is not offered an employment contract from one year to the next.

• An improved arbitration process that requires a unanimous vote of the Acceler-ated Board of Trustees in order to reverse any decision made by an arbitrator.

• Annual signing bonuses of $10,000 for teachers who return to their positions at the beginning of each school year.

• The formation of a Collaborative Consensus Committee for stakeholders to discuss issues and create and implement improvements to schoolwide processes

During our six-day strike, Jackie Gold-berg was a constant presence, speaking at rallies, talking with teachers huddled under umbrellas in the rain, and giving fire-up talks to picketers. She was on the line because she knows our fight was not just for a fair contract but to push back against the wealthy privatizers—like Eli

and practices.• Annual increases in the employer’s

share of healthcare costs. The contract, which extends to the 2020-

2021 school year, was approved by a 77-1 vote of Accelerated teachers.

“This contract was hard fought, and we are thrilled to have reached an agree-ment that will work to combat the 40% to 50% teacher turnover that’s plagued our schools and that will allow teachers to focus on providing the very best for our students,” Wallis Annenberg High School teacher German Gallardo said. “We went on strike for the schools that our students deserve, and we couldn’t be more proud of them and the families who have showed such incredible support and commitment to our schools during the strike.”

The agreement capped more than 20 months of negotiations between the union-ized charter school teachers and The Ac-celerated Schools. In November 2018, the parties reached impasse and entered into a state-mandated fact-finding process. Talks following that process stalled, and teach-ers at the charter schools voted 99% to approve a strike.

“Our strike was critical for our profes-

Broad—who want to defund our schools in favor of an unregulated system of privately operated charters.

Informed by her decades of experi-ence—from classroom teacher to assembly member—Jackie has concluded that “the billionaires have stacked the deck against district public schools.”

sion, and unfortunately this dispute was a long time coming here at our schools,” TAS third grade teacher Amanda Martinez said. “But now it is time for our community

to heal. Having this agreement in place provides teachers solid ground to stand on as we work toward building the school that this community deserves.”

Accelerated teachers lead first charter strike in the state

Building on our victory: Elect Jackie Goldberg March 5

Accelerated teachers held the line for eight days, fighting for measures to address the huge turnover at the schools.

Jackie on the first day of the strike on the picket line at Marshall High.

On strike for our students: Weekend-Day 6

Ad paid for by Students, Parents and Educators in Support of Jackie Goldberg for School Board 2019, Sponsored by Teachers Unions, Including United Teachers Los Angeles.

Committee major funding from:Political Action Council of Educators, Sponsored by Teachers Unions,

Including United Teachers Los AngelesAmerican Federation of Teachers Solidarity Committee

California Teachers Association/Association for Better CitizenshipThis ad was not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate.

On March 5, we can flip the District 5 seat away from the privatizers, who spent millions to elect criminally indicted board member Ref Rodri-guez, and we can elect a public edu-cation defender to the board.

VOTE: Vote by mails ballots have already dropped. If you live in Dis-trict 5, mail your ballot in today or go to the polls on March 5.

VOLUNTEER: Precinct walking February 16 and 23 and March 2 and 3. Sign up at www.utla.net/news/elect-jackie-goldberg


8

“I saw hope, I saw joy, and I saw a belief in the future of teaching”

In the long runup to our strike, I had the chance to visit many schools and to talk with the members about what was on people’s minds. I remember distinctly one small school where the chapter chair texted me to visit because four of her newer teachers were saying they weren’t going to strike. I came out to a lunch meeting and listened to what was going on. I heard fears about the credential-ing program, about being probationary, and about what would happen to the special needs students they serve. It was a small group discussion, about real fears and issues. Flash forward to Wednesday of the strike, and under a rain-soaked popup tent, I saw the entire staff together at Sycamore Grove park for one of the regional rallies. I recognized the faces of those same new teachers who now didn’t have a lick of fear in their eyes or an ounce of doubt in their hearts; I saw hope, I saw joy, and I saw a belief in the future of teaching and learning. That’s a big thing that we did together. We build those big things when we put small pieces to-gether, patiently, thoughtfully, and methodically.

—Daniel BarnhartUTLA Secondary Vice President

“We are renewed, reenergized, and ready for the fight ahead”

In 1989, I was an 11th-grade student at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, affection-ately known as (LACES), when my teachers went on strike. I defied the rules and I jumped the fence to walk with those teachers. I knew without a doubt that they were fighting for me.

On January 14, 2019, in the torrential downpour, I walked the line at my old high school with friends, former teachers, students, parents, and community members. It was an overwhelming feeling to be back and on strike where I began as a youth advocate and activist.

I felt a deep sense of connection while walking, singing, chanting, talking to reporters, and FaceTiming with my mom, Mary, and my son, Giovanni, on that old familiar 18th Street. I am proud to be a LACES Unicorn.

Before we left the school and headed downtown for the first march, we gathered on the auditorium stairs, 400 people strong. We listened for guidance and inspiration given to us by chapter chair Crystal Dukes, and then a student, a parent and I spoke. This was the first time I had spoken in front of a crowd on those steps since 1990, and it was powerful to come full circle.

Our strike is one for the history books. I am moved by our members’ resolve. I am grateful for the UTLA officer team, UTLA staff, and all the support we received from our affiliates. I am so proud of our union. We are renewed, reenergized, and ready for the fight ahead. Most importantly, I am profoundly changed by our 2019 strike. When we strike, we win!

—Cecily Myart-CruzUTLA NEA Vice President

“This strike changed the public narrative about who we are”

I have experienced many emotions over the past months and especially over the past two weeks. I was moved to tears walking with you on the picket line. Your joy and empowerment was so vibrant and alive in the singing, dancing, and chanting that reflected a newfound sense of community. Some of you told me that this was the first time you felt appreciated as an educator and teacher … that it was the first time that parents and the community personally thanked you for being a teacher.

The fact that this strike changed the public narrative about who we are and what we do is so exhilarating. That was indeed a high point.

The low points have been the frustration felt in negotiations for over 21 months when there was no movement, with the district giving out misinformation and attempting to scare and confuse our members. Contrast that with what we felt on the second day of negotiations on Friday morning, January 18, when we heard your cheers from the third floor of City Hall where we were working day and night to get an agree-ment. When we opened the window, we saw you in all of your beauty and glory, blocks and blocks of

“We had to win, because losing would have meant the beginning of the end of public education in LA”

Being part of this historic movement is absolutely life changing. A month before our strike, I was in New Orleans at the Parish School Board meeting where I witnessed a vote to turn the last remaining public school in New Orleans—McDonogh 35—into a charter school. Being in that room was surreal, and as my heart went out to the wonderful people of New Orleans, my heart also ached for our own city. The thought of our district being broken up tortured me as I flew back home.

