L.A. Teachers Take First Step Toward Power-Sharing

Friday should have marked the end of William Boede’s 32-year teaching career at Franklin Avenue Elementary School. But he postponed his retirement for a year to participate in what is bound to be one of the nation’s most closely watched experiments in public education.

Boede took on a new role Friday as an elected member of a new school governing council which, its architects say, gives teachers real clout in running schools.

“It’s a Magna Carta for teachers,” said Boede, who teaches fifth and sixth grades at the Los Feliz school.

Between saying goodby to students and packing up their rooms on the last day of classes in the Los Angeles Unified School District, teachers at most campuses Friday elected representatives to “shared decision-making” councils. Schools that did not hold elections Friday will do so on Monday.

Many teachers say the councils, which will render decisions on the spending of lottery and other money, student discipline codes, scheduling and equipment--including use of the all-important copying machine--was the main reason why they went out on strike for nine days last month.

As spelled out in the new teachers’ contract, the councils will have eight to 16 members and will be established at all the district’s more than 600 schools by this fall. Teachers will fill 50% of the seats, with the other slots to be divided among the principal and representatives of parents, the community and school support staff who will be elected later this year.

Primary Goal

Some see the councils as a modest first step toward the more sweeping types of school reorganization being tried elsewhere in the country, but most agree that the objective is the same: improving the quality of education by giving teachers a stake in the change.

Although schools in Miami and Rochester, N.Y., have been easing gradually into new modes of school governance, Los Angeles, by contrast, has jumped headlong into a power-sharing arrangement between teachers and administrators.

“We went from nothing to something” practically overnight, said United Teachers-Los Angeles Vice President Helen Bernstein, who played a key role in drafting the contract provisions on shared decision-making.

At San Fernando High School on Friday, teachers seemed eager to get started. Clustered at lunch tables in the faculty lounge, they marked their ballots quickly to choose seven council members from among 27 nominees. By 11 a.m., 80% of the school’s 130-member faculty had voted.

“I’m very interested in working on the budget,” said Sheila Roth, an English and humanities teacher who ran for the council. “I want to see where the money is going. And I want teachers to help set the priorities (for spending it).”

Another council candidate, English teacher Bettie Kapiloff, said she was more interested in trying to affect some of the less lofty, but crucial, aspects of daily school operations.

“I look forward to (improving) the logistical things that make teachers’ lives better, like having access to the Xerox machine,” said Kapiloff. “We have been treated like tall children. We’ve been told we can’t make more than eight copies (at a time). Or, ‘You can make copies, but you can’t do it now, come back later.’ It’s that kind of thing that adult professional people should not have to put up with.

“It’s exciting. It’s so exciting,” she added. “For too long, we have been puppets in the hands of those who are the most far removed from the classroom. . . . Education will never be the same again.”

Terri Turner, another San Fernando High English teacher, said she did not run for the council because she already has too many extra responsibilities. But she said she would give it her full support, especially if it tackles her pet peeve: bell schedules.

‘It’s Frustrating’

“We are forever being told to forgo teaching to allow schedules to be changed for assemblies and other ‘priorities,’ ” she said. “It’s frustrating for teachers to have lesson plans and at the last moment have a schedule (change) that makes it totally impossible to teach.”

At Franklin Elementary, the faculty already has discussed having its school council serve as the umbrella group for existing committees, such as the parent advisory council, said UTLA chapter chairman Bill Fink. But he said that because of a longstanding spirit of cooperation between Franklin’s teachers and Principal Verna Dauterive, the creation of the decision-making council will not require as dramatic an adjustment as it might at other schools.

“Half the things they’ve given us (in the shared decision-making agreement) we’ve already done,” Fink said, such as working with Dauterive to produce a student discipline code and spend their school’s share of state lottery money.

Dauterive said she welcomes the councils and does not feel threatened by their power. But she acknowledged that some principals may view them differently.

“There is an element of insecurity and concern about loss of power and control” among some principals, she said, because they believe they are the ones who will ultimately be held accountable for council decisions as well as for overall school performance.

But the Franklin principal predicted that over time those fears will diminish. “I find that (shared decision-making) is the most ideal way to work. Principals will find they have greater commitment to make schools work when they involve people in making decisions.”

Training Workshops Planned

Bernstein, the UTLA vice president, said much work lies ahead to educate administrators and teachers about the shared decision-making process. “In some cases, there are very insensitive, autocratic, unresponsive principals. We don’t want to replace that with eight uncaring teachers,” she said. “That is a real danger.”

Over the summer break, the union plans to hold training workshops for chapter chairs as well as for union appointees to a new districtwide central committee that will oversee more sweeping school restructuring efforts. The district and the union plan to jointly offer training to individual council members, including the parent and community representatives.