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Award-Winning Newspaper of United Teachers Los Angeles • www.utla.net Volume XLIV, Number 6, February 27, 2015

Rally report & latest on contract talks

Page 5

February 26, 2015

Unity That Cannot Be Denied for the Schools L.A. Students Deserve

Making Our Stand at Grand

More than 15,000 educators, parents, students, and community members listen at the rally to student speaker Beverly’anne Ogarro from Dorsey High.

United Teacher • for the latest news: www.utla.net February 27, 2015

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President’s perspective

We’re at impasse: What we’re fighting for and what we need to do to winBy Alex Caputo-Pearl UTLA President

I remember very clearly a conversation I had last September with Avalon Gardens Elementary School teacher Elgin Scott. UTLA had developed bargaining surveys for our members to complete, to give us a sense of their top priorities. We had 18,991 members participate in those surveys over the course of August and September. Elgin and I were looking at the results: The top priorities identified were salary, class size, staffing, clean and safe schools, and teacher evaluation, along with health benefits. We were both struck by how clear it was that our members wanted to fight for a full package of demands—that, as we kick-started the legal process of bargaining, after years without proactive negotiations, our members had crystallized the essence of the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign.

A couple of weeks later, Elgin, who is also a member of UTLA’s Board of Directors, would become a key member of the Or-ganizing Team, a group of rank-and-file leaders who have been critical to developing UTLA’s series of escalating actions over the last months in support of our demands, and who are critical to helping us assess our power as we organize work site by work site across the city.

Among those whom Elgin joined on the Organizing Team were Gloria Martinez from Rowan Avenue Elementary (also a UTLA Board of Directors member) and Michael Cranshaw from Monroe High School. Gloria and Michael, in addition to the critical work they have done on the Organizing Team, have knocked on doors, walked sidewalks, and made calls in support of Bennett Kayser in School Board District 5 and in efforts to drive Tamar Galatzan into a runoff in Board District 3—in other words, in support of building a School Board that is supportive of the package of demands that came out of our August/September bargaining survey and that are the foundation of the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign.

Declaring impasseOn February 18, UTLA declared impasse

in negotiations because LAUSD was not responding to our package of demands. While LAUSD, in response to our organiz-ing and escalating actions, had moved up on salary, the District had not provided legitimate contract counterproposals on class size, staffing, shared decision-making that lies at the core of creating clean and safe schools, or teacher jail (employee due process). Moreover, LAUSD had decided to pay its legal team hundreds of dollars per hour to appeal the court’s decision that TGDC, John Deasy’s evaluation system, had been illegally implemented.

The District’s behavior flies in the face of the broad program of proposals that emerged from our bargaining survey and ignores the realities in our schools.

Ramon Cortines’s own class-size survey reveals that there are 3,000 classrooms across the city with more than 45 students. California is 50th out of the 50 states in the number of students per counselor, and LAUSD is at the bottom of California. LAUSD has acknowl-edged that it does not have enough nurses to adequately track immunization records and has hired temporary nurses during the measles crisis. Class size, student counsel-ing needs, and student health needs do not require temporary Band-aids; each requires a permanent solution, and it is unconsciona-ble that LAUSD has not provided legitimate counterproposals to UTLA on each.

That is why we are at impasse.Moreover, LAUSD sits at 47th out of the

47 districts in L.A. County in maximum

educator salary. If this doesn’t change, we will simply not be able to build a sustain-able, stable school district that recruits and retains quality educators, particularly during the demographic and retirement shift that is likely to happen within the edu-cator force over the next five to seven years. While LAUSD has moved up on its salary offer to 5% on the scale, it is not enough.

That is why we are at impasse.We continue to hope for the best in this

process, and we don’t want to strike. But, we will strike if we need to. Thousands upon thousands of completed UTLA Commit-ment Cards coming in from across the city bear this out. We have collected them as officers, directors, and staff have visited 524 schools since January, and a high percentage of our members have checked off the box on the cards marked “Strike If Necessary.” If you haven’t filled out a Commitment Card, please get one from your chapter chair, com-plete it, and get it back to the UTLA building.

Building a movementIn many different ways, at many dif-

ferent times over the past several months, LAUSD has attempted to draw us into iso-lated bargaining on just salary. We have rejected this. To be drawn into this would not be consistent with what our members demanded we do in the August/September bargaining surveys: fight for a package.

To be drawn into this would also cripple our ability to contribute to building a move-ment to protect public education and fight for racial justice over the long term. The recession, the attack on public services,

increasingly savage institutional racism and economic inequality, the unrelenting attempt to scapegoat educators and their unions, and the years under John Deasy have had a huge negative impact. It will take far longer than one year, and more than one contract campaign, to rebuild and positively transform public education. And, it will take a broad coalition of unions, parents, community, and students to do it.

What we win in this year’s bargaining will only be a first installment in what our schools deserve. We will continue to fight for, through automatic reopeners, improvements to educators’ salaries over the next years. We will continue to fight for the issues most important to our students, parents, and communities: class-size re-

duction; full staffing to meet the academic, social, emotional, and physical health of our students; and shared decision-making rights around school cleanliness, safety, and expansion of visual and performing arts, electives, and academic programs.

Making progress on these key issues will take action outside of negotiations with LAUSD. Con-tract talks are only one path for creating change. The new Local Control Funding Formula, which requires school districts to engage parents and other education stake-holders in financial decisions, is a powerful way to organize with the community to secure wins for

our schools that we can’t get at the union bargaining table.

These are the ways we will plant and nurture the seeds of the broader movement we need to build over the coming years. We can glimpse that movement. It was incredibly inspiring to have these com-munity leaders speaking at our February 26 “Making Our Stand at Grand” rally: Rosa Miranda, a parent of LAUSD students and organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center; Beverly’anne Ogarro, a student at Dorsey High School and organiz-er with the Schools L.A. Students Deserve Grassroots Coalition; and Eunice Grigsby, a founder of the Crenshaw Cougar Coali-tion, renowned neighborhood leader, and parent of five students who graduated from LAUSD, three of whom are now teachers.

What an agreement could look likeWe have made it very clear to Ramon

Cortines, to School Board members, to the District’s bargaining team, and to the media that there must be three aspects to any agreement: something significant around improving salaries, something significant around improving student learning condi-tions, and something significant around improving educator working conditions.

The state Public Employment Relations Board has now certified the impasse and appointed a mediator. While we prepare for the mediation process, which will begin in late March, we ask LAUSD to bring new proposals to the table even before media-tion begins. We have drawn no lines in the

United TeacherUTLA ELECTED OFFICERS

PRESIDENT Alex Caputo-Pearl NEA AFFILIATE VP Cecily Myart-Cruz AFT AFFILIATE VP Betty Forrester ELEMENTARY VP Juan Ramirez SECONDARY VP Colleen Schwab TREASURER Arlene Inouye SECRETARY Daniel Barnhart

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

NORTH AREA: Interim: Kirk Thomas, Chair (Eagle Rock ES), Blanca Mejia (EEC Center), Rebecca Solomon (RFK UCLA Comm.

School), Julie Van Winkle (Logan Span School)

SOUTH AREA: Ingrid Villeda, Chair (93rd Street ES), Ayde Bravo (Maywood ES), Ayesha Brooks

(Markham MS), Maria Miranda (Miramonte ES)

EAST AREA: Gillian Russom, Chair (ESP Academy), Ingrid Gunnell (Lane ES), Gloria Martinez (Rowan ES),

Adrian Tamayo (Lorena ES)

WEST AREA: Erika Jones Crawford, Chair (Angeles Mesa), Noah Lippe-Klein (Dorsey HS), Rodney Lusain (Los Angeles HS), Jennifer Villaryo (Grand View ES)

CENTRAL AREA: José Lara, Chair (Santee EC), Kelly Flores (Maya Angelou), Paul Ngwoke (Bethune

MS), Zulma Tobar (Harmony ES)

VALLEY EAST AREA: Scott Mandel, Chair (Pacoima Magnet), Oleetha Mae Arnold (Grant HS),

Victoria (Martha) Casas (Beachy ES), Alex (David) Orozco (Madison MS)

VALLEY WEST AREA: Bruce Newborn, Chair, Melodie Bitter (Lorne ES), Wendi Davis

(Henry MS), Javier Romo (Mulholland MS)

HARBOR AREA: Aaron Bruhnke, Chair (San Pedro HS), Elgin Scott (Avalon Gardens ES), Steve Seal

(Eshelman ES), Mary Tello (De La Torre Jr. ES)

ADULT & OCCUP ED: Ernest Kettenring (Roosevelt CAS)

BILINGUAL EDUCATION: Cheryl L. Ortega (Sub Unit)

ECE: Juanita C. Garcia (San Fernando EEC)

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: Linda Gordon

SPECIAL ED: Darrell Jones (Byrd MS)

SUBSTITUTES: Fredrick Bertz

PACE CHAIR: Marco Flores

UTLA RETIRED: John Perez

AFFILIATIONS American Federation of Teachers National Education Association

STATE & NATIONAL OFFICERSNEA DIRECTOR: Sue Cirillo

CFT PRESIDENT: Joshua Pechthalt CTA PRESIDENT: Dean Vogel

CTA DIRECTOR: David Goldberg CFT VICE PRESIDENT: Betty Forrester

NEA PRESDIENT: Lily Eskelsen Garcia AFT PRESIDENT: Randi Weingarten

UTLA COMMUNICATIONS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Alex Caputo-Pearl

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS: Suzanne SpurgeonCOMMUNICATIONS SPECIALISTS:

Kim Turner, Carolina Barreiro, Tammy Lynn GannADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Laura Aldana

EDITORIAL INFORMATIONUNITED TEACHER

3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Fl., LA, CA 90010Email: [email protected]

UTLA main line: (213) 487-5560

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(818) 884-8966, ext. 107

UNITED TEACHER accepts paid advertisements from outside companies and organizations, including UTLA sponsors and vendors with no relationship with UTLA. Only approved vendors can use the UTLA logo in their ads. The content of an advertisement is the responsibility of the advertiser alone, and UTLA cannot be held responsible for its accuracy, veracity, or reliability. Appearance of an advertisement should not be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation by United Teachers Los Angeles.