I knew we had to win, because losing would have meant the beginning of the end of public education in Los Angeles. What we did collectively was nothing short of amazing. We defended public educa-tion for all of our students—the ones who have their lives completely planned out, the ones who have yet to figure it out, the disenfranchised students—we did this for them. Our strike forced the very people who were put into power to break up our district to do exactly what we demanded: reinvest in our schools. I could not be more proud. Our power changed the narrative around privatization, our power brought teachers and parents together, and our power now stands with us, the educators of Los Angeles. Let’s revel in that power, let’s continue to build on our victory, and let’s never let that power escape us again.

—Gloria MartinezUTLA Elementary Vice President

“Being on strike with your brothers and sisters changes you”

This strike was not a strike, it was a movement—a movement that we built with community, students, and parents. Being on the picket lines with my colleagues, family, and complete strangers was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

As a history teacher and union organizer, I relish these moments. When I was teaching, two of my favorite units were on MLK and Cesar Chavez. These two historical figures allowed me to educate our students about these amazing civil rights leaders, their strategies, organizing, and love for humanity. Being on the picket lines and at the rallies and marches made me feel a part of this awesomeness. Knowing that figures like Dolores Huerta and other leaders were out marching and chanting with us only added to this amazing and surreal experience.

My feelings as a union organizer were also at an all-time high. Not only were we able to consistently bring 50,000-plus people to rallies (often in the pouring rain) but I now understand what my union brothers and sisters felt in 1989.

As officers, we visited hundreds of schools, organiz-ing and preparing to have the most successful strike in UTLA history. And at every site visit, I would ask for and acknowledge folks who struck in ’89. And every time, without question, they stood up with such pride and confidence. Now I understand why.

Being on strike with your brothers and sisters changes you. It is an unexplainable experience that everyone in the labor movement should one day be able to experi-ence. I was lucky to share these moments with my wife, who is also an LAUSD teacher, and my daughter, who walked the line with us. We should all feel proud of what we accomplished and proudly retell this story to our grandchildren and beyond. ¡Si se pudo!

—Alex OrozcoUTLA Treasurer

UTLA leadership team: We are #UTLAStrongInspiration from the picket lines.

members, parents, students, community in red. It was truly a thrilling sight to behold.

Then there was the intensity of the final hours of negotiations when we were racing against the clock and quite sleep deprived. But the 17 members of the Bargaining Team knew the seriousness of what we had been called to do, and we felt the heavy responsibility and weight of getting a fair contract. I’m so proud of how hard the Bargaining Team worked, and the disci-pline and focus we maintained throughout the 70-plus hours of negotiations.

Just as the UTLA strike of 2019 is changing the state of public education in this nation, it has changed me, and UTLA will never be the same.

—Arlene InouyeUTLA Secretary

“We can take pride in holding the line”

Building our successful strike took years of organizing, and that paid off with tight, energetic picket lines across the city. Our lines were strong because everyone was on them—amped-up chapter leaders, brand-new teachers, veterans from the 1989 strike, and folks who weren’t known for union activism.

When I marched at my former school, I was moved to see a retired colleague on the picket line. She said that, retired or not, she wanted to be part of the struggle, and having her out there inspired all of us.

Many members have told me that their school com-munity has been strengthened by the bonds built on the picket line—with colleagues, with parents, with the community—as they stood together in the rain, fighting for students and for public education.

We can take pride in holding the line. We are part of this transformation and the movement that will change the direction of LAUSD.

—Juan RamirezUTLA AFT Vice President

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Autism has been separated into two pro-grams with distinct caps: General Education (10) and Alternative Curriculum (8).

• Two release days a year to complete man-dated assessments

• District required to provide UTLA with real data on special education class sizes and caseloads

• Notification prior to the reassignment of a paraprofessional

• Right to bargain over any restructuring of instructional delivery service models, which include the composition of special ed classes and material/resource training for our members

Psychologists, PSWs, and PSAs• Key staff in up to 30 newly funded com-

munity schools• Appropriate work spaces at every school

site for all HHS itinerants so that they can do their jobs and protect student privacy.

• Committee to look at workload issues for all HHS itinerants, including psycholo-gists, PSWs, and PSAs.

Stem privatization• Notification by December 1 and February

1 each year of all schools threatened with co-location so we can organize to fight back against it

• More ability to protect space at co-located schools by creating elected UTLA co-location coordinator position, requiring the coordina-tor’s input in the development of the Shared-Use Agreement, and ensuring coordinator’s appointment to School Safety Committee

• Removal of unused bungalows to create green space for kids, which also limits space for charters to co-locate

Many of the issues regarding charter and charter co-location must be handled at the state level, but we made important

One of the most powerful outcomes of our strike is the overdue attention on our criminally underfunded public education system and the clear community demand to address the problem.

More resources & supportEarly Education teachers

• Eight-hour work day inclusive of a 30-minute duty-free lunch

ROC/ROP teachers• 10 hours of paid prep time each month for

ROC/ROP teachersSubstitutes

• Increased continuity rate and reduced time requirements to qualify for extended rate for long-term special ed assignments

• Expanded protections for late cancellationsAdult Education

• Improved longevity and part-time leave rights

• Task force on pay equity and improved access to permanent status

• Matrix pilot at four schools Ethnic studies

• More ethnic studies resources for teach-ers and a committee to explore expansion

Special education• First-time class-size caps for Specific

Learning Disability (12) and earliest learners (Early Ed, Preschool for all, PCC, ETK, PSC)

• Class-size and caseload reductions for educators serving severely Intellectually Disabled students (reduced up to 4) and Visually Impaired students (reduced by 2)

• Caseload reductions for Audiologists (reduced by 35)

• For the first time, district must recognize the varied needs of our students with autism.

AGREEMENT (continued from page 4)

progress at the table. Our strike dramati-cally shifted the conversation around the need to regulate charters, which drain $600 million from LAUSD schools every year. On January 29, the LAUSD School Board voted 5-1 in support of Richard Vladovic’s motion calling on the state for a morato-rium on new independent charter schools in LAUSD. Voting on the resolution was part of our contract agreement.

