Los Angeles Schools Brace For Massive Strike By Teachers, Principals And Staff

Barring last-minute deals for higher pay and other concessions, teachers, principals and other staff at Los Angeles public schools are set to walk off the job next week in a coordinated strike that would bring classes for more than half a million students to a sudden stop.

Negotiators for the Los Angeles Unified School District and three labor groups representing about 70,000 of its employees have been meeting for months in an effort to hammer out new contract agreements and avoid a debilitating work stoppage. Last month, the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, announced an April 14 deadline to reach an agreement. SEIU Local 99, which represents janitors, bus drivers and other support staff, and the principals’ Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, joined in on the pressure tactic, starting the clock on a high-stakes showdown.

In a statement on Thursday, LAUSD officials said they have made “extensive efforts to responsibly respond to labor partners’ proposals, and its offers remain among the most generous in the State.” They added that LAUSD “remains committed to reaching agreements that support employees while also protecting the long-term financial stability of the District.”

“Sadly, it's just really showing them the value of our work,” said Max Arias, executive director of SEIU Local 99, which represents 30,000 school support staff. “Look at how much our work is worth that without us, there's no school. That's what we're trying to make them realize.”

Talks are expected to continue throughout the weekend. If a strike happens, the district has publicized contingency plans that include food distribution sites, take-home instruction and child care.

Just the threat of a strike — and the massive disruption it would bring to the district’s 520,000 students, many of whom come from poor, immigrant families — has sent LAUSD deeper into a swirl of turmoil. The district was already reeling after its superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, was placed on paid leave in February following an FBI search of his home and office as part of a criminal investigation into a technology company that did business with the district. Carvalho has not been charged with a crime and has said he’s innocent of any wrongdoing.

For teachers, the labor tension at LAUSD is part of a statewide effort. Several teachers unions around California have gone on strike already this year after dozens of them aligned their contracts to end this year to leverage the threat of mass work stoppages. In San Francisco, educators walked off the job in February for the first time in nearly 50 years, securing fully funded health benefits and a 5 percent raise over two years after a four-day strike.

The pressure has led school district superintendents to band together to lobby state lawmakers for more money and changes to how funding for school districts is calculated. Currently the amount districts receive is pegged to daily attendance at its schools, which administrators argue injects too much uncertainty into their finances and should be replaced with funding formulas tied to enrollment.

“Two things can be true at the same time,” said Julie Van Winkle, vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “Our district does have upside-down priorities in terms of where they're spending money and where they're hoarding money. But it’s also criminal that we're the richest state in the richest country in the history of the world — and we're not number one in per pupil funding.”

Teachers are seeking an average 17 percent raise over two years, while the district has countered at 8 percent. The union is also calling for smaller class sizes, stricter enforcement of the maximum number of students assigned to special education teachers and for the district to hire more social workers and school psychologists.

With funding currently based on daily attendance, LAUSD stands to lose millions of dollars every day a potential strike drags on.

This would be the third strike at LAUSD in seven years. In 2023, schools were shuttered for three days after SEIU walked off the job and was joined by UTLA in a sympathy strike. UTLA’s last major strike was in 2019, when teachers walked off the job for six days and won a 6 percent pay raise.

The 3,000-member AALA, representing principals and other school managers, has never before joined in the fray. Historically, the union has relied on UTLA to win raises because of a “me too” clause in the district’s labor agreements that ensured all the unions received similar deals. But the provision was removed in 2023.

“We're all overworked, we're all underpaid, we're all understaffed, underresourced, and we all have a sense that we have been taken advantage of,” said Maria Nichols, president of AALA.

Andrés Chait, LAUSD’s acting superintendent, told KTLA on Thursday that his primary focus was on preventing a strike and not on the sidelined Carvalho. “Not that I’m aware of at this time,” Chait said when asked if he was aware of a timeline for Carvalho returning to the job.

Union leaders believe the district’s elected school board has more influence over negotiations with Carvalho out of the picture. Arias claimed that Carvalho, who agreed last fall to a four-year contract extension that includes a $440,000 annual salary, had created a narrative of the district being in “financial distress.” Now, he said, the board “can absolutely take leadership.”