United Teacher (ISSN # 0745-4163) is published monthly (except for a combined June/July issue) by United Teachers Los Angeles, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Subscriptions: $20.00 per year. (Price included in dues/agency fee of UTLA bargaining unit members.) Periodical postage paid at Los Angeles, California. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to United Teachers Los Angeles, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Telephone (213) 487-5560.

(continued on next page)

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl pickets with Carver Middle School educator Nemahun Stevens-White and her colleagues on February 12. More than 700 sites held leafleting on that day.


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Letters to the editor

Get connected to UTLA Facebook: facebook.com/UTLAnow

Twitter: @utlanow

YouTube: youtube.com/UTLAnow

Bringing sanity to teacher jailIn coverage of the return of art teacher

Stuart Lutz to his classroom after months in “teacher jail,” the L.A. Times wrote, “Lutz’s experience underscores the ques-tion of whether administrators unfairly took advantage of district policy to remove teachers who were troublesome, but not necessarily guilty of substantial miscon-duct.” The “question”? There’s no question here. It happened over and over again. It was the name of the game. It’s what “teacher jail” has been all about since Deasy took the throne. Let’s hope for some sanity now that he is gone.

—Philip Keller UTLA member

Students deserve the bestUTLA members took to our Facebook page

(UTLAnow) to share their reactions to UTLA’s declaration of impasse in contract talks.

LAUSD still don’t get it? The students of L.A. deserve the best teachers. We have

the BEST teachers, but how can you keep them and encourage new teachers when we are paid such pitiful salaries? We need to stand strong and in unity until the end. No one wants to strike, but it seems that it is the only way to highlight not only salary but the working conditions we endure every day. As a chapter chair I can vouch that every UTLA member at our school will be at the rally on February 26. We can do this! Stand strong and stand together.

—Stephen Watson Liberty Elementary

Opening the LAUSD booksWondered what the outcome is in terms

of UTLA reviewing District finances. LAUSD continues to claim their books are open for review—and UTLA hired someone to review them, right?

—Dominique Chausse Nueva Vista Elementary

Yes, our new research director, who has a background in forensic accounting, has been combing through budget documents provided by LAUSD as well as filing Freedom of Infor-mation Act requests to get access to additional reports. Among other things, she uncovered more than $59 million in Common Core funding that must be spent by June 30. The District claims the money was sent to school sites but has no knowledge of how or even if it has been spent. Examining District finances is a contin-ual process, and all the research work supports UTLA organizing. As information is uncovered, UTLA uses it in the media and at the bargaining table to bolster our contract demands.

Stagnant wages, stagnant class sizes

I still think the current 5% raise offer is low. We have gone eight years without a pay increase. We marched February 12 at my site, and we are going downtown to march on February 26 because I am so disappointed with the way the District has treated us over the past eight years. Retired educators, through CalSTRS, get an increase every year to help keep up with the rising cost of living, but the wages for active employees have been stagnant. Not only have we not had a raise, but we took furlough days, and class-size increases haven’t gone away once the crisis sub-sided. Now that is insulting.

—Jesús Orozco 61st Street

Accountability for administrators

Could we please have a clause in our contract that stipulates that the faculty of every school will have the opportu-nity to dismiss or retain its principal after two years of service? Schools should not have to put up with misfits, the dance of the lemon administrators, who have been moved from school to school. Instead the District seems intent on keeping them in place at all costs, like an old buddy system. Teachers want quality administrators, and at present there seems to be no way to get rid of the duds.

—Sam Platts City of Angels

4 Common questions about strikes Impact on retirement, health benefits, probationary employees, and more.

5 Unity that cannot be denied UTLA members make our stand at Grand on February 26.

7 Speaking out: Breakfast in the classroom Changing LAUSD’s BIC “mandate” and creating opportunities for working with parents and the community.

4 Action shots: Picketing and Sticking Up for Health Care Day

5 Stages of bargaining

6 Unity in red

9 Milestones

15 Practical matters: Pension 101

16 Union dues for tax purposes

18 CTA State Council elections

27 Grapevine

Leading up to UTLA’s giant rally on February 26, hundreds of schools—including Alexander Science Center (above)—picketed and leafleted in front of their school sites on February 12. See more photos on page 4 and on Facebook.

In this issue

We welcome letters to the editor and will print as many as possible in the space available. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UTLA or its officers.

By mail: Editor, UNITED TEACHER 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010

By fax: (213) 487-3319

By e-mail: [email protected]

PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE (continued from previous page)

sand, and we will engage any real efforts to reach an agreement that covers the three core aspects above. LAUSD, come to the table with something new.

Making LAUSD invest in the classroom

We understand that there are some finan-cial constraints on LAUSD. Having enroll-ment decline from 800,000 to 650,000 in the past several years has seriously affected the budget, as has the state’s decision to require the District to pay a greater share of employee retirement.

However, LAUSD absolutely has the money to reach a reasonable agreement this year. District officials acknowledged to us that they do not know whether a $59 million pot of Common Core money has been spent yet. How many more pots of unspent or unaccounted-for money are there lying around? The governor’s January proposed budget includes at least an 8% increase in K-12 funding. A February report from the Legislative Analyst states that there will be even more revenue than projected under the governor’s budget, meaning that the increase in funding will be substantially more than 8%. Ramon Cortines’s decision to back away from John Deasy’s national-headline-making iPad vanity project means there are more general fund dollars (previously encumbered in addi-tion to bond monies) now available to invest in the priorities of the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign. LAUSD’s shocking appeal of the court decision on TGDC, and the costs of the legal team that prepared the appeal and the TGDC-tied consultants and bureaucrats protected by the appeal, are emblematic of the money that can be diverted from lawyers and consultants to classrooms. And, UTLA will work shoulder-to-shoulder with LAUSD to go to Sacramento to recover funding lost because of John Deasy’s MiSiS crisis, which affected Average Daily Attendance funding. Once re-covered, all of that money should be invested in classroom and school-site priorities.

Continuing our organizing and escalating actions

It is our organizing at the work sites, on the sidewalks, in the streets, and in communities that drives what happens at the bargaining table. The agreement we win will reflect how much power we have built through our or-ganizing—it is that simple. The February 12 school site picketing was a great success, with more than 700 work sites participating. That was followed by our February 26 “Making Our Stand at Grand” rally, which was a tre-mendous feat and a powerful demonstration of our increasing level of organized power.

Our escalating actions must continue as we head into mediation. We will be having a citywide meeting of all Area steering commit-tees and cluster leaders on strike readiness. We will be unveiling a boycott plan, which will show our capacity to withhold labor when necessary. We will organize actions in support of our bargaining team in the me-diation sessions. We will continue building capacity with local and cluster-based actions.

Through all of this, make sure that every single member at your site has completed a UTLA Commitment Card and checked the box marked “Strike If Necessary.” We don’t want to strike, but we will if that is what it takes to win a significant first step in the fight for the Schools L.A. Students Deserve. Let’s work with fantastic leaders like Rosa, Beverly’anne, Eunice, Elgin, Gloria, and Michael to make victory a reality.


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Do I get to vote on striking?Yes. A strike authorization vote

must be held before a strike. Members should vote to authorize a strike only if they are willing to go out for however long it takes to win a fair contract and/or fair health care ben-efits. If the leadership decides to call a strike after receiving membership authorization, it is the expectation that all members will participate.

How long will a strike last?It is impossible to say for sure how

long a strike would last. The 1989 strike lasted nine days. It has been the experience of unions throughout the country that the more members who participate, the shorter the strike. The key to victory is our unity. We will return to work when we have achieved a fair settlement, which you will have the opportunity to vote on.

Do we get paid while on strike?No, but after 10 days, we will work

sick leave credit to qualify for a benefit enhancement that comes from unused full-pay illness. Ex-amples of benefit enhancements include the 0.2 percent career factor if a member retires with at least 30 years of service, and the one-year final compensation factor (rather than an average of the best three years) if one is retiring with at least 25 years of service credit.

2. Credit is earned for additional work beyond the contract year, and such credit goes into the member’s Defined Benefit Supplement (DBS) Account. If the member does not have a full year of service credit, CalSTRS will supplement credit earned from the DBS account to the member’s Defined Benefit Account. This credit can only be done within the same fiscal year the credit was earned. Examples of additional work include Summer School, Saturday School, Replacement Pay, and Aux-iliary Pay.

Common questions about strikesImpact on retirement, health benefits, probationary employees, and more.

February school-based actions put LAUSD on notice

al Employment Relations Act, Section 3543.5, says that it is unlawful for a public school employer to “impose or threaten to impose reprisals on employees, to discriminate or threaten to discriminate against employees, or otherwise to inter-fere with, restrain, or coerce employees because of their exercise of rights guaran-teed by this chapter,” which includes the right to strike if state guidelines are fol-lowed. If the District were to try to violate this law, UTLA would avail ourselves of every possible legal response to protect employees from reprisal.

Will a strike affect my retirement?

Your CalSTRS service credit for retire-ment may be reduced because you are not being paid while on a strike. To earn a full year of service credit, a CalSTRS member must earn his or her full annual salary, but there are ways to gain service credit:

1. California law allows CalSTRS to use up to 2/10 of one year of unused

with our affiliates to provide modest low-interest strike loans guaranteed by the UTLA Strike Fund. Also, if at all possible, after the strike is over, UTLA will try to negotiate makeup time so that students will not lose the instructional time and teachers will not lose pay.

What happens to my health benefits during a strike?

As long as you work one day (or are in paid status) during any pay period (month), the District must pay your health benefits costs for that period. After that, if health benefits are terminated, you have the right to pay for continued coverage under COBRA.

I am a probationary teacher. Do I have special cause for concern if I strike?

During the 1970 and 1989 strikes, not one emergency credentialed or probation-ary teacher lost his or her job. Strikes are a legally protected activity, as confirmed by the courts. The California Education-

February 10Sticking Up for Health Care

February 12School Picketing & Leafleting

SOUTH VALLEY EAST

HARBOR EAST

NORTH

VALLEY WEST

Monroe High School

WEST

Hamilton High School

CENTRAL

Carver Middle School

Corona Elementary Burbank Boulevard

Dominquez Elementary Cheremoya Elementary Gates Elementary


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SUN

SHIN

ING

NEG

OTI

ATIONS

IMPASSE MEDIATION

FACT-FINDING

UTLA and LAUSD present the topics they intend to bargain.

