Teachers, Board OK Pact; Classes to Resume Today

Los Angeles teachers and school board members Thursday ratified a new contract that will boost teacher wages 24% by 1990 and give the instructors a much greater say in school policy matters. The ratification clears the way for classes to resume today on the 600 campuses of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Leaders on both sides said they hoped that conditions will quickly return to normal in the nation’s second-largest school system, although the nine-day strike and the painfully reached settlement could leave some enduring scars in the schools and on the divided school board.

Advice to Parents

“I look forward to healing, not only on the board but in the district as a whole,” said board President Roberta Weintraub, who urged parents to send their children to school today.

The seven school board members met for more than four hours behind closed doors Thursday, but refused to announce the margin of approval for the new contract. It apparently was not unanimous, however, because board member Rita Walters denounced the pact as too expensive and benefiting teachers at the expense of students. The board will vote publicly on the contract next month.

At a spirited meeting Thursday afternoon, a strong majority of unionized teachers ratified the settlement in an overwhelming voice vote that echoed through the Sports Arena. A smaller but still sizable “no” vote followed. Paper ballots were also cast but union leaders later decided that they were not necessary.

Teachers opposed to the contract said they were distressed by a provision in the agreement allowing the district not to return all pay docked during various job actions. The docked pay issue, said Wayne Johnson, United Teachers-Los Angeles president, left a residue of bitterness in a settlement he otherwise described as “a breakthrough for the professionalization” of teachers.

“They want to rub your nose in it,” Johnson said in an emotional speech to an estimated 13,000 teachers gathered at the arena. “It is an act of vengeance. Make no mistake about that.”

Using the same fiery rhetoric he relied on frequently during the year of labor unrest in the district, Johnson again accused school district leaders of lying about bargaining offers earlier in the week and of trying to break the union.

“You have taken on a $3.5-billion bureaucracy and you have whipped (district officials) all over town for a year and a half,” Johnson told the crowd. “You are the winners.”

The victory is not so clear. The union’s board of directors voted to make no recommendation on ratification because of the controversy over the docked-pay issue, and a small group of teachers booed Johnson as he left the arena, trailed by television cameras.

“I think he’s a typical politician,” said one of the dissenters, Elsa Bolado, a first-grade bilingual teacher at Eastman Avenue Elementary School in East Los Angeles. “He riled everybody up to follow him so he could go down in history as a hero.” But, she said, he failed to deliver on his promises.

Bolado was clearly in the minority.

Most teachers seemed relieved to see the strike end and stressed that another few days out of school would have easily eaten up any money gained on the docked-pay issue.

“We do want to go back to our students. That’s the bottom line,” said Ethel Broussard, a sixth-grade teacher at Murchison Street Elementary School in East Los Angeles.

Teachers said they welcomed the news that shared-decision councils will be formed at all schools to help decide matters of student discipline, scheduling, some budgeting and access to photocopying machines. When told of the last item, the crowd in the arena roared its approval.

The size of the councils will range from 12 to 16 members, depending on the number of students at the schools. The principal and union representative will each be guaranteed a seat, and half of all seats will be for union members and the other half for administrators, parents and other employees. At least four parents must sit on the councils. According to UTLA Vice President Helen Bernstein, the district wanted principals to have veto power, but the ultimate contract says that decisions will be made by a majority vote.

According to the settlement, minimum pay for district teachers will rise in steps from $23,440 to $29,529 by July, 1990. Top pay will jump from $40,871 to $51,490 for a teacher without an advanced degree and from $43,319 to $53,938 for a teacher with a doctorate.

Other features in the contract include the elimination of mandatory yard supervision duty at elementary schools and giving elementary teachers 40 paid minutes a day for lesson preparation.

Docked Pay

For the teachers, the most controversial item restores 4.5 hours of 7.5 hours of pay docked for not turning in all grades last fall but no automatic reimbursement for other job actions such as refusing yard duties. On the average, teachers were docked 20 hours. The contract allows teachers to earn back some of the lost pay through extra duties. However, May paychecks withheld when the union refused to hand in spring grades will be restored.

UTLA wanted more preparation time and originally pushed for more power on the school councils. But Johnson pledged that, “this is the beginning. We will continue to fight and those things will come in the future.”

Just before the voice vote, teachers joined hands over their heads and swayed back and forth as they sang a special version of “Solidarity Forever.” One stanza proclaimed: “For we still believe that teaching is the greatest job of all.”

