Threat of Boycott Cancels L.A. Schools’ Open Houses

Fearing that teachers, embroiled in a protracted salary dispute with the Los Angeles Unified School District, would carry out threats not to participate in any unpaid after-school activities, the school board has canceled open houses scheduled across the district next week.

The cancellation prompted teachers’ union officials to declare a victory in this latest round of the teachers’ 10-month campaign for a 14% raise for this school year.

District officials “were afraid they were going to be embarrassed if they held an open house and nobody was there,” United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson said Tuesday in an interview.

Board President Rita Walters said the cancellation of the open houses--normally an evening affair that gives parents an opportunity to meet their children’s teachers and visit the schools--is not a victory, but a disruption for many students and parents who had been looking forward to the annual event.

A new date for the open houses has not been set, but Sidney Thompson, associate superintendent, said it would be sometime after spring break, which runs April 13-17.

According to Johnson, since last week teachers throughout the district have been boycotting after-school activities, such as student-club functions, faculty meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Teachers do not receive extra pay for those duties, but many devote hundreds of hours over the course of a school year to such activities, he said.

More than three-fourths of the district’s 26,000 teachers participated in a one-day walkout Feb. 5 to draw attention to the salary dispute. Last month, the district offered to grant teachers an immediate 10% pay raise retroactive to November, but union officials rejected the offer, saying that it amounted to an 8% raise because it did not cover the entire school year.

A state-appointed mediator failed to bring the two sides to agreement over the size of a wage increase during negotiations earlier this year. At the request of union officials, an impartial fact-finding panel will review the case and recommend a settlement. State labor law requires that fact-finding take place before a public employees’ union can legally call a strike.