If no agreement is reached, LAUSD can

legally and unilaterally impose its last, best, and final

proposals. UTLA can legally hold a job action, including a strike.

Both sides sit down, with a legal obligation to bargain in good faith

to attempt to reach an agreement.

A fact-finding panel will issue a report

with recommended terms of settlement,

but the parties do not have to agree to it.

Either side can declare that talks are deadlocked,

which leads to mediation.

A state-appointed mediator tries to get the two sides to reconcile their differences. If not successful, the mediator will send the parties to fact-finding.

DISTRICT CAN IM

POSE

UTLA

CA

N STR

IKE

We are here

A tentative agreement can be reached at any time in the process.

Stages of bargaining

Massive February 26 action shows that UTLA has the capacity and the will to demand change.

Crowd tops 15,000 at Making Our Stand at Grand rally

To have staffing and to pay people back?”Educators and parents are angry that

while the economy and school funding have improved, cuts made during the re-cession have not been restored.

“My number one reason to be here today is that a lot of services have been taken away that have not been brought

back—janitors, nurses, librarians,” Los Angeles Academy math and

science teacher Pedro Moysen said. “With all the nonsense about iPads and waste at the District, they tell us they don’t have the money. They say if they give us a raise it will lead to layoffs. Imagine the voters who supported the tax increases. They were promised the money would go to schools, and we haven’t seen any-thing.”

Tulsa Elemen-tary teacher Laurie

Abraham arrived at the rally with a large crew from her school in Granada Hills.

“We haven’t had a wage increase or a cost-of-living increase,” Abraham said. “It’s impactful. We do the job day in, day out, working weekends and at night, and we spend a lot of our own resources to make sure every child is successful. Enough is enough, and we need to stand together and support each other.”

At the rally, the crowd moved to music by members of Ozomatli and heard strong

words of encour-a g e m e n t

from

state and national teachers’ union leaders Joshua Pechthalt (CFT President), Dean Vogel (CTA President), and Lily Eskelsen Garcia (NEA President). AFT President Randi We-ingarten visited L.A. before the rally to lend her support to the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign. Their presence under-scored that everyone is watching what happens in L.A. Speakers representing community groups, parents, and students also stepped to the mic, including Rosa Miranda with the Labor Community Strategy Center, parent Eunice Grigsby, and Dorsey High student Beverly’anne Ogarro, a student leader in CEJ and the Schools L.A. Stu-dents Deserve grassroots coalition.

The huge turnout at Grand Park was a repudiation of Superintendent Ramon Cortines’s attempts to undermine UTLA’s contract campaign by pleading poverty to the media and threat-ening to lay off staff. UTLA recognizes that LAUSD has financial constraints because of declining student enrollment, increased employer contribu-tions to CalSTRS, and other factors, but the District has the funding to reach a reasonable agreement this year.

Governor Jerry Brown’s January initial budget pro-posal for 2015-16 included an increase for public schools of at least 8%. Since

then, the Legislative Analyst says that state revenue could be up to $2 billion

more than the projections used to build Brown’s budget, with the

biggest share of that going to public schools. Other

sources of funding could be diverted to the class-room if LAUSD would commit to investing in the classroom instead of its flawed priorities, such as appealing the court decision finding that TGDC was ille-gally implemented.

(Read more about the District’s funding picture in the President’s Perspective on page 2.)

Next up: more organizing and actions in support of mediation

In weeks leading up to the rally, UTLA leaders and staff visited more than 500 schools to talk with members and hand out Commitment Cards. The cards ask members to pledge to participate in a variety of actions in support of contract talks, including boy-

cotting faculty meet-ings and protesting unnecessary testing. The vast majority of members indicated on those cards that they were ready to strike if necessary.

A possible strike is still several stages away (see chart on this page), and UTLA is clear that the best way to prevent a strike is to be pre-pared for one. UTLA will continue our ag-gressive organizing work, which is just as important as what happens at the bar-

gaining table. With the mediation process beginning in late March, UTLA is finalizing our next series of actions, which will include training leaders on strike readiness, member actions tied to mediation, and a boycott plan to put pressure on LAUSD.

Make your commitment: The UTLA Commitment Card is an essential tool for UTLA to assess our members’ readi-ness to take action. If you haven’t already, be sure to fill out a Commitment Card and check that you are ready to strike if neces-sary (see your chapter chair for a card). By committing to an escalating series of ac-tions, members give the union power.

More than 15,000 people flooded Grand Park in downtown L.A. on February 26 in UTLA’s biggest action in recent history. If LAUSD had any doubts about the commu-nity unity behind our contract demands, they were crushed by the sight of thou-sands of educators, parents, and students rallying together in front of City Hall.

With contract talks at an impasse and headed into mediation, UTLA members and public education supporters seized the chance to protest LAUSD’s lack of action in negotiations. Despite nearly 20 bargaining sessions over the past few months, District officials have yet to make legitimate coun-terproposals on many of UTLA members’ priorities in the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign, including class-size caps and averages, health and human ser-vices staffing ratios, school cleanliness, due process for housed teachers, an expanded role for local school leadership councils, elimination of the illegally implemented TGDC, and member-directed voluntary planning and col-laboration days. LAUSD is also not doing enough to address uncompet-itive pay in LAUSD and the eight years teachers and health and human ser-vices professionals have gone without a pay increase. The District has not moved from its 5% raise offer; UTLA is demanding a one-year increase of 8.5%, retroac-tive to July 2014, and an immediate reopener.

“We had to declare impasse because the District has not met our basic crite-ria,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told the crowd. “We need to see improve-ment in three things: salaries, working conditions, and learning conditions. They haven’t met that. Our demands are not radical. When did it become radical to have class sizes you can actually teach in?

February’s organizing actions included school-site picketing on Feb-ruary 12 at more than 700 sites across LAUSD. At Carver Middle School, English teacher and chapter chair Jose Buenabad talked to the media about the conditions at his site, where custodial staff has been cut to a minimum, class sizes have not receded from recession-era highs, and educators are waiting for a long-overdue salary increase.

“UTLA is asking for a comprehensive contract package so that we can address all our needs,” Buenabad said. “The District needs to stop wasting taxpayers’ money and reinvest in schools. When you don’t have resources coming down from the District level, it’s very difficult. We had pay cuts via furlough days, and our pay ranks 47 out of 47 in L.A. County. That’s unacceptable.”


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Downtown Magnets High School

Unity in redThanks to the 300-plus schools that have sent in their red T-shirt pics since

the first Big Red Tuesday on September 30. The input has been amazing. We will keep using as many as we can in the coming months.

When we wear red on Tuesdays, we tell the District that we are united behind our bargaining demands and the Schools L.A. Students Deserve. Keep the red growing!

Elementary Visual Arts Teachers

54th Street Elementary Rowan ElementaryRED

By Juan ParrinoUTLA Political Organizer

The March 3 LAUSD School Board primary election has not yet taken place at the time of this writing, and while UTLA-endorsed incumbent Dr. George McKenna is running uncontested in the race for his District 1 seat, the outcome for our union’s choice in District 5 remained unknown. In-cumbent Bennett Kayser fought an uphill battle against a well-funded opponent in his 2011 election. Now in 2015, Kayser once again was facing off against a challenger with deep financial support—this time, a charter school operator.

The California Charter School Associa-tion, smarting from recent defeats in the District 1 race and in the contest for state superintendent of public instruction, has turned the District 5 Primary Election into an unwarranted smear campaign against Kayser. Their first independent expenditure mailer was race-baiting at best. The subse-quent flood of literature unfairly poured a

myriad of LAUSD concerns into Kayser’s lap, ludicrously blamed him for an Assem-bly bill, and wrongly made him out to be a profiteer and squanderer of tax dollars.

While the outcome in District 5 remains unknown, the vital role of our members in engaging voters is a known quantity. Time and time again, when our members speak truth to power and converse with voters over phone lines and on doorsteps, we make a difference in elections. Through our concerted volunteerism we push back the deluge of election money by those who would privatize public education and dismantle teachers’ unions.

From the UTLA building, to North and South Field Offices, and phone-bank-in-a-box (PBIB) operations, our members are carrying out the critical effort to reelect veteran LAUSD educator and teachers’ Board member Bennett Kayser. In Dis-trict 3, member efforts are focused on forcing incumbent Tamar Galatzan into a runoff. A number of challengers could prove formidable in a general election.

Voters are engaged at the UTLA Building, in field offices, and out in the community.

UTLA volunteers step up in a big way for key School Board races

SEIU Local 99 President Barbara Torres (in purple) joined UTLA activists and leaders at the North Field Office for Bennett Kayser.

School Board member Steve Zimmer (center) and activist Carlos Montes (in black hat) were part of the South Field Office push.

Members came together at Vista Middle School, one of many Valley-based actions demanding no reelection for Tamar Galatzan.

Through presentations to chapters, rallies, and neighborhood outreach, members are working to prevent Galatzan from winning outright on March 3.

Once again, UTLA members have stepped up in a big way for key School

Board races. Their sacrifice of time to serve as the credible messengers within the Dis-trict 3 and 5 contests is much appreciated. Look to the upcoming UNITED TEACHER for an analysis of election outcomes and our next political challenges.


7

How our school changed LAUSD’s Breakfast in the Classroom “mandate” and created opportunities for working with parents and the community.

Speaking out

BIC organizing success story

By Rebekah Kang, UTLA Chair, and Kirti Baranwal, UTLA Vice Chair, at UCLA Community School

The Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) program in LAUSD schools has been con-troversial since it was first rolled out in a pilot program in 2011. Teachers support providing a nutritional breakfast for students and we know the impact a healthy meal can have on learning, but LAUSD’s BIC program brings many challenges: It does not respect local de-cision-making rights, depends mainly upon volunteer student and parent labor, wastes valuable instructional time, and ignores the issue of cleanliness in the classroom and quality food.

For these reasons and others, the UCLA staff was alarmed when in September 2014, LAUSD mandated the three K-5 pilot schools, including UCLA-CS, at the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Community Schools campus, to imple-ment BIC in January 2015. After five months of teachers and parents voicing concerns, LAUSD has allowed all six schools, grades K-12, on the RFK campus to postpone BIC until May 2015. Here is our story of how we organized to change LAUSD’s Breakfast in the Classroom “mandate.”

Brief history of BICBIC originates from a federal initiative

to provide breakfast to all students. Federal law requires that students in need be fed

but does not mandate a specific program, such as Breakfast in the Classroom. Some speculate that BIC has spread so quickly in school districts nationwide because it is being pushed by Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom, a consortium of organi-zations funded primarily by the Walmart Foundation.

In LAUSD, BIC was folded into a School Board resolution authored by members Monica Garcia and Nury Martinez in April 2012. LAUSD turned that resolu-tion into a mandated program without an opt-out option, as stated in the District’s BIC FAQ (“Opting-out is not available,” it reads). However, LAUSD allowed 30 of the wealthiest L.A. schools to opt-out of serving food during instructional time and in the classroom after parents complained.

How we organizedAfter being told in September about

the BIC mandate for 2014-2015 for the RFK campus, staff members discussed concerns in our weekly UTLA meetings. We spoke with parents and listened to their concerns in weekly parent/teacher meetings during non-work hours. We then created a joint petition.

In November, we gave our signed peti-tions to our administrators, who forwarded the petitions to our District directors. Rep-resentatives from Food Services came to meet with parents two times.

Committee bulletin boardUpcoming meetings

MARCH 4 & APRIL 8UTLA Area Meetings: See times and

locations at utla.net. Early Childhood Education Committee:

7 p.m., UTLA building.

MARCH 11 Elementary Committee: 4 p.m., UTLA

building. Secondary Committee: 4 p.m., UTLA

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MARCH 17 Unjustly Housed Teachers Committee:

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The following committees also meet on the same day as the House of Rep-resentatives from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. (unless noted) in the UTLA building: Arts Education Committee, Asian-Pacific Education, Bilingual Education Committee, Chicano/Latino Education, Gay & Lesbian Issues, Health & Human Services, Human Rights, Inner City, In-structional Coaches, Kindergarten Teach-ers, Library Professionals (4:45-6 p.m.), Middle Schools, Multi-Track/Year-Round Schools, Non- Classroom/Non-School Site, Options Committee, Physical Edu-cation Action and Dance, Professional Rights & Responsibilities, Pre-Retirement Issues, Salary & Finance, School/ Com-munity Relations, School Readiness Lan-guage Development Program, Secondary School Counselors, Special Education, Substitutes, Violence Prevention & School Safety, Women’s Education. The National Board Certified Teachers Standing Com-mittee: For meeting dates please check calendar at www.utla.net.

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“They were not listening to us,” Lilian Ramos, mother of two chil-dren at UCLA-CS who attended the meeting with Food Services, said. “We told them that the class-rooms and bathrooms at our school are already dirty and we need more custodial staff and we do not even have BIC yet. We asked if they would give us more custo-dians to clean the classrooms every day after children eat breakfast and they said, ‘No, classrooms won’t get dirtier. Other schools have had BIC and it works fine. You have nothing to worry about.’ Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”

In January, our administrators prepared to implement BIC. They sent letters home to parents, held an assembly for students, and had LAUSD Food Services representa-tives come to train our elementary staff on BIC. One week before LAUSD’s pro-posed BIC implementation day at the RFK campus, K-12 teachers and parents met and decided that K-5 teachers and parents would not do the work to implement BIC. Teachers and parents agreed that teachers would not send students to carry rolling carts of food from the cafeteria to the class-room. Students would go to the carts, get their food, and eat in the cafeteria.

“When Food Services came in to train us, teachers learned that volunteer student labor would be required to completely implement BIC,” Elia Lara, second/third-grade teacher at UCLA-CS, said. “That really shocked us and raised new concerns about student safety. That, in addition to all of our already existing concerns, made teachers and parents say, ‘There is something other than wanting children to eat behind BIC. There are other ways we can feed children. We cannot allow this to come into our community.’ ”

Raquel Martinez is a mother of four stu-

dents at UCLA-CS. “As parents we send our children to get an excellent education,” Martinez said. “With BIC, LAUSD is taking away time from quality learning and making children do work for free. Children don’t eat at school because they don’t like the food. Most of the parents in our community feed our children breakfast and we send them with more food because we know they do not eat the food at school. LAUSD isn’t lis-tening to us when we say what we need.”

The day after we decided to resist BIC, teachers reached out to UTLA and said parents and teachers wanted to do a job action and needed UTLA’s help to pub-licize it with a news conference. UTLA responded within 12 hours and sent an organizer to our Friday, January 16, UTLA lunch meeting, where teachers and parents finalized details of the job action. We felt ready to honor the concerns of our school community!

Our UTLA chair and administrators met the afternoon of January 16 with a

After learning that the Breakfast in the Classroom program would be mandated at their schools, RFK Community Schools staff and parents held a series of meetings to talk about their concerns (above) and then they brought those issues to LAUSD. The District told the schools in January that they could postpone BIC until May 2015.

(continued on page 24)

Concerns brought up by BIC mandate What educators and parents want

BIC is a top-down mandate. Top-down mandates do not allow for voices to be heard and school com-munities’ needs to be met.

Each school community decides how to feed children and receives support to do so.

There is a daily loss of 20 to 40 minutes of instruc-tional time. Talking at children while they eat is not quality instruction.

Each school community decides how to use in-structional time.

BIC implementation relies on the use of volunteer and majority Latino and African-American student/parent labor. People need jobs in our communities.

Fully staff schools to meet needs of student population.

There is food in the classroom on a daily basis without daily cleanup. There is an increase in an unsanitary environment (roaches, rats, etc.) on school campuses.

No food in the classroom. Keep food in the cafeteria.

There is a lack of quality/culturally relevant food (with or without BIC) that is wasted. Many students do not like the food.

Ask children/community about healthy and culturally relevant food they want. Serve it fresh and at the correct temperature.

What educators and parents wantWe think breakfast is important, and we want students to eat quality food. We also value our instructional time and the labor and thoughtfulness it takes to implement high-functioning programs in school communities.

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3. Aim to lose Make it your goal to get and keep your BMI (body mass index) to less than 25.

4. Watch the pressure Maintain a healthy blood pressure — 120/80 or lower is ideal.

5. Break up with a bad habit If you smoke, quit. Your heart will heart you.

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4

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9

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2015

ONLINE PROGRAMSBEST

BACHELOR’S

MilestonesPassings

Warren E. Buckner, retired LAUSD teacher and longtime UTLA member, passed away quietly at his home on Sunday, January 14, 2015. Warren taught math at Samuel Gompers Middle School and at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. He was the UTLA representative for both of his schools and became the UTLA parliamentarian. He was always an outspoken champion of teachers’ rights, and he was beloved by his students and respected by his colleagues. He will be greatly missed.

Teacher, leader, and founding UTLA member Dr. Juliette R. Henry passed away on January 14. She was 80 years old.

Juliette was born on January 1, 1935, in Blackville, South Carolina. She was the youngest and last surviving of five children of Emma Harley and Henry Roundtree. When Juliette was about three years old, her mother died and within two weeks, her father also passed away. Juliette lived with her aunt in Blackville and completed her elementary and junior high school educa-tion. After spending a brief time in Wash-ington, D.C., she moved to Philadelphia and graduated from Kensington High School in 1952. She attended Temple University in Philadelphia for a year and worked for the telephone company as one of the first African-American telephone operators.

In 1953-54, Juliette’s life took an im-portant turn. One summer she decided to take a vacation in Los Angeles to visit her close friend, Frances McLemore. Little

did she know what awaited her. She fell in love with Los Angeles and decided to transfer from the telephone company in Philadelphia to Los Angeles. She enrolled in Los Angeles City College, taking night classes and working during the day.

Then, love struck again. It was Pelham P. Henry, whom she met on a blind date on Admission Day in 1955. After their subse-quent date on the sand at Dockweiler State Beach, Henry was hooked. All his inten-tions of returning to Georgia “went out the window.” They married October 18, 1957. A 57-year love affair and friendship began that was blessed with one daughter, Pamela Rene, who passed away in 1988. After Pa-mela’s birth, Juliette took a leave from the telephone company to complete her educa-tion. She graduated from El Camino College in 1959 and enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, where she earned a BS degree in education. Never one to rest on her laurels, Juliette decided to pursue a master’s degree in education and finally an Ed. D. degree at Pepperdine University.

Juliette was the consummate educator. After earning her BS degree, she began a career with the Los Angeles Unified School District. She taught at a number of schools, primarily 232nd Street and Wilmington Park Elementary Schools and South Gate Middle School. Her outstanding skills were constantly in demand. She served as a master teacher and Title I coordinator and worked at 32nd Street Magnet School. Juliette received many awards and com-mendations for her untiring efforts and activism with UTLA and the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association. Juliette retired from LAUSD in 1996 and joined the faculty at

California State University, Dominguez Hills. She taught education classes and supervised student teachers.

Juliette and Henry were partners and true soul mates who enjoyed being with each other, especially traveling together. Over the years many of their friends joined them in their travels. They took four world tours. Henry jokingly would say, “Julie was happiest with a boarding pass in her hand.”

Juliette experienced a number of health and personal challenges. With Henry con-tinually by her side, she endured adversi-ties with dignity and grace. She refused to be a prisoner of pain and suffering and did not whine, complain, or ask, “Why me?” Juliette and Henry simply forged ahead and enjoyed life. Perhaps that is her greatest legacy. She cheerfully embraced life with all its challenges and refused to let adversity steal her joy. She left the world a better place because of the life she lived, the students she guided, the people she influenced, and the examples she set.

UTLA members and leaders past and present attended Juliette’s services. Former UTLA officer and State Senator Betty Kar-nette and Juliette became very close during the first big strike in 1970 when UTLA was born. They served on the UTLA Board of Directors in UTLA, attended CTA confer-ences and workshops, and participated in many National Education Association con-ventions and conferences together. Kar-nette says that “UTLA is a better organiza-tion than it would have been if she had not been an active participant and supporter, and California Teachers Association gained greatly from her intuition and experience.”