School board members said they will have to finance the settlement by cutting between $120 million and $170 million from other programs over the next two years, depending on how much money the district receives from the state. The size of state surplus funds for the Los Angeles school district is not yet known but legislators estimated that it could be at least $100 million over the two years.

“Teachers deserve a raise but you can’t give money you don’t have,” school board member Walters said Thursday.

Hard Work Remains

Now that the strike is over, much hard work remains before schools return to normal. Schools where summer sessions are planned have little time to register students and schedule classes. And details for many year-end activities, such as graduation and awards ceremonies, are still to be completed.

“We’re going to be working very, very hard,” said Ron Berz, principal of Taft High School in Woodland Hills.

Many students said they were tired of the makeshift classes and the movies they endured during the strike and were anxious for regular classes to resume.

“I really need to bring one grade up before the end of the year,” said Olga Estrada, 18, a senior at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. “I’m glad it’s coming to an end, because it’s lasted a long, long time already.”

Some union members said it will be awkward to work with colleagues who did not join the strike. “It’s not going to be pleasant,” predicted Catherine Carey, UTLA spokeswoman.

One incident Thursday hinted at just how tense things had become. A substitute teacher reporting for her first day of work at 4th Street Elementary School in East Los Angeles was arrested after striking teachers saw her drive through their picket line with a .32 caliber revolver in the front seat of her car. The woman, Madelyn Landrum, 53, was booked on a felony charge of possessing a loaded gun on school grounds, sheriff’s deputies said.

Like Dazed Fighters

The settlement came around 1 a.m. Thursday as bedraggled negotiators for both sides emerged from a 10-hour meeting in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown. Both sides still feeling hostile, they acted like boxers collapsing after the end of a hard-fought prize fight.

Weintraub said the final talks were so lengthy because the negotiators had to be “very careful about each and every word.” The UTLA’s Bernstein said most of the time was devoted to the issue of the school councils. “We fought for every sentence in that,” she said.

Both Weintraub and Johnson agreed that repairing damaged relations will be difficult.

“It will take a considerable amount of time to heal the wounds,” Johnson said.

Weintraub said, “With this agreement, we’re starting right now.”

‘Excellent Salary’

Supt. Leonard Britton, who was the target of union barbs for most of the 15 months of contract talks, said teachers will receive “an excellent salary” under the new contract.

The settlement ends 18 months of maneuvering and disagreement, both between the union and the district and among various members of the school board. During this time, many parents and students saw themselves as innocent victims.

From the beginning, the strike crippled the district. Hundreds of thousands of students simply walked off campuses and more than two-thirds of the teachers walked picket lines. The numbers of students dropped drastically in the first few days and then slowly began to rise, never reaching much higher than 50% of the total enrollment of 594,000. Some striking teachers returned to their classrooms as the strike went on but there were never enough to staff schools properly.

Times staff writer Richard Lee Colvin contributed to this story.

STUDENTS JOYFUL--Los Angeles schoolyards resound with expressions of joy and relief from students. Part II, Page 1

WHAT THE TEACHERS GOT

Here are the terms of the contract between the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers-Los Angeles. The union’s membership and the school board have ratified the agreement:

SALARIES

8% retroactive for the current academic year; 8% for each of the following two years:

New base salaries are:

BEGINNING AVERAGE MAXIMUM 1988-89 $25,316 $39,456 $46,594 1989-90 $27,346 $42,460 $50,123 1990-91 $29,529 $45,709 $53,938

DOCKED PAY

Teachers who withheld grades for the fall semester will get back 4 1/2 hours of the 7 1/2 hours they were docked during the job action. But teachers will be required to work extra hours to make up for wages docked in all other actions, such as failing to turn in quarterly grades, refusing to perform schoolyard supervision and other required duties.

EXTRA DUTIES

Mandatory schoolyard supervision for elementary school teachers is eliminated. Formerly voluntary yard supervision will be paid at an hourly rate.

POWERS

Shared decision-making councils at schools will be created, each comprised of 50% teachers and 50% parents and administrators.

WHAT OTHER DISTRICTS PAY TEACHERS

(Base pay, 1988-89 academic year)

LOW HIGH New York City $23,000 $39,893 Dade County, Fla. (Miami) $23,000 $36,000 Philadelphia $20,000 $35,095 Chicago $17,843 $33,866 Oakland $23,266 $35,341 San Francisco $24,260 $42,420

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District

Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas