Threads of a Settlement?

The Los Angeles school board and the teachers’ union should stop calling each other liars and start settling the strike. Bits and pieces of an agreement can be discerned here and there in the public and private pronouncements of board members, union leaders and teachers. It’s time to pull them together into a firm contract so that thousands of students can return to fully staffed classrooms where they belong.

There is a hard and ugly edge to the strike now. Tempers flare on picket lines. Friendships erode as some teachers work while others walk. Board members are clearly at odds. Negotiators for both parties cannot agree on what’s been offered. Still, leaders on both sides have to focus on the emerging outline of settlement.

There should be great appeal in the idea of a pay settlement of 24% over three years, whether or not it has been formally proposed. Teachers would get a raise of almost one-fourth their current inadequate salaries. The district would get the three-year contract it wants, so that it does not have to go through this again soon. It’s enough of a win-win situation that each side should be content.

The question of reimbursing teachers for pay docked when they withheld services earlier in the school year could be settled by splitting the amount down the middle. The teachers felt they should be paid for extra duties. The district felt it should not give teachers full pay if they did not perform duties they have traditionally performed, such as turning in students’ grades. Both were at least half right.

Then there are the questions of preparation periods for elementary school teachers and representation on management councils at each school. Certainly elementary school teachers should have 40 minutes a day at school to work on materials for their students. Why can’t the cost of this provision be made contingent on getting extra state money, which now appears available to the schools? As for management groups, as long as state law makes the school board responsible for the schools, the district is entitled at least to equal representation on these councils.

The school board does not need to have all its members present at negotiations, as United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson suggests, in order to reach this kind of agreement. That should not be a condition of settlement. If the teams in place can reach this kind of agreement--and we think they can if they want to--perhaps this strike will finally be over and students can get back to work.