Investment in Community Schools• Funding for 30 Community Schools over

the next few years, with additional money and UTLA positions

By offering rich curriculum, parent engagement, and wraparound services, Community Schools are the proactive model for addressing student needs and strengthening the public school system. Until now, LAUSD has ignored Commu-nity Schools as a strategy for protecting public education even though they have been successful in many cities.

Common Good demands• Immigrant legal defense: Hotline and legal

support for immigrant families• Green Space: City and LAUSD to remove

bungalows and asphalt in campuses all over the city and replace with much-need-ed green space

• Random searches: Pilot program to expand schools exempt from conducting so-called random searches, instead moving to al-ternative proactive programs to provide school safety support, such as LA City’s GRYD program.

Working with parents and community

groups, we incorporated demands into our bargaining package that benefit the community as a whole. Making progress on these social justice issues is a righteous achievement that strengthens our bonds with parents and the community.

Expanded UTLA rights• UTLA members must vote before school

is converted to a magnet• Chapter chairs sign off on whether ad-

ministrator has provided opportunity for meaningful staff input before submitting local school waivers

• Substitute and itinerant employees have in-creased number of chapter chairs recognized by the district and will get same time to speak at staff meetings as school-based members

By expanding UTLA members’ rights, we hit against the privatizers’ agenda to deprofessionalize teaching, give us less of a voice on campus, and use the magnetiza-tion process to undermine teachers’ rights.

No reprisals for strike• No retaliation or reprisals of any kind for

participating in the strike or other activities leading up to the strike, such as faculty meeting boycotts

• Threshold to qualify for healthcare for adult ed and substitute employees is lowered to 94 days for this school year

• Threshold to qualify for substitute conti-nuity rate is lowered to 124 days for this school year

• Strike does not constitute a break in service for purposes of retiree healthcare eligibility

Before we signed the contract agree-ment, we reached a strike settlement that protects employees who participated in the strike from repercussions.

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Passings

Harvard Elementary teacher Val Volo passed away on January 14 from a heart attack on his way to the UTLA picket lines—a sudden and unexpected passing that has devastated his family and his wife, Marina, who is also an LAUSD elementary teacher.

After Val and Marina emigrated from Russia with their two small children, he became an elementary school teacher in LAUSD. Val taught, read to, counseled, played with, mentored, wrote books for, and helped young hearts and minds grow to become the best that they could be. Val spent his entire life enriching the lives of parents and their kids. His stu-dents absolutely adored him and will miss him dearly.

In addition to being a respected edu-

Val Volo (right) with family

cator, Val was an amazing artist, and his artwork will forever be cherished by the family, including his three grand-children, who were his greatest joy.

Norma Garcia

machine. Our De La Torre ES family asked her to stay home or to please cross the picket line, and she responded, “No! We don't cross picket lines!”

Every morning she reported to the line and smiled. Our five days were full of love, laughter, cold, rain, and dances to keep our spirits high.

On Tuesday, January 22, as we all arrived to our picket line, we were given the horrible news that our dear Norma had passed away of a heart attack. Our hearts were broken. Our students and parents stayed on our picket line, not knowing why we were crying.

That same day we learned a tentative contract agreement was reached—a day of victory for public education but a day of sadness for our fallen member.

I am grateful for our bargaining team, brothers and sisters who sacrificed and walked the line in 2019, and for the com-munity support. This is a movement, not a strike—a movement for change for better public education. As Norma said on the picket line, “This is our legacy. I walked in ’89 too!" Remember, you are part of a legacy. We won a battle—now let's win the war.

Humbled,Rosa Diaz

Betty Young White, known to many as “Momma Betty,” passed away on October 18, 2018.

Betty was born December 8, 1941, to Deoma A. Young and Bessie Gil. She at-tended Second Ward High School and graduated from Johnson C. Smith in 1964 in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was there that she met Larry E. White Sr.

Betty Young White

Long-time LAUSD teacher Norma Garcia passed on January 21, on the way home from visiting her daughters in San Diego. Norma Garcia was a teacher for LAUSD for 20 years, with 12 of those years spent at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary. She loved her students and dedicated her heart and soul to them, always going above and beyond. The school has set up a Go Fund Me page at www.gofundme.com/norma-garcia.

The chapter chair of De La Torre ES shared this message about Norma:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,Norma Garcia was a teacher, mother,

grandmother, friend, wife, and loved one who walked the line with all of us despite her poor health condition and oxygen

In 1968, Betty and Larry gave birth to their daughter, Michelle, and in De-cember they moved to California to raise their family. In 1975 she gave birth to their son, Larry White Jr. In California, Betty pursued her career in education, and she taught for 20-plus years at Ramona Elementary, where her phe-nomenal love of teaching was always on display.

Betty was predeceased by her parents and her siblings Lester Gill, Alberta Young, Jimmy Young, and Mary Mc-Cullough. Betty leaves to cherish her memory Larry Sr.; her daughter, Michelle; her son, Larry; her grand-children, Arielle, Shannan, Quinola (Queenie), Kennedi, and Ryane; great-grandchildren Sanaya and an upcoming grandson; siblings Alexander Young, Margaret Young Buford, and Joseph Young; and a host of nieces, nephews, great nephews, cousins, and friends. She will be dearly missed.


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Talented musician, dedicated teacher, devoted husband, beloved father, grandfather, uncle, and friend, Sidney Marvin Lazar passed away at home at the age of 92.

Sidney was born and raised in Los Angeles, attended LA High School, and then graduated, cum laude, from USC. He later received his M.A. from CSU Northridge.

A professional musician from the age of 16, Sid played the trumpet for more than 45 years. He worked with many of the coun-try’s leading conductors and orchestras, and played first trumpet with both the LA Philharmonic and the Glendale Symphony for many years. He played on hundreds of movies, notably High Noon (Academy Award for music) and The Godfather (I and II), includ-ing the hauntingly beautiful trumpet solo.

In addition to being a musician, Sid was always a teacher. He taught the trumpet to individual students for many years at both Immaculate Heart College & UCLA, and was a substitute teacher at junior and

senior high schools throughout LAUSD. When Sid retired from trumpet playing, he enjoyed a second career as an English teacher at Birmingham High School.

Sid was preceded in death by parents Natt and Sarah Lazar and sister Shirley Van Bourg. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Eloise; daughters Megan Schowengerdt (Greg), Andrea Lazar, and Nancy Lazar (Mark Schmidt); grand-children Katie Schowengerdt (Stephanie Gilbert) and Doug Schowengerdt; and nieces, nephews, and friends.

Eugenio Miguel Timiraos-Lebredo was born in Havana, Cuba, on August 16, 1955, the second child of Vicente Ti-miraos-Lopez and Dolores Petronila Oc-tavita Lebredo-Lopez. In the aftermath of the Castro revolution, he fled with his family to the United States in July 1963. His family settled in Alhambra, where Eugene excelled academically at Emery Park Elementary and Alhambra High School. He graduated from Occidental College in 1977 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science. As a graduate student at the UCLA Film School, he was assistant to filmmaker Shirley Clarke in experimental video production. In 1984 he earned a master of fine arts degree in theatre arts: film and video production.

In June 1995, Eugene entered the LAUSD Teaching Intern Program and in September of that year he was assigned to a position at the 32nd Street/USC Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School. His dedication to teach-ing literacy coupled with his own interest in visual and performing arts and culture was an excellent fit for his assignment at 32nd Street. He eagerly collaborated with col-leagues as well as with USC faculty to host literary workshops for his students. Every school year Eugene and his students enthu-siastically participated in student art pro-grams at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Eugene kept meticulous records of each academic year, including numerous letters of commendation from grateful parents. Outside the classroom, Eugene served as the UTLA chapter chair from 1997 through 2010. He remained fully committed and dedicated to teaching, primarily fourth-grade classes, until his premature retirement in 2014.

As a collagist, filmmaker, and provocateur, Eugene created student films that documented the early years of the Los Angeles punk scene, performances by jazz musicians who were among his personal heroes, and a year’s worth of sunsets recorded by time-lapse photography from a window in Silver Lake. He received a number of awards for his films and videos, including one from B’nai B’rith for Etiquette With Eugene, a withering political satire. From 1979 to 1986 his work was shown in numerous arthouse theaters and museums, including a closed-circuit gallery exhibition at the Ward-Nasse Gallery in New York. In January 2012 his work was shown at a retrospective of punk video curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Eugene was a relentless record collector who took pride in his nearly complete set of the recordings of Duke Ellington as well as his impressive and discriminating collection of hard bop and post-bop artists such as Lee Morgan and Randy Weston.

He collected artwork by contemporary local artists and maintained a magnificent library of art books, centered on the first half of the 20th century. Over the years, he published more than 50 issues of his “Dadazine” Libertinage, a highly personal collage of news photos, wisecracks, and song lyrics popular and unpopular, signed with his perpetual pseudonym Fazul Reet.

In recent years Eugene suffered from a number of vexing health issues and was lovingly support-ed by his family and loyal friends, including his companion, Regina Nunley. Eugene is survived by his brother and sister-in-law, Vicente and Carol Timiraos of Alhambra; by his nephew, Alex Timiraos of Los Angeles; and by his nephew Nick Timiraos of Washington, D.C., his wife Mallie, and their twin daughters. Those who loved him and were loved by him grieve his passing and will cherish his presence in their lives.

Sidney Marvin Lazar

Eugene Timiraos

Eugene Timiraos passed peacefully in his sleep at his Los Feliz home on December 24, 2018, at the age of 63. He was a person of nearly boundless curiosity, humor, and enthusiasm. He despised unjust authority, nursed an amused contempt for hypocrisy and pretension, and was largely indifferent to commercial success or worldly prestige. He was kind hearted and profoundly loyal to his family and friends.


16

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The 2019 strike: A historical perspective

Note from the UTLA-R President

By John PerezUTLA-Retired President

On January 22, our active colleagues voted for a contract that ended the most important and significant strike in UTLA history. UTLA-Retired members helped secure this victory by being on the picket lines and at the demonstrations and marches. In the pouring rain we were there side by side with our active colleagues, their students, and their parents. We stood up for the profession that had been our life’s work.

For many of us this was our third UTLA strike. In 1970 we fought to establish our union and we demanded smaller classes and more teachers, nurses, counselors, and librarians in the schools that served our poorest students—sound familiar? In 1989 we fought for salaries to keep our members in the district and for School-Based Manage-ment so that our members and the parents of our students would have a say in the schools that we worked in and that parents sent their kids to—sound familiar? And in 2019 we helped our active colleagues fight for smaller classes, more nurses, counselors, librarians, less testing, and better pay—yes, it does sound familiar. While the battles were similar, this strike is more important and sig-nificant because of the context of the strug-gle. In 1970 and 1989 we fought only against an intransigent district. Today Eli Broad and the privatizers who want to destroy public education are out in full force, and their goal is to transform our public education system

into a system of unaccountable privatized schools funded with public money.

Time for a short history lesson: The Mas-sachusetts Bay Colony law of 1642 and the Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647 in essence invented public education. These laws required townships to provide a public school to teach all kids how to read, so they could read the Bible and the public laws. Most countries in the world have copied the U.S. and established a public school system. As public education grew, so too did the idea that the local commu-nity through democratic elections should control public education. But today there is a movement to privatize public education and take it out of the democratic realm and place this bedrock of our society into private hands. They would make public education a commodity transaction like buying a car. When you purchase a car, they hand you the keys but not a ballot for the board of directors of the car company. Likewise, when a parent puts their kid in a charter school, they may get a thank-you letter from the school but they rarely have a say, through elections, on who is on the board of directors of the charter school. In true public education, the parents vote for who sits on the school board and if a parent doesn’t like what the school board is doing, they can run for office and if elected change the course of the school district. This is not what happens in privatized education.

The 2019 strike was against this backdrop. The existential threat to the whole system of

public education, invented in our country, was and is at stake. Our active colleagues struck not just for pay or more support per-sonnel, but also to protect a truly American institution—public education, education for all no matter what their station in life. We and our active colleagues understand what this fight is about, and that is why 2019 is different from 1970 and 1989. Together all

of us fought the righteous fight to preserve public schools for all future generations. The existential component to this strike is why it was the most significant in UTLA history. This fight, in which retired teachers partici-pated, said we will DEFEND public educa-tion for all students, now and in the future.

John can be reached at [email protected].

LISA W

EING

ARTEN

Retired teachers— including John Perez, third from right—on the line during our strike.


17

Salary Advancement Courses for Educators

Contact us for the latest schedule at our Los Angeles Locations.

Visit sandiego.edu/lacourses or call (619) 260-4585

Convenient | Relevant K-12 Applications | Practical Curriculum

West Los Angeles & CarsonKaren Rose(310) 745-1099

Downtown Los AngelesCraig Yokoi(310) 874-4090

Sherman Oaks & Santa ClaritaJennifer Krauss(805) 559-3060

Monterey ParkJim Burk(800) 664-6130

BurbankVicky Montes(323) 559-5960

Downey & Los AlamitosTim Brown(310) 292-1039

$329 FOR THREE SEMESTER UNITS OF GRADUATE LEVEL EXTENSION CREDIT

curriculum, two visits to MOCA, and family involvement opportunities. One salary point available for first-year participants. Registration deadline: April 26 (early submission recommended). For more information and to register, please visit moca.org/education/cas. If you have additional questions, please email [email protected] or call 213-621-1706.

Salary point class on ukuleleMusicians and non-musicians are

welcome at “Ukulele for Teachers,” taught at the Coffee Gallery Backstage, in Altade-na. The class is a fun, basic introduction to ukulele, taught by LAUSD Teacher of the Year Bartt Warburton. This is LAUSD’s only authorized ukulele salary point class, and it’s geared especially for teachers. Learn to use ukulele in your lessons, for every grade level and every content area. The class meets three Saturdays, March 9, 16, and 23, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The class fee is $149 and you get one salary point. Bartt provides everything: lessons, beginner chord/song charts, booklets, instruments (with prior arrangements), video lessons, a webpage to share ideas, and lots of loving support. Time to make lesson plans during class too. Register online at Bartt.net, where you’ll also find a lot more info about this class. Email/text questions to [email protected] or call/text 818-568-3595.

Salary point workshop on play & creativity

In the workshop “Play, Creativity & Inno-vation K-12,” teacher leaders will learn how

to remove barriers to creativity and unleash it through play, humor, and games. Come and practice how to minimize criticism and create healthy and safe spaces where children can make mistakes, fail, and experiment in your class. Workshop fee is $210. Dates are Febru-ary 15 (online session, 6-7 p.m.), February 16 and 17 (face-to-face sessions, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.), and February 22 (online session, 6-7 p.m.). LAUSD salary points available (course number #A-11-118). To register or for more info, go to http://bit.ly/playK-12.

PD seminars on China and East Asia

The USC U.S.-China Institute is holding two professional development seminars. Both seminars are free. For more info, see links below or call 213-821-4382.

• East Asia: Origins To 1800 (in-person at USC)

March 2 – April 27, 2019 https://china.usc.edu/seminars/east-asia-

origins-1800-spring-2019Benefits: $250 stipend and 2 LAUSD

salary points • Contemporary China (online) February 19 - March 26, 2019 https://china.usc.edu/seminars/online-sem-

inar-contemporary-chinaSalary points not available, but participants

are eligible for 4 CEUs from USC Rossier.

STEAM Professional Development Classes

Encouraging student interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math-ematics (STEAM) is becoming more and more important, which is why Educa-tion4Equity has created four courses to advance STEAM education for LAUSD

teachers. Subjects include Steam Everyday for Everyone, NGSS for All, Cognitively Guided Instruction Math, and Arts Inte-gration: Music. These LAUSD-approved professional development courses provide valuable training to help teachers improve their knowledge, understanding, and ability to promote STEAM education in the classroom. Sign up at at www.educa-tion4equity.com/steam.

Salary point classes on cultural competency

“Valuing Difference” and “Cultural Competency” are interactive seminars on cultural diversity, family history, media and societal impacts, and effective communica-tions. The salary point workshops cover the important role your own culture plays in day-to-day interactions and includes interactive exercises in which participants review various issues from a variety of viewpoints. The next session for “Valuing Difference” is February 23 and 24 and the next session for “Cultural Competency” is March 10 and 17 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The fee for each is $95. Location: 8339 W. Third Street, L.A., CA 90048. One multicultural salary point available. For more informa-tion or to register, call Kari Bower at 323-653-3332 or email [email protected].

SCHOOL Kids Yoga & Mindfulness Training

Learn the classroom-proven calming methods of SCHOOL Kids Yoga and Mind-fulness specifically designed for public school students and teachers. Kelly Wood, expert kids yoga teacher, has taught weekly in LAUSD for over 17 years. Educators gain tools to improve physical, mental, emotional, and

social well-being of students and themselves. The course reaches pre-K-5th grades (modifi-cations for secondary). No prior yoga experi-ence is required. Meets Common Core, PE & Health Standards. One salary point available. The next session is February 16, 17, 23, and 24 (in-person). Please email Kelly Wood for details: [email protected] or call 323-240-8711. See details: https://school-yoga.org/training. Please inquire for scholarships.

Capably Disabled Committee at Abilities Expo on February 23

Join Capably Disabled Committee members at their meeting Saturday, Feb-ruary 23, at the Abilities Expo: Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 South Figueroa Street, LA. The Expo (running Friday to Sunday) has free goodies, lots of info, in-teresting workshops, the latest tech and resources, and amazing performances by talented capably disabled people. Register online to speed up entrance: www.abili-ties.com/losangeles/ (registration is free). On Saturday, the UTLA Capably Disabled Committee will meet at the back food court from 1 to 2. Bring your parking ticket to get committee reimbursement plus $12 for lunch. Capably Disabled Teachers Members’ Committee Chair Janis Lukstein can be con-tacted at [email protected] for more info.

ECE Board election

Cleveland EEC teacher Teri Harnik has been elected to the open seat on the UTLA Board of Directors, representing Early Childhood Education. Her elec-tion has been certified by the board.

GRAPEVINE(continued from page 23)


18

CTA State Council Election Notice for 2020-22 Term

CTA State Council election timeline: Expired and unexpired terms

CTA State Council Year-Round Absentee Ballot Request

Are you interested in representing UTLA/NEA members at the state level? CTA (California Teachers Association) State Council, a policy-making body that meets quarterly, has openings for representatives to fill expired and unexpired terms. If you wish to run for one of these positions, complete and return the self-nomination form by U.S. mail to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz at UTLA. The form must be received by 5:00 p.m. on March 14, 2019. The election will be held at the April 3, 2019, Area meetings. For those members who cannot vote at their Area meetings, voting will also be held at the UTLA building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 3, 2019.

Self-Nomination Form

Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Home phone

Non-LAUSD email address

School

School Phone

I am running for Expired Term (Three-Year Term) Unexpired Term

I certify that below is the signature of the candidate whose name appears above.

Signature Date (Required)

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5:00 p.m., March 14, 2019, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz). NO FAXES OR EMAILS.Form must be received by UTLA by March 14, 2019.