Former UTLA political director Bill

Warren E. Buckner

Juliette R. Henry



10

Through the union, the collective power of our union is actualized.

From the treasurer

Membership matters

There is something special about being a union that represents teachers and health and human services professionals. UTLA has the privilege of representing a work force that is dedicated to a quality public education system. Our members do more than a job—we live a calling that defines who we are. We want to make a differ-ence in the lives of children and guide students to live their dreams and therefore we choose a profession where our wages are not congruent with our educational

level and years of experience. And un-fortunately over the past eight years, our job has been made increasingly more dif-ficult. Our members have made sacrifices as the economic recession in California and forces beyond our control have placed a greater burden on us. We have expe-rienced stagnant wages, furlough days, burgeoning class sizes and student ratios, and more. Additionally, the corporate busi-ness reform agenda has been imposed upon educators, with high-stakes testing as the indicator of student achievement. Education has become a profit-making industry while public school educators have been negatively portrayed. Many of us go home drained by all the extra work and heartbroken by the conditions our students are forced to endure.

It is for all these reasons that a union exists. The union fights for the issues—working conditions, learning conditions, and sala-ries—that we care about. This is negotiated through the contract we have with LAUSD that is backed by the collective power of our members.

Research shows value of teachers’ unions

We want to support you to do the job of educating, supporting, and advocating

for students with the resources you need and a fair and just compensation for your work. Research continues to support the value and importance of teacher unions. One report that continues to be quoted is “Teachers’ Unions and Compensation: The Impact of Collective Bargaining on Salary Schedules and Performance Pay Schemes” by Kristine Lamm West and Elton Mykerezi in the Economics of Educa-tion Review (February 2011). The authors found the following:

“Collective bargaining increased start-ing salaries by 3.9 percent and added an additional 5.4 percent over the first five years of a teacher’s career. Teachers’ unions also support higher wages for input, such as education levels, rather than measures of output, such as test scores. In other words, it pays to be in a union. And the whole community ben-efits by union workers. Unions serve as a bulwark against wage inequality—which now can be illustrated mostly in the negative. A fifth to a third of increased income inequality among men is attrib-uted to the decline in union representa-tion between 1973 and 2007. That’s about as much as the contribution of increased college education to raising wages at the top. Union membership has been attacked because it stands in the way of management slashing wages, laying off workers indiscriminately and without due process.”

California: Home to a diverse community and vibrant labor movement

California is the eighth-largest economy in the world and the media capital of the nation. Many believe that what happens in California spreads across the nation. Over the past years, education in California has been hit hard. However, we were able to come together as unions and organizations to elect officials largely in support of public education and workers. Even against the odds of corporate-backed candidates and legislation, we have been successful. The success of Proposition 30 and the defeat of

Proposition 32 two years ago were critical in turning around the funding for public education in California as we continue to seek long-term solutions. Last year, for the first time in a long time, we didn’t fear the spring RIFs and having to suffer as our colleagues were let go. We were victorious because of the overwhelming support of labor partners, our state and national affiliates (CFT/AFT, CTA/NEA), legislators, and grassroots organizations. But we know that even with the progres-sive movement in California, we must be diligent as corporate dollars continue to fuel efforts to privatize our schools and demonize public educators.

Lessons from WisconsinThere are national lessons from other

states that caution us not to take our suc-cesses for granted and to be diligent and always prepared. New Orleans, Florida, Tennessee, Philadelphia, and Wisconsin have all experienced recent right-wing attacks on public education.

In Wisconsin, as you may know, Gov-ernor Scott Walker, with the support of the Koch brothers and other right-wing funders and organizations, passed Act 10, the most draconian anti-public sector labor law in the nation. It took away virtually all collective bargaining rights, including the right to arbitration, for public employee unions (police and firefighter unions, which had endorsed Walker, were exempt). It left intact only the right to bargain base-wage increases up to the cost of living. The new law prohibited “agency shops,” in which all employees of a bargaining unit pay union dues. Under these conditions, public sector union membership has plummeted, staff has been reduced, and resources to lobby, organize, and influence elections have shrunk.

The lesson of Wisconsin is particularly alarming because it was always known as a strong labor state with a progressive history. For example, in 1959, Wisconsin was the first state to legalize collective bargaining for public sector workers. This should warn us that what happened in Wisconsin could happen anywhere.

Bob Peterson, who was elected presi-dent of the Milwaukee Teachers Educa-tion Association during the fight against Act 10, recently penned a strong piece, “Why We Need to Transform Teacher Unions Now” for Rethinking Schools (Winter 2014/15 edition). In it, he writes about the fight against Act 10 and the need for unions to make radical changes to

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How to stay in “active” status and retain benefits of belonging.

Keeping track

Breaks in UTLA membership

What makes a person an “active member” of UTLA? For many of us who spend day and night involved in the work of UTLA, organizing chapters, talking with members about issues, engaging in political action, and motivating member participa-tion in our contract campaign, we start thinking of active members as people who come to meetings and do union work. If you are walking precincts, visiting schools, setting up and attending meetings, repre-senting members in conferences, and doing

all the little things that make a big difference in the life of the union, you probably meet anyone’s definition of an “active member.”

On another level, the UTLA Constitu-tion defines “active members” a little more broadly. Active members are those who 1) qualify for membership based on their employment within a UTLA-represented bargaining unit, and 2) pay their dues on a regular basis. In simplest terms, this means teachers and health and human services professionals within LAUSD, or one of the L.A.-area charter schools we represent, who pay their dues “promptly.”

Don’t take my word for it—you can read the UTLA Constitution for yourself at utla.net/constitution.

New policy deals with membership gray zones

But how often do we have to pay our dues? With payroll deduction, many of us don’t even think about paying dues, which in some ways is fine, because it means one less thing to worry about in our busy lives. Under normal circumstances your “active membership” is sitting there, waiting for you to take advantage of it. It’s when people take a leave from work, or their paycheck stops for some reason, that we start to enter a membership gray zone. If you don’t

work for a month, are you still a member of UTLA? What if you or your family is adding a child through pregnancy or adop-tion? What happens to your membership then? What if you leave to work at a non-UTLA-represented charter school for a year, or take some other “break” from getting a regular LAUSD paycheck? And when you come back, do you have to do anything special to get your membership reinstated?

Believe it or not, UTLA has not had a clear policy on what to do with “not-so-active” memberships for as long as I can determine. Figuring out what makes someone active versus inactive hasn’t always been clearly spelled out. This has led to problems, mis-understandings, and the type of inconsistent practices that have left people scratching their heads about what to do. And when policies are unclear, nonexistent, or made up on the spot, it’s hard to get the result you think you should. Inconsistent membership policies have affected the UTLA member-ship database in subtle but significant ways, leaving rosters with unexplained additions or deletions, voting lists missing voters, and members sometimes wondering whether UTLA has its act together.

To address these issues, the UTLA Board of Directors recently decided on a long-overdue operational policy concerning these issues. It’s not the kind of thing that will be considered groundbreaking, bold, or innovative, but it provides some much-needed guidance to getting our member-ship information rock solid. See the im-portant summarized highlights in the box on this page. Going forward, the UTLA membership department also will start noti-fying members through email, mail, phone calls, and perhaps even text messages when the dues expected of members isn’t match-ing up with the dues UTLA receives. This detailed, information-heavy, and proactive approach will be a key feature of UTLA’s overhaul of our membership database.

Special membership: Another category to know

During Deasy’s reign of terror on due process, we have had to deal with an increasing number of our members who have been dismissed by the District under questionable circumstances. While members are challenging their dismissals judicially, they are no longer employees of LAUSD, no matter how baseless, unfair, or retaliatory the dismissal was. And when your employment status no longer allows you to be an “active member” of UTLA, you can find yourself in a Catch-22: Just when you might need UTLA assistance most, you can find yourself on the outside looking in.

Fortunately, the founding mothers and fathers of UTLA wrote into the constitu-tion a key provision to permit people who should be allowed UTLA active member-ship, but for some reason can’t currently be active members, a path to membership. The UTLA Constitution establishes three differ-ent membership categories: active, retired, and special members. Special membership can be extended to anyone who is recom-mended by an existing UTLA member and approved by the Board of Directors. Special members pay a much-reduced dues rate and can continue their membership in our state or national affiliates, which can make a difference when it comes to participation in member benefit programs such as life insurance.

If you know of someone who could benefit from a special membership in UTLA for whatever reason, please contact one of your UTLA Board of Directors members and ask them to sponsor a motion to make this person a special member of UTLA. Please contact me if you need assistance with the process of making someone a special member. Building up and strengthening our membership can take many forms.

Dan can be reached at [email protected].

By Daniel BarnhartUTLA Secretary

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Keeping your UTLA membership “active”UTLA members can fall into “inactive” membership status for a variety of

reasons, such as taking a pregnancy leave, because dues are no longer being automatically deducted from their paychecks. During inactive status, UTLA members lose the privileges of belonging to the union, including representation for workplace issues and UTLA voting rights. UTLA has developed a policy for members who are interested in staying “active” during these time periods.

• If you miss dues for one month, you have a grace period to get your dues paid up, until the next paycheck. (We don’t want a District screwup to take away a person’s membership.)

• You can pay back dues to “fix” a month when you were inactive, but only going back three months at a time. If school’s out and you aren’t on annualized pay, that month won’t count against you. (Our members who are substitutes and adult education teachers get paid only when they work, so we can’t expect people to pay dues over the summer break.)

• Every member has to pay their full dues on an annual basis.

• If you are gone from UTLA for more than six months, you’ll need to sign a new membership card when you come back unless you have made prior arrangements.

Going forward, the UTLA membership department will start notifying members through email, mail, phone calls, and perhaps even text messages when the dues expected of members isn’t matching up with the dues UTLA receives.


12

Actions on the national, state and local level.

