Grade Showdown at Hand in Schools : Most L.A. Teachers Are Expected to Boycott Official Procedure

Today is G-Day in Los Angeles schools, the long-awaited and much-debated grade reporting deadline, at which up to 90% of the system’s classroom teachers are expected to boycott the official procedure for filing students’ marks with the school district.

The controversy over teachers’ handling of the grades continued to build Thursday as the Los Angeles Unified School District board and its teachers’ union exchanged proposals on how to speed up their bargaining, but failed to agree on how to do so.

Thousands of students this morning will be carrying 4-by-6-inch union-printed cards from class to class, collecting grades that are normally filed directly with school offices and then mailed home on computer forms. The teachers’ union, which is pressuring the district to raise salaries as part of a year-old labor dispute, says its grade-delivery procedure will gum up the huge educational bureaucracy but will have no harmful effect on students.

Nonetheless, the unusual collective bargaining tactic has contributed to a two-week wave of student demonstrations and has drawn criticism from the Los Angeles school board, parents and, on Thursday, state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

Los Angeles schools Supt. Leonard Britton has called the union’s grade-reporting procedure an “unconscionable” and “unacceptable” effort to draw students into the middle of the labor dispute. Asserting that there is a risk that students could change their grades or that colleges will not accept or even receive the unofficial forms, Britton has warned that he will withhold all pay from any teacher who does not submit grades in the normal manner by Feb. 17.

The teachers’ union has responded by calling for a strike vote.

Students at a few schools began receiving their midyear grades Thursday, but the bulk of the activity will be today, the last day of the fall semester.

Teachers insist that the controversy over the grades has been blown out of proportion by Britton and the school board.

“This whole thing is absurd,” said Helen Bernstein, a Marshall High School counselor and vice president of United Teachers-Los Angeles. The most debated issue and the one that has parents and students most concerned has been whether the withholding of grades will have any significant effect on seniors now completing applications for college admission.

Admission officials at the California State University and University of California systems have said that most students will not be immediately affected by the union action because actual transcripts are not needed until the summer. Bernstein said teachers and counselors have been making extensive preparations to ensure that what information is needed now will get to college admissions officials.

Different Procedures

One source of confusion, however, is that not all teachers will be reporting grades the same way. While most union members are taking part in the boycott, participation may be considerably lower among the roughly one-third of the teachers who do not belong to the union. Those not withholding grades will file them through the district as usual, meaning that students, parents and possibly college counselors will be receiving grades in two forms at two different times.

Critics of the grade withholding tactic, including a group of black and Latino parents organizing a rally tonight at Jesse Owens Park in South Los Angeles, say they want grades recorded and reported in the official manner. “Our students do not attend the United Teachers of Los Angeles Unified School District,” said Cathryn Baker, a Dorsey High School parent who is among those threatening to sue the teachers and the district to get the grades filed with school offices.

Protests Continue

The demonstrations, both in support of teacher pay demands and against the union grade withholding, continued Thursday at seven junior and senior high schools. More than 1,000 students were involved. Two protests in the Fairfax area turned rowdy when students took to the streets and reportedly pounded on cars.

Due in part to the student demonstrations--the largest in 20 years in city schools--teachers and the school board have been under increasing pressure to reach a settlement that would end the campus turmoil.

In a revived initiative Thursday, Wayne Johnson, president of the teachers’ union, appealed to school board President Roberta Weintraub for face-to-face, around-the-clock bargaining between union leaders and all board members. Johnson said Britton and professional labor negotiators for both sides should not be allowed in.

“Lock us in a room,” Johnson told reporters at a morning news conference. “We need to try this now. Madness is ruling.”

The school board Thursday evening responded with its own offer for nonstop negotiations beginning at noon Sunday. But under the school board plan, the participants would be Weintraub, Britton, school district and union negotiators and a state mediator.

The other six board members were to be in their offices “20 or 25 feet away” to offer advice, explained Weintraub, emerging from a nearly two-hour closed-door board session.

But union leaders rejected the board plan a short time later, saying it would not be productive, especially if Britton and district lawyer-negotiator Dick Fisher were still involved. “We want (all) seven board members and the seven UTLA officers and the state mediator,” said Frances Heywood, teachers’ union vice president. “We just need to be in the same room. . . . In the past, when board members were there, things happened.”

Britton said he was not surprised that the union wants the entire board present, but not him or his staff. Britton said: “On a national basis, this is often the strategy--to discredit and eliminate the people between them and the board.” Traditionally school boards present a less-unified front than a school district administrative staff, Britton said.

The principal issue in the dispute is money. The board’s official offer is for a 17% salary increase spread over three years. The teachers have demanded a one-year contract with a 12% raise.