Involvement opportunity

CTA State Council ElectionsBy Debby Schneider & Laura Carls UTLA/NEA Election Committee

UTLA/NEA members will elect CTA State Council representatives for both expired and unexpired terms at the April 3 Area meetings. These delegates will join the other UTLA representatives when the council begins for the 2019-20 school year.

The State Council acts as CTA’s policy-making body, meeting four times a year. Each representative is expected to serve on a standing com mittee, which debates busi-ness items involving academic freedom, retire ment, civil rights, political action, teachers’ rights, and statewide nego tiation issues. State Council represen tatives also vote for CTA’s statewide officers. In the 2019-20 school year, all State Council meet-ings will be held in Los Angeles.

All necessary expenses for represen-tatives are covered by CTA, including hotel,

mileage, and food costs. Meetings begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, 7:15 a.m. Sunday, and usually end around 4 p.m. both days. Subcommittee meetings on Friday evenings and voluntary caucus meetings before and after the general weekend meeting times can enrich the rep-resentative’s knowledge of issues facing California educators. UTLA del egates are rewarded for their time and effort by getting a chance to make a statewide difference in edu-cation. As a delegate, it is your responsibility to attend Service Center Council meetings on March 25 and May 28.

If you find the idea of participating on a statewide level intriguing, fill out and mail in the self-nomination form on this page to run for CTA State Council. Forms are due by March 14 via U.S. mail (no faxes or emails). Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquar ters on the 10th floor (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA VP) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I am requesting an absentee ballot for the CTA State Council Election.

My vote will correspond to CTA’s election guidelines, which allow for voting by mail for CTA members on formal leave. This request must be received by 5:00 p.m., March 14, 2019, by U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010, Attn: Cecily Myart-Cruz UTLA/NEA VP. I understand that my request will be checked for accuracy by election committee members. Absentee ballots will be mailed March 22, 2019, and must be received via U.S. mail by 5:00 p.m., April 3, 2019.

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5:00 p.m., March 14, 2019, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA VP) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. NO FAXES OR EMAILS.

Form must be received by UTLA by March 14, 2019.

Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Home phone

Non-LAUSD email address

School

School Phone

UTLA area (Circle one) N S E W C VE VW H

Absentee ballot requested for:

April 3 May 22

Check one: CTA/NEA Board member Formal LAUSD leave

I hereby declare that the above information is accurate.

Signature Date

February 8, March 8: Nomination forms, timeline, absentee ballot request forms in UNITED TEACHER.

March 14: Self-nomination forms and absentee ballot requests due to UTLA building by 5 p.m. by U.S. mail (no faxes or e-mails). Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters (see the receptionist on the 10th floor) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

March 15: Letters sent out acknowl-edging receipt of nomination forms.

March 22: Absentee ballots sent out.

April 3: Elections at all UTLA area meetings and at UTLA headquarters from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

April 3: Absentee ballots due back to UTLA building by 5 p.m. by US mail only (no faxes or emails).

April 5: Area and absentee ballots counted, 9 a.m. Letters sent to winners and results will be posted at www.utla.net by the end of the next business day.

April 15: Deadline to submit election challenge in writing to Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA Vice President, pro-vided a runoff election is not required. Please contact Vivian Vega for appropri-ate form at 213-368-6259.

April 25: Absentee ballot for run-off sent.

May 22: Runoff election, if needed, at Area meetings and at UTLA headquar-ters from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

May 22: Deadline for absentee ballots to be received back by U.S. mail (no faxes or emails).

May 24: Election Committee meets at 9 a.m. to count all ballots. Letters sent to winners and results will be posted at www.utla.net by the end of the next business day. Those who are not elected delegates will become alternates.

June 3: Final date for challenges to be submitted in writing to Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA Vice President, pro-vided additional runoff election is not required. Please contact Vivian Vega for appropriate form at 213-368-6259.


19

CTA State Council delegates with terms expiring in 2019

Robin Branch-ScottTomas FloresArlene Inouye

L. Cynthia MatthewsMaria MirandaCheryl Ortega

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Nominations due February 25.

WHO awards: A chance to honor someone you know

Ever wonder how you can recognize a colleague or chapter chair who has shown true leadership by going above and beyond the call of duty to help members at your site? Or maybe a member who is involved in the Area steering committee or House of Representatives and has dedicated time to speak to our members, help where needed, and walk that mile or two for the good of all our members? Or what about that colleague who has spoken about professional matters at the state or national level to make sure our voices are heard?

Here is your chance to recognize them by nominating them for the We Honor Ours (“WHO”) awards, which are given annually in these categories:

• The WHO Local Award is for active UTLA/NEA members who have given outstanding service in support of UTLA/NEA and its members.

• The WHO State Award is for active UTLA/NEA members who have given out-standing service in support of UTLA/NEA and its members at the state or national levels of UTLA, CTA, and NEA.

• The UTLA/NEA Community Gold Award may be awarded to any person or organiza-tion whose leadership, actions, and support have demonstrated that the person or orga-nization is a true friend of public education, educators, or students and merits UTLA/NEA recognition of their accomplishments.

The WHO Awards Committee looks forward to honoring special members who you know are doing what it takes to make us stronger, keep us united, and stand for the good of all.

Deadline for nominations is February 25. Nomination forms are posted at utla.net. Recipients will be honored at a dinner on April 26.

REDUCED WORKLOADINFORMATION MEETING

9:00 A.M. TO 10:30 A.M.SATURDAY, February 23, 2019

BEAUDRY BUILDING, 15TH FLOOR

All new applicants must meet the following minimum requirements by July 1, 2019:

• 55 years of age

• 10 years of full-time service with LAUSD, the last five of which are continuous

• HR and CalSTRS approval

Reduced Workload is a leave granted by LAUSD and CalSTRS.

Space is limited to 25 participants. Please email Karen Castro at [email protected] to RSVP and you will receive an email confirmation. Registration deadline is February 20, 2019.

LAUSD HUMAN RESOURCES Presents


20

C O M M I T T E E E V E N T S

Name ________________________________________________________ Emp.#_____________

Address _________________________________________________________________________

City _________________________________________________ State________ Zip___________

Phone ( )_______________________________Retirement Date:______________ / ________

School/Retiring Site _______________________________________________________________

Email address (non-LAUSD)________________________________________________________

(month) (year)

FORMAL INVITATION REQUEST FORM Limited Seating. Reservations Required

RetirementDinnerDance

UTLA

honors and respects

the many years you have given

to your profession and our students and

invites you to celebrate at the 2019

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Luminarias

If you are retiring between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019,

request a formal invitation online at

www.utla.net/events/2019-retirement-dinner-dance

or complete coupon below and mail before April 5, 2019

to UTLA, Attn: Rosa Beasley, 3303 Wilshire Blvd.,

10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. For more

information, contact Rosa Beasley

at [email protected]

ASIAN PACIFIC COMMITTEE’S Multicultural PD Conference featuring a:

“BUS TRIP TO MANZANAR”Saturday, April 27, 2019 6 am – 9:30 pm

(details below)WORKSHOP SESSIONS (5):

Wednesday, December 12, 2018 4 pm - 6:00 pm

(Includes light dinner & instructional materials)

Wednesday, February 6, 2019 4 pm - 6:00 pm


Saturday, March 9, 2019 7:30 am -3 pm

(Includes light breakfast, lunch, & instructional

materials) Monday, April 22, 2019 4:30 pm - 8:00 pm


Wednesday, May 8, 2019 4 pm - 6:00 pm


UTLA Headquarters

3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 2 blocks west of Vermont Ave. at Berendo. Parking structure is off Berendo

Asian Pacific Committee: 50th Anniversary Pilgrimage

BUS TRIP TO MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

(Includes lunch/dinner, snacks, charter bus transportation, conference materials & point credit information)

Saturday, April 27th, 2019 Time: 6 AM – 9:00 PM

Bus pick up: 1st UTLA Parking Lot 2nd 170 Frwy commuter parking

3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles OR @ Oxnard St, east of 170 frwy

Cost: $150.00 (2 salary points) or $75 (Pilgrimage only) - Deadline: April 13, 2019

Enrollment: Min. 25 participants for salary points. Bus max: 47 participants.

No bus trip refunds after April 13, 2019

LAUSD Approved, two salary points available. Article 3.3 Multicultural Specific Conference.

To qualify for salary points, you must attend the Pilgrimage on Saturday April 27, 2019 and Pre-trip workshop Monday,

April 22, 2019 4:30 pm – 8 pm Contact presenters (bottom of flyer) for any questions regarding salary points/payment.

How to register on-line: Go to UTLA.net, click on CALENDAR, and then enter

"Manzanar" in SEARCH EVENT. Click 2019ManzanarConference

This will take you to the UTLA on-line registration. Register on-line to reserve your space.

Registration questions to Jenny Lam (213)368-6229 or [email protected] (email is preferred).

Presenter contact: Diane Newell: [email protected] Put “manzanar” in the subject bar, or text: (818) 642-0981 Rosie

Van Zyl: [email protected]

Please Post


21

All UTLA members are encouraged to attend a preretirement workshop at least three times during their career in order to plan for retirement security: early in their career, again just prior to age 50, and one year prior to retirement.

CalSTRS (the California State Teachers’ Retirement System) and the district are sponsoring a series of preretirement workshops for this school year. Informa-tion will be provided regarding the calculation of retirement allowance, LAUSD 457(b) supplemental savings plan, post-retirement information, and more. Time will be provided at the end of the workshop presentation for questions and answers. See reservation information below. The workshops are individual meetings (not a series).

February 14, 2019 (Thursday)Burbank Middle School (Room A-106)6460 North Figueroa StreetLos Angeles, CA 90042

February 28, 2019 (Thursday)Bell HS (Student Cafeteria)4328 Bell Ave.Bell, CA 90201

March 14, 2019 (Thursday) Sheridan St Elementary (Auditorium)416 North Cornwell Street Los Angeles, CA 90033

March 21, 2019 (Thursday) Eagle Rock High School (Student Dining Room)1750 Yosemite Drive Los Angeles, CA 90041

April 11, 2019 (Thursday) Nevin Elementary (Auditorium)1569 E. 32nd. St. Los Angeles, CA 90011

May 2, 2019 (Thursday) Broad Elementary (Auditorium)24815 Broad Ave. Wilmington, CA 90744

May 9, 2019 (Thursday) Noble Elementary (Auditorium)8329 Noble Avenue North Hills, CA 91343

STRS preretirement workshopsFree workshops are open to all CalSTRS members.

Dates and locationsAll workshops are from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

How to register: CalSTRS is ask-ing that you register for the work-shop you wish to attend through their website: http://resources.cal-strs.com/workshop_registration/index.aspx.


22

ESTATE PLANNINGWant to avoid probate?Seeking peace of mind?

Don’t do it yourself. Let a fellow teacher be your lawyer. Sheila Bayne is a full time

teacher with LAUSD and has been an active member of the California Bar for over 30 years.

Complete Estate Planning Package: n Living Trust n Living Will/Advance Health Care Directives n Power of Attorney

n Trust Transfer Deeds n Pour-over Will and supporting documents n Personal consultation

Discount for UTLA Members:

$795(Joint trust for spouses: $ 1195)

Also: n Probate n ConservatorshipsCONTACT THE LAW OFFICES OF SHEILA BAYNE

at 310-435-8710or e-mail: [email protected]

State Bar #123801

Liza Luna-ChanReal Estate Agent

25 years home investing experience.19 years marketing experience.

Specialize in working with teachers& school staff.

I find the best lenders & homebuyer assistance programs.

Liza Luna-Chan(323) 533-3060 (323) 863-5395

[email protected]# 01931120

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At Blue Hills Dental, your oral health is our first priority! We offer full service dental care for your whole family from exams and cleanings to cosmetic and complex care such as:

We’ve proudly cared for Union members and families for over 20 years!

For tax years 2018 through 2025, union dues are no longer deductible on your federal income tax return, even if itemized deductions are taken. This is a result of the tax re-form bill signed into law on December 22, 2017. Consult your tax advisor to confirm.

Union dues and tax deductions

How To Place Your UT Classified Ad Job share & LAUSD employment ads are FREEPrint your ad from your computer or use a typewriter. Count the number of words in your ad. Area code and telephone number count as one word. Email and web address count as one word. Street address counts as one word. City and state, including zip code, count as one word. Abbreviations and numbers are considered words and are charged individually. The classified ad rate is $1.50 per word for each time your ad runs (there is no charge for LAUSD job share/employment available ads). Multiply the number of words in your ad by $1.50. This is the cost for running your ad one time in UNITED TEACHER. If you’re run-ning your ad in more than one issue, multiply the one-time total by the number of issues you wish the ad to appear. We have a ten word minimum ($15.00). All ads are payable in advance by check or money order. Please make check payable to UTLA. The deadline to receive your classified ad at the UTLA Communications Dept. is noon on the Monday that falls two weeks prior to the publication date. Any questions? Call 213-637-5173 or email Laura Aldana at [email protected]. Mail ad and payment to Classifieds, UNITED TEACHER, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

UTLA CLASSIFIEDS

CLASSIFIED AND DISPLAY AD POLICY: UNITED TEACHER will not accept ads for legal services in the areas of worker’s compensation or personal injury; nor advertising for tobacco or alcoholic beverages; nor advertising deemed misleading or offensive to members; nor advertising inconsistent with the programs and purposes of United Teachers Los Angeles.

BABYSITTER

Responsible, experienced sitters with background

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HYPNOTHERAPY

Hypnotherapy for stress management, test

anxiety and general practice.(310) 663-3195 or

(562) 612-1467.

JOB SHARE

Looking for a job-share partner for the 2019-2020

school year at my school in the north west area. This

is my fourth year job-sharing, but my partner is retir-

ing. Please text or email me if you are interested. Ang-

ineh Andreas, (818) 515-9477 or [email protected].

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Classes meet one night a week beginning at 4:20 PM

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

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23

U N I T E D T E A C H E R

GRAPEVINEFree educator workshop at the Fowler Museum at UCLA

The Fowler Museum is holding a free ed-ucator workshop, “Presenting Our Identi-ties: Examining Attire and Adornment in Borneo,” on Saturday, March 2, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. During this half-day workshop at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, educators are invited to explore interdisciplinary and multicultural connections between visual art and the “presentation of self,” a process by which we each express our layered iden-tities to those around us. The workshop begins with a curatorial presentation on the customary attire of the indigenous peoples of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. These objects will contextualize the after-noon’s hands-on art-making workshop, in which educators will define the term “identity” before individually creating a small item of adornment. Open to K-12 educators of all backgrounds. Enrollment is limited; free parking provided to registered attendees, and LAUSD educators are eli-gible for 24.25 PD hours. Advance registra-tion is required; register at fowler.ucla.edu/professional-development-workshops.

Inner-City Arts clay workshopIn “Adults Creating in Clay,” Michelle

Solorio will guide participants through a

wide range of techniques in clay. Creativity and originality are tapped as the class creates objects such as trays, bowls, cups, boxes and tiles through hand-building techniques and wheel throwing. Teachers interested in class-room applications are welcome, and ideas for integration will be shared. Designed for all skill levels; more experienced students may work on their own ideas with guidance. Dates: Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., February 9, 16, 23; March 2, 9, 16, 30; and April 13. Tuition is $250 with additional $50 materials fee. Due to the strike, prorated late registra-tion can be accepted. Payment plans are also available for strike-affected LAUSD teachers. Call or email for details. Location: Inner-City Arts Campus, 720 Kohler St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. For more information or to register: www.inner-cityarts.org/professionaldevel-opment or contact Zoë Tomasello at [email protected], 213-627-9621, ext. 114.

Salary point classes on restorative practices and the East LA Blowouts

Bard MAT: LA and Educators for These Times are offering two salary point classes in Spring 2019. Sessions run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church, across from the UTLA building. The fee for each session is $150.

• “Restorative Words, Restorative Practices:

Helping Students Write Through Conflict”February 23-24Led by creative writers with backgrounds

working in community and restorative justice in public school classrooms, this workshop offers teachers ways to engage class content and help students to form and share ideas in communicative and empathic ways. Teachers will practice skills related to traditional speaking-to-share and gain new instructional strategies that promote critical writing and thinking skills.

Sign up at http://bit.ly/restorativewords• “The East L.A. Blowout Backlash: Helping

Students Read Primary Sources”March 9-10This workshop focuses on a less-exam-

ined aspect of this watershed moment in Mexican American history. Using primary sources, participants will look at the ways various L.A. communities reacted to the dis-ruptive and potentially unsettling prospect of an emergent, politicized Chicano move-ment in the late 1960s. Participants will practice developing and using authentic questions, scaffolding student reading of primary sources as informative texts, and promoting the use of informal writing to engage deeper with such historical content.

Sign up at http://bit.ly/eastlablowout

Arts PD at the Skirball“Teaching Our World Through the Arts”

is a professional development program offered by the Skirball Cultural Center that prepares K-grade 12 teachers to integrate film, dance, visual arts, theater, and music into core curricula. The program introduces arts-integration methods that foster student development of critical thinking, creative

problem-solving, collaboration, and civic literacy skills that underlie all Common Core standards. “Visual Art and Design,” the final strand of the four-strand series, will take place on four Saturdays: March 16, 23, 30 and April 6, 2019, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Fee: $100. No prior experience in the arts is required. Teachers can earn up to two salary points (details available upon registration). To sign up, go to www.skirball.org/education/for-teachers. Questions? Email [email protected].

“Creativity in the Classroom” salary point workshop series at Inner-City Arts

Inner-City Arts, an oasis of creativity in downtown Los Angeles, provides experi-ential training for pre-K-12 teachers in the visual and performing arts through its program “Creativity in the Classroom: Transforming Practice.” Offered each fall and spring, the workshops provide class-room teachers and teaching artists with meaningful strategies to incorporate the visual and performing arts into the class-room curriculum in support of student achievement. Shared learning is integrated into every class, and participants, paired with same-grade buddies, also share class-room experiences between Saturday ses-sions. The series will take place on five Saturdays: March 9, March 16, March 23, April 6, and May 4, each day from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Fee is $250. Discount-ed tuition for group attendance or through work-study is available. Participants may earn two salary points. The Creativity in the Classroom Series is eligible for two LAUSD salary points. For more informa-tion, see the ad in this issue. Register at inner-cityarts.org/citc.

Contemporary Art Start at MOCA 2019-20

Join an energized community of third- to 12th-grade teachers in MOCA’s yearlong classroom partnership program, Contemporary Art Start. CAS supports both student and teacher growth through sustained PD that starts in the summer, standards-aligned classroom

f

Ed.D. in Educational Leadership

Specializations: • PreK-12 • Post-Secondary

Program Features: • 3-Year Accelerated Program • Evening Courses • Cohort Model • Rigorous, Inclusive and Personalized • Research-Based • Exceptional Student Support

For more information, please visit: https://www.calstatela.edu/edd (323) 343-6164

Accepting Applications for FALL 2019

Early Review Priority Deadline: Dec. 31st

(continued on page 17)

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