NEA & AFT affiliate actions

Raising the profession

One of UTLA’s key issues in contract talks centers around the work our educa-tors do on behalf of students daily: build-ing power through our professional craft. LAUSD talks about revamping professional development, but frankly educators need to collaborate with each other and create a pro-fessional learning community themselves.

We must start to assert our rights at our school sites and begin to build power around the instruction we deliver. The tagline “pro-fessional development” should scrapped and replaced with “professional learning.” Every year we as educators enhance our daily work by partaking in these profes-sional learning opportunities, most of which we pay for out of our own pockets. Our profession must be raised to include op-portunities to learn from colleagues through professional learning, collaboration with colleagues to effectively plan lessons, and building site-based power. When we exert our power, it signifies that our working con-ditions are our students’ working conditions.

National: NEA Foundation for Teaching Excellence

Every year, all NEA state, federal, and direct affiliates nominate one outstanding educator for the NEA Foundation Awards for Teaching Excellence. These prestigious awards recognize, reward, and promote excellence in teaching and advocacy for the profession.

On February 13, the NEA Foundation for Teaching Excellence Gala Awards held in Washington, D.C., presented the California Casualty Award for Teaching Excellence to our own Mel House, a P.E. educator, UTLA

Valley East member, and UTLA/NEA sec-retary/treasurer. She was CTA’s honoree for the prestigious award. Mel received this award for her quality teaching, UTLA activism, and community involvement. This summer, Mel will be representing NEA as she partakes in a Global Educational Fel-lowship that culminates with a field study in Peru. Way to go, Mel House.

Look for information on how to apply for an NEA Foundation award in the next UT.

State: Instructional Leadership CorpsCTA has partnered with the Stanford

Center for Opportunity Policy in Edu-cation (SCOPE), and the National Board Resource Center (NBRC) to develop an Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC). The purpose is to bring educators and site-based leaders together to develop expertise to grow the local capacity necessary for im-proving instruction. This three-year project is centered on reclaiming the role and the responsibility of professional educators to creatively design and develop learning op-portunities for their peers and the children in their care. The project consists of four clusters of work: recruit and prepare the ILC, move the work of the ILC into local schools and communities, grow regional capacity, and communicate, coordinate, and align with regional and statewide capacity-building efforts.

There are seven members from UTLA doing this work: Steve Seal (Eshelman ES and UTLA Board member), Zulma Tobar (Harmony ES and UTLA Board member), Antoinette Rolfe (Harmony ES), Cynthia

Godoy (Stevenson MS), Kit McConnell (Stevenson MS), Margarita Vargas (Maple Primary Center), and Claudine Phillips (Roscomare ES). These educators will be leading the creation, delivery, and dissemi-nation of professional learning experiences and materials in LAUSD. Thank you!

Local: We Honor Ours (WHO Awards)

The WHO awards are awarded annu-ally to UTLA/NEA members who have given exemplary service to UTLA/NEA and its membership. Award recipients were determined by the UTLA/NEA WHO Awards Committee based on UTLA/NEA member nominations. This year’s Local WHO honorees are Ayde Bravo, M. Victoria Casas, Karen Lutz, Gloria Martinez, Maria Miranda, Brian Muller, and Deborah Solis.

By Cecily Myart-CruzUTLA/NEA Vice President

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UTLA’s own Mel House in D.C. to accept her NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence.

Unions honor and engage educators


13

The State WHO honoree is David Goldberg, and the Gold Community award is going to the Labor Community Strategy Center.

Building power happens in our schools, in the classroom, and through our members. Let’s continue to build power and raise the profession for the schools all of our students deserve.

The power of being the best educators we can

By Betty ForresterUTLA/AFT Vice President

AFT, CFT, and UTLA are focusing on building power. This power comes from the members and is used to support the work and the priorities of our members—the professionals who serve our students.

I am on the UTLA bargaining team, and every session we bring in different UTLA members who are experts on the issues on the table, whether it’s restorative justice,

health and human services staffing ratios, or the unjust teacher jail system. Winning the Schools L.A. Students Deserve will take tapping into all of our resources—local, state, and national.

National support for our contract fight

We were thrilled to get national support for our contract fight and for the Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign during a 24-hour visit by AFT President Randi Weingarten this month. During her short stop, she packed a lot in, including a news conference at Slawson Southeast Occupational Center, a talk at Oc-cidental College, and two school blitz visits.

At a Burbank Middle School visit coordi-nated by chapter chair Elaine Burn, Randi watched a drama class rehearsal of Our Town and spoke to staff, who had just received an award that morning in a ceremony with School Board member Bennett Kayser for being one of 22 middle “Schools to Watch” in the state. The next morning Randi spoke with career tech educators at Slawson South-east Occupational Center (including chapter chair Sergio Hernandez) and visited cosme-tology, culinary arts, auto shop, and power line workers training programs. UTLA held a news conference in support of adult education programs and to endorse a motion by Board member Kayser to add more child care centers in LAUSD—especially on adult ed campuses for the children of the adult students. At this news conference, Randi praised the work of all educators and health and human services professionals as the focus of what LAUSD should be doing to help students at every stage, from early ed through older adult. The supports needed by communities to help students learn and give back to their neigh-

borhood is a theme of the AFT and of UTLA. Community members and activists were

also invited to the event at Occidental College with School Board members Bennett Kayser and Steve Zimmer, during which Randi, Martha Sanchez (parent and Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment Board member), and UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl spoke about the work being done to achieve the schools all students deserve. CFT President Joshua Pechthalt introduced Randi and set the context for the actions ahead for us all in this campaign.

Connecting Platinum Apple winners with TEACH

UTLA/CFT/AFT will continue to provide opportunities for professional learning to our members. UTLA’s Plati-num Apple Award winners (nominated by their colleagues for innovative curricu-lum or outstanding educational program or for exhibiting exemplary instructional techniques) have been invited to attend the AFT TEACH conference.

The AFT TEACH (Together Educat-ing America’s Children) conference, held every odd year in Washington, D.C., celebrates the work we do and provides inspiration for the work that lies ahead.

This conference brings together educators, union leaders, administrators, activists, and civic and community leaders for high-quality workshops. But TEACH also offers participants overviews of innovative work, exciting demonstrations of the latest edu-cational technology, thought-provoking keynote speakers, and much more. Par-ticipants leave the conference armed with practical tools and professional knowledge to use every day in the classroom.

Building power at the bargaining table and at school sites, with parents, commu-nities, and elected leadership, includes the power of being the best educators we can. That is what the movement for the Schools L.A. Students Deserve is about and how our national and state affiliates support us.

Two LAUSD educators share how they successfully invested for retirement. Steve Schullo co-authored with husband Dan Robertson, to reveal how they learned to avoid sales pitches and instead, put their nest egg money into long-term, low-cost options available to LAUSD educators today. Steve and Dan wrote this book to present their ideas learned from the “school-of-hard-knocks.”

The authors will present their “hands-on” story at the UTLA’s Pre-Retirement Issues Committee’s “Investment Workshop” on Saturday April 25.

To register, fill out the form: www.utla.net/investworkshopregistration042515 or call Evy Vaughn UTLA Conference Secretary (213) 487-5560

See the 82 reviews on Amazon.com (4.4 out of 5 Stars) Steve and Dan can be contacted at their blog: www.latebloomerwealth.com or email: [email protected]

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Standing up to autocratic principals and the teacher jail system.

From the secondary VP

Fighting the culture of fear

As a recent visitor to Vietnam and Cam-bodia with my husband and two sons, both of whom are studying to be teachers, I had the opportunity to visit a few schools. What was interesting is that the schools did not have decorated bulletin boards, posted standards, or even Breakfast in the Classroom, yet the children were actively listening and were engaged in the lessons. Moreover, the teachers did not seem to have the culture of fear that is permeating our schools at this very time—a disturb-

ing reality that we as a union have to turn around. UTLA is working closely with our communities and organizations to support the Schools L.A. Students Deserve, and that includes supportive, collaborative school environments where teachers and parents are free to speak up and have more of a say in local school decisions.

We have allowed the “reformers” to define what education is and should be and who ought to be teaching. Who is really hearing the teacher voice about the real needed changes in our schools? Pushing that voice forward is one of UTLA’s primary aims. Recently I heard a principal tell a faculty that they could not exercise their rights under the UTLA contract to suspend students from class. The teachers at the school questioned this mandate and also talked about the District wasting money on iPads when there should be counselors and support staff for students in need of help. There was a high level of frustration among the staff members that was ignored by the principal. Ms. Principal just reiterated, “Don’t send kids to the office.” Let me reassure you that your contractual rights are in force, no matter what a misguided principal might say!

Our work with the UTLA Unjustly

Housed Teachers Committee continues to move along in a positive way. We are in communication with the District on a regular basis to bring justice to those who have been removed unfairly from their classrooms and need to be cleared and returned to teaching. Although the process can be slow, we have had success in helping our members. We are also

tackling the issue in negotiations, where we are demanding a system that ensures due process and fairness to our UTLA members. Read our specific proposals at utla.net/contractdemands.

UTLA is on the move in many areas. Follow us at utla.net and please feel free to contact me at any time.

Colleen can be reached at [email protected].

By Colleen SchwabUTLA Secondary Vice President

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Many teachers continue to be the victims of former superintendent John Deasy’s “teacher jail” system. Caught off guard and often falsely accused, they languish and suffer alone, under house arrest and unsure of what to do.

Don’t be a victim of unfair job actions and false charges. UTLA wants you to know: You are not alone. We are here for you.

Call or email the UTLA officers listed below and attend the Unjustly Housed Teachers Committee Meeting to get the assistance and support you deserve.

UTLA officer contacts: If you’ve been recently removed from the classroom, please contact UTLA Secondary Vice President Colleen Schwab (213-368-

6237, [email protected]) or UTLA Treasurer Arlene Inouye (213-368-6218, [email protected]).

Unjustly Housed Teachers Commit-tee: UTLA provides support, guid-ance, and assistance to all rehoused teachers through the Unjustly Housed Teachers Committee. The committee meets monthly at the UTLA building. The next meeting is Tuesday, March 17, from 3 to 5 p.m. in Room 904. The UTLA building is located at 3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010 (213-487-5560).

UTLA is ready, willing, and able to help its falsely accused and unfairly treated members. Make the call, attend the meeting, and let UTLA help you.

UTLA support for housed teachers

Teachers Supporting Teachers

We are looking for classroom teachers who would benefit from focused support in lesson planning and preparation, classroom environment, and/or delivery of instruction by participating in a joint LAUSD/UTLA program. Classroom teachers will have the opportunity to collaborate with a Consulting Teacher from the Peer Assistance and Review Program for a period of up to three months. During this time, teachers will gain strategies to hone instruction, promote a positive classroom environment, and impact student learning. If you are interested in participating and have any questions about the program, you may contact the PAR office at (213) 241-5501 or go to our website at www.achieve.lausd.net/PAR to review the Component 3 brochure. To apply for services, complete the Informal Self-Assessment along with the Request to Volunteer form. The brochure and forms are found on the website under “Publications”.

Send by email, school mail, or fax to:

Peer Assistance and Review 333 S. Beaudry, 14th Floor room 14-138

Los Angeles, CA 90017 FAX: (213) 241-5498

Email: [email protected]

We look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with you!

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” -Helen Keller


15

By Judith BrunerUTLA Compensation and Benefits Specialist

Most certificated personnel are members of the CalSTRS pension system. It is im-portant to know how your pension plan works. To this end, I’ve broken down the categories of particular interest.

Contributions: Due to the unfunded li-ability CalSTRS has experienced, member contributions increased as of July 1, 2014. Member contributions increased from 8% to 8.15% of your salary via payroll deduc-tion for both pre-2013 and post-2013 hires. This amount is credited to your Defined Benefit account. The deductions are taken out pre-tax, thus reducing tax liability. CalSTRS members receive a Retirement Progress Report during the fall of the cal-endar year listing member contributions and interest earned for the prior school year. Beginning in July 2014 the school district began to contribute 8.88% of com-pensation to the general retirement fund, not to individual member accounts, but to fund benefits for all members/benefi-ciaries. Also beginning July 1, the state of California began to contribute 3.46% to the general fund and will continue to pay 2.5% of creditable compensation to the Supplemental Benefit Maintenance Account, which is used to maintain pur-chasing power at certain levels. Details on the increases were published in the July 18, 2014, issue of the UNITED TEACHER.

Practical matters: Pension 101What to know about your CalSTRS benefits.

Service credit: CalSTRS members earn service credit at the rate of .005 per day of paid service. Service credit is a factor that aids in the determination of eligibility for benefits. Members must have a minimum of five years of service credit to qualify for service retirement benefits. The service credit earned is included in the Retirement Progress Report. Please, please, please, do not just throw the statement in your files without looking it over. It is essential that you make sure you have received a full year of service credit (the figure is noted as 1.000 service credit). It is pos-sible that you may receive only a fractional amount if you have used half-pay illness or been in unpaid status (other than for a furlough day) for any time during the school year. To earn a full year of service credit a member must have earned their entire base salary.

CalSTRS website: The website for CalSTRS is www.calstrs.com. You are en-couraged to log on to it and explore the site. Forms and publications are available for download as well.

Extra work: CalSTRS members receive service credit for teaching summer school and intersession and for certain stipends. A member cannot earn more than one year of service credit. Additional service credit above and beyond a full year is rolled into the member’s Defined Benefit Supplement account. A member may also purchase ad-ditional service credit for past employment or for approved leaves of absence for which

no CalSTRS contributions were made. For more information log on to their website and type “Purchase of Additional Service Credit” in the right-hand search box.

CalSTRS refund: Members who leave CalSTRS-covered employment with less than five years of service credit who do not plan to return to public school employment may wish to consider re-questing a refund of their account. For more information type “Refund of Con-tributions” into the search box on the CalSTRS website.

Education opportunities: CalSTRS holds financial education workshops, including how to develop your personal financial plans. Information is available on the CalSTRS website by typing “Counsel-ing/Workshops” in the search box. The UNITED TEACHER often lists the local workshops as well.

Additional savings opportunity: It is never too early to invest in a 403(b) savings program to augment your pension fund. LAUSD lists companies offering this service. Information is available on the LAUSD website (www.lausd.net). Click “Offices” in the top banner, scroll to “Bene-fits Administration” and click, scroll down to “2014 403(b) Flyer” in righthand box.

CalSTRS offers such savings through a site it maintains. Log on to www.403BCompare.com for information.

LAUSD also offers a 457(b) deferred compensation plan as an additional method to save for retirement. They

allow for investment of pre-tax earnings through automatic payroll deductions. Contact LAUSD Benefits Administration at (213) 241-4262 for more information.

Home loan program: CalSTRS has sus-pended its Home Loan Program due to unfavorable economic conditions. It had been hoped that the program would resume in 2013, but that was not the case. CalSTRS continues to monitor opportuni-ties to resume the program in the future.

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16

English learner program choices.

Bilingual education issues

The LAUSD Master Plan for English Learners attempts to expand the programs of choice for eligible students. With paren-tal consent, students may enroll in one of three types of programs.

The first is Transitional Bilingual Edu-cation (TBE), formerly known as Waiver to Basic. The stated goal of this program is proficiency in English literacy, and the program is open to English learners in grades K-3. By limiting TBE to K-3 in its Master Plan, LAUSD is not in alignment with state law, which allows for a program at any grade level to open if the parents of 20 students request such a program. There are currently 22 schools that offer TBE.

The second program offered is Dual

Language Education. This is a K-12 program offered to both English learn-ers and English speakers. The ratio of students in a classroom can be as high as 7 to 3 for either language. Students can only enter the program in grades K and 1 unless they have established grade-level proficiency in both languages. The goal of this program is literacy in two languages. The instruction is typically delivered in a 50-50 language model with two classrooms and two teachers, one of whom teaches in English and the other in the target language. In LAUSD the target languages are Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin. Research indicates that children actually learn to read sooner if

The following are deductions for union dues that you may be quali-fied to make on your 2014 federal income tax return. These figures are meant as a guideline and may not reflect the actual deductions that were taken. Always consult your tax adviser before taking any of these deductions.

$689.04 Full-time UTLA member and agency fee $347.04 Part-time substitute member and agency fee $590.04 Children’s center member and agency fee $484.20 Full-time fair share $243.84 Part-time substitute fair share $414.60 Children’s center fair share $1,495.08 Dual full-time UTLA member $171.00 Associate member

2014 union dues tax deduction information

the target language is taught for 90% of the day and English 10%, even for English speakers. But in L.A., 50-50 is the usual model. Dual-language instruction is cur-rently offered in 57 LASUD schools.

The current Master Plan offers a new choice called Maintenance Bilingual Ed-ucation (MBE). This is a dual-language program offered in communities where there is no significant English-speaking enrollment. One hundred percent of the students are English learners, but all in-struction is given in both English and a target language. The goal of this program is literacy in two languages. The program was created when the Office for Civil Rights determined that students could not be denied a language program of choice merely because a school had no significant English-speaking enrollment. Currently there are six MBE schools in LAUSD. Unfortunately, when this program was

created, schools communities did not have sufficient opportunity to choose this model. Only schools with the transitional model were offered the choice, and only small committees were permitted to make the choice. This, again, violated the law giving the choice of programs to parents. State law and District policy allow parents to move their child to a school that offers a program not available at the home school.

Next Bilingual Ed Committee meeting: Please join us for the next meeting of the Bilingual Education Committee on March 25 at 4:30 p.m. at the UTLA building in Room 828. We will continue strategizing to support the “Multilingual Education for All” bill (for November 2016 ballot). All language program supporters are warmly welcome.

—Cheryl OrtegaDirector of Bilingual Education

[email protected]

InvestmentWorkshop

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Meet Rick Rodgers, AIFA, Vice President, Director,

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Barbara Healy, AIF, CFP, CFS, ConsultantLearn about LAUSD sponsored 457 (b) plan, 403 (b), investment products and how to

evaluate them, mutual funds, annuities, active vs. passive investments, asset allocation, and much more.

Saturday, April 25, 2015United Teachers Los Angeles

Auditorium, second floor3303 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90010(Parking structure is off of Berendo St;

(Parking and access for the disabled is through the elevators under the UTLA building)

8 am to 3 pm(Check in begins at 7 am; light breakfast and lunch will be provided)

Pre-Registration is RequiredGo to www.utla.net/investworkshopregistration042515 to register

$5.00 per person (exact change preferred) will be collected at the door

For more information, please contact Evy VaughnUTLA Conference Secretary, 213-487-5560

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18

CTA State Council Election Notice for 2016-18 Term

CTA State Council and Minority At-Large election timeline

CTA State Council and Minority At-Large Year-Round Absentee Ballot Request

Are you interested in representing UTLA/NEA members at the state level? CTA (California Teachers Association) State Council, a policy-making body that meets quarterly, has openings for representatives to fill expired terms. If you wish to run for one of these positions, complete and return the self-nomination form by U.S. mail to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz at UTLA. The form must be received by 5:00 p.m. on March 13, 2015. The election will be held at the April 8, 2015, Area meetings. For those members who cannot vote at their Area meetings, voting will also be held at the UTLA building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 8, 2015.

Self-Nomination Form

Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Home phone

Non-LAUSD email address

School

School Phone

I certify that below is the signature of the candidate whose name appears above.

Signature Date (Required)

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5:00 p.m., March 13, 2015, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz). NO FAXES OR EMAILS.

Form must be received by UTLA by March 13, 2015.

Involvement opportunity

CTA State Council ElectionsBy Erika Jones UTLA/NEA Election Committee

UTLA/NEA members will elect CTA State Council representatives and one Mi-nority At-Large representative in annual elections scheduled this year for the April 8 Area meetings. These delegates will join the other UTLA representatives when the council begins for the 2015-16 school year.

The State Council acts as CTA’s policy-making body, meeting four times a year. Each representative is expected to serve on a standing com mittee, which debates busi-ness items involving academic freedom, retire ment, civil rights, political action, teachers’ rights, and statewide nego tiation issues. State Council represen tatives also vote for CTA’s statewide officers. In the 2015-16 school year, all State Council meet-ings will be held in Los Angeles. For duties of the Minority At-Large seat, please see the self-nomination form on the facing page.

