A Deal In The LA Teachers Strike — Now, Union Members To Vote
On the sixth day of the Los Angeles teachers strike, the school district and union leaders announced that they've reached a tentative agreement.
Teachers meanwhile remain on strike. The tentative deal won't become official until union members vote on the agreement, which United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl said will happen Tuesday afternoon and evening. If teachers approve the deal, they'll head back to class on Wednesday, Caputo-Pearl said.
Teachers went on strike on Monday, Jan. 14, after about two years of contract negotiations and over a year of working without a contract. As teachers took to the streets, talks went on hold. The school district and the union resumed negotiations on Thursday, ahead of the holiday weekend. The city's mayor, Eric Garcetti, facilitated negotiations, including a 21-hour session that ended in the early morning hours on Tuesday.
According to Garcetti, they made "tremendous progress."
UTLA — which represents more than 30,000 teachers and school support staff — is striking for smaller classes, and more nurses, counselors and librarians in schools. District leaders previously said they just didn't have the money to pay for that.
The week before the strike, Beutner visited the state Capitol in Sacramento to ask for more funding for the district, and in many press events since, he's emphasized that 90 percent of the district's funding comes from the state of California.
At a Tuesday press conference, Caputo-Pearl and Beutner did not share details of the tentative deal.
Los Angeles, is home to the country's second-largest school district and serves almost a half-million students. Most schools have remained open throughout the strike, staffed by administrators, volunteers and substitutes teachers.
However, attendance has been low during the strike, with less than a third of the students coming to school on some days, according to the district.
That's a problem because district funding from the state is linked to attendance. Each day of the strike means an estimated net loss of about $10 to $15 million dollars.
A Deal In The LA Teachers Strike — Now, Union Members To Vote : NPR
