The UTLA Election Season is Upon Us by Dr. John Fernandez
(Mensaje se repite en Español)
Anyone running for UTLA President or any other UTLA city-wide office should have a platform and how he/she is going to implement it. I remember Warren Fletcher's big campaign promise was that he was going to hire a professional negotiator--which he did not do--and appointed Betty Forrester Chief UTLA Negotiator, what a mistake! Forrester was completely out negotiated by the likes of the District's Dick Fisher. Forrester/Fletcher produced three disastrous TAs: The local School Initiative (2011), which virtually gives no power to parents--but gives some power to teachers and most of the power to principals. In this TA, there is no grievance provision for teachers. The Local schools Initiative model gives automatic waivers of most the Collective Bargaining Agreement to Local Initiative Schools. Sounds good on the surface--but a Local Initiative School can waive seniority among teachers for assignments and election of deans and department chairs and can eliminate lead teachers. Parents only have two representatives on a Local Initiative School Council of eight.
The Jobs and Restoration TA (2012) was another joke; about 4,100 teachers were hired back but about the same amount or more were ultimately RIFd. Many teachers that were hired back were hired as subs. The Jobs and Restoration