All necessary expenses for represen-tatives are covered by CTA, including hotel, mileage, and food costs. Meetings begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, 7:15 a.m. Sunday, and usually end around 4 p.m. both days. Subcommittee meetings on Friday evenings and voluntary caucus meetings before and after the general weekend meeting times can enrich the representative’s knowledge of issues facing California educators. UTLA del egates are rewarded for their time and effort by getting a chance to make a state-wide difference in education.

If you find the idea of participating on a statewide level intriguing, fill out and mail in the self-nomination form on this page to run for CTA State Council. Forms are due by March 13 via U.S. mail (no faxes or emails). Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquar ters on the 10th floor (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA VP) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I am requesting an absentee ballot for the CTA State Council Election.

My vote will correspond to CTA’s election guidelines, which allow for voting by mail for CTA members on formal leave. This request must be received by 5:00 p.m., March 13, 2015, by U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010, Attn: Cecily Myart-Cruz UTLA/NEA VP. I understand that my request will be checked for accuracy by election committee members. Absentee ballots will be mailed March 23, 2015, and must be received via U.S. mail by 5:00 p.m., April 8, 2015.

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5:00 p.m., March 13, 2015, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA VP) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. NO FAXES OR EMAILS.


Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Home phone


School

School Phone

UTLA area (Circle one) N S E W C VE VW H

Absentee ballot requested for:

CTA State Council Minority At-Large

April 8 May 13

Check one: CTA/NEA Board member Formal LAUSD leave

I hereby declare that the above information is accurate.

Signature Date

January 30, February 27: Nomination forms, timeline, absentee ballot request forms in UNITED TEACHER. Note: For newly announced unexpired term, mate-rial will appear in February 27 issue only.

March 13: Self-nomination forms and absentee ballot requests due to UTLA building by 5 p.m. by U.S. mail (no faxes or emails). Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters (see the receptionist on the 10th floor) during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

March 16: Letters sent out acknowl-edging receipt of nomination forms.

March 23: Absentee ballots sent out.

April 8: Elections at all UTLA Area meetings and at UTLA headquarters from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

April 8: Absentee ballots due back to UTLA building by 5 p.m. by U.S. mail only (no faxes or emails).

April 10: Area and absentee ballots counted, 9 a.m. Letters sent to winners and results will be posted at www.utla.net by the end of the next business day.

April 20: Deadline to submit election challenge in writing to Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA Vice President, pro-vided a runoff election is not required. Please contact Vivian Vega for appropri-ate form at (213) 368-6259.

April 21: Absentee ballot for runoff sent.

May 13: Runoff election, if needed, at Area meetings and at UTLA headquar-ters from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

May 13: Deadline for absentee ballots to be received back by U.S. mail (no faxes or emails).

May 15: Election Committee meets at 9 a.m. to count all ballots. Letters sent to winners and results will be posted at www.utla.net by the end of the next business day. Those who are not elected delegates will become alternates.

May 25: Final date for challenges to be submitted in writing to Cecily Myart-Cruz, UTLA/NEA Vice Pres-ident, provided additional runoff election is not required. Please contact Vivian Vega for appropriate form at (213) 368-6259.


19

CTA State Council Election Notice for Unexpired Term

Are you interested in representing UTLA/NEA members at the state level? CTA (California Teachers Association) State Council, a policy-making body that meets quarterly, has an opening for a representative to fill an unexpired term (2016-17). If you wish to run for this position, complete and return the self-nomination form by U.S. mail to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz at UTLA. The form must be received by 5:00 p.m. on March 13, 2015. The election will be held at the April 8, 2015, Area meetings. For those members who cannot vote at their Area meetings, voting will also be held at the UTLA building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 8, 2015.

Self-Nomination Form

Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Home phone


School

School Phone


Signature Date (Required)

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5:00 p.m., March 13, 2015, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz). NO FAXES OR EMAILS.

Form must be received by UTLA by March 13, 2015.Self-Nomination Form

Name

Employee number

Address

City Zip

Cell Home Phone

School

Non-LAUSD email


Signature Date

CTA State Council delegates with terms expiring in 2015

Minority At-Large State Council Seat for 2016-17 term

Jeanne ContrerasJanet DavisNorlon DavisGinger Rose FoxJuanita GarciaErika JonesDavid Lyell

Cheryl OrtegaRobin PotashJuan RamirezSteve SealGregg SolkovitsMary Tello

UTLA has an opening for a three-year term for the CTA State Council Minority At-Large position. The Minority At-Large position can only be filled by an ethnic minority meeting qualifications set forth by the CTA EMAC Advisory Committee. Members must come from one of the following ethnic caucus groups: 1. African American; 2. American Indian/Alaska Native; 3. Hispanic; 4. Pacific Asian Ameri-can. The State Council Minority At-Large is responsible for active participation in the UTLA/CTA programs and activities, including attending scheduled Service Center meetings, presenting information pertaining to ethnic minorities, and as-sisting in the recruitment of ethnic minorities to participate in CTA. If you wish to run for this position, complete and return the self-nomination form to Cecily Myart-Cruz at UTLA. The form must be received by 5 p.m. on March 13, 2015. The election will be held at the April 8 Area meetings. For those members who cannot vote at their area meetings, voting will also be held at the UTLA building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 8.

Return this request to UTLA/NEA VP Cecily Myart-Cruz by 5 p.m., March 13, 2015, via U.S. mail to UTLA, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. Forms may also be dropped off at UTLA headquarters on the 10th floor during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (attention: Cecily Myart-Cruz). NO FAXES OR EMAILS.


Anthem Blue Cross cyberattack

FSA warning for prospective retirees

Many LAUSD employees already have heard that Anthem Blue Cross was the target of a massive cyberattack in which member data was compromised. Anthem provides medical coverage for more than 61,000 LAUSD employees and their families. The company has set up a special website at www.Anthem-Facts.com as well as a dedicated hotline at (877) 263-7995 for members to get more information. Information is also posted on the LAUSD Benefits Admin-istration website at benefits.lausd.net.

As the investigation progresses, Anthem members impacted by this breach will be notified in writing and enrolled in identity repair services and provided with information on how to enroll in free credit monitoring.

If you have a flexible spending account (FSA), be aware that FSAs cease to receive funding after you retire. Reimbursements after retirement are issued only for ser-vices rendered while you were active.

Also be aware that many email ad-dresses have been stolen, so members may be subjected to email scams de-signed to get personal information (known as “phishing”). The scamming emails purport to be from Anthem but they are not. Do not click on any links, or reply to the email or reach out to the senders in any way, do not supply any information on the website that may open if you have clicked on a link in the email, and do not open any attach-ments that arrive with the email. Also if you get a phone call regarding the cyberattack, be aware that Anthem is not calling members and is not asking for credit card info or Social Security numbers over the phone, so the phone call is also a scam.

Claims for services rendered after re-tirement will not be processed. Retirees have 90 days after the date of retirement to submit claims for reimbursement for services rendered while in active status.

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20

Lambert worked closely with Juliette back when UTLA had “collective begging not bargaining.” As the director of government relations, Lambert brought Juliette and other educators to Sacramento and Wash-ington, D.C., to help spread the teachers’ point of view and the needs of students. “Back then we had no voice in Sacramento or Washington, D.C.,” Lambert says. “ You should have seen and heard Juliette in the halls of the people who needed to be brought on board to give UTLA members the power they have today.”

Juliette leaves behind her loyal and beloved husband, Pelham P. Henry; nephew, Gerald Washington (Elizabeth); niece, Nancy Washington; great-niece, Lujuana Wash-ington; goddaughter, Karen Lee; sisters-in-law, Estella Henry Reynolds, Ph.D. and Ida D. Henry; brothers-in-law, Ralph Henry (Shirley) and Robert Henry; and other nieces, nephews, relatives, and friends.

A longtime union activist and retiree leader, Sterling Rachootin died at Kaiser Hospital on December 28, 2014.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sterling attended Belmont High School, Los Angeles City College, and Cal State Northridge. Ra-chootin taught for 32 years in LAUSD at Cold-water Canyon and Valerio Street Schools. During his teaching years he participated in the ESL program and worked to bring about afterschool enrichment programs.

In 1981, when he retired, UTLA pre-sented him with a lifetime membership, honoring his contribution to the fight for retiree benefits. In retirement Rachootin

ed Woodside Elementary School, Central Junior High, and Newark Senior High School in Newark, Ohio.

In 1947 he moved to Pasadena and earned an associate of arts degree from Pasadena City College. He was drafted into the Army and served in the Korean War. After completing his service he went on to earn a degree in sociology from UCLA.

On September 15, 1958, Harvey began his teaching career the same day that Osceola St. Elementary School in Sylmar opened its doors for the first time.

On June 22, 1999, Osceola honored Harvey for 40 years of dedicated service. In his honor the school auditorium was renamed “The Harvey L. Thomas” audi-torium. At the dedication, Harvey told the students, “You’ve made these 40 years the greatest of my life. There’s never been a morning I haven’t awakened and looked forward to coming to work. When I get out of bed, I’m raring to go because of the kind of students we have in this community.”

It was this kind of passion and enthusi-asm that inspired so many of his students to go on to be successful. Some students described him as tough because he always demanded the very best from them. But he did it with a light-heartedness and sense of humor that was contagious. Throughout the years, Harvey would become known to students as “Sir”—a term that evolved not only out of respect for him, but also endearment. Though he carried himself always with a sense of formal decorum, underneath he was a warm-hearted and personable teacher who deeply cared about each and every one of his students. And he never forgot

Harvey L. Thomas

MILESTONES (continued from page 9)

continued his advocacy for better retirement benefits when he became president of the Association of Retired Teachers (ART) and at the same time was an active supporter when UTLA-R was formed a number of years later. During his time with ART, which included both community college retired instructors and LAUSD retired teachers, Sterling led the successful early fight to provide health benefits in retirement.

He leaves behind his wife, Nadine; five children; and five grandchildren.

Harvey L. Thomas passed away peace-fully on January 13, 2015, in Woodland Hills. He was surrounded by his close friends on the day of his passing.

Harvey was born on November 8, 1927, in Newark, Ohio, to