UTLA Pays for Its Officers’ Vacations

* In your article, “LAUSD Strikes Back, Makes Notes of Teacher’s Time Off” (Aug. 18), the district tried to pretend that the released-time, teacher officers of UTLA are part of the “vacationgate” scandal plaguing LAUSD. We expect the district to mislead in an attempt to damage the public image of teachers.

Not only is the district’s claim that the UTLA officers have weeks of “banked vacation” and illness time wrong, it also mixes apples and oranges. The UTLA officers do not receive either vacation or illness time from the LAUSD. The district has no legal or moral obligation to us for those days. Upon election we signed an agreement that excludes us from using or cashing out these phantom days. We work all year and receive 20 days of vacation per year from UTLA. These vacation days are paid for by UTLA. No more than 10 days can be carried over from one year to the next and all others not used are lost. We have asked the district to institute a “use it or lose it” policy. The district though, is obligated for more than $60 million in public funds to its non-teacher administrators and classified management for their “banked vacation” days. A phone call to UTLA by The Times would have uncovered these facts.

On the issue of illness days, The Times again failed to do its homework. Every teacher in the state is granted by the education code--not the LAUSD--10 days of illness leave each year. These days are accumulative. The illness time listed by the district for us includes both days we accumulated before we became officers and days we have accumulated as officers. It should be noted that all of us had at least 20 years of teaching before being elected.

HELEN BERNSTEIN

Bernstein is president of United Teachers of Los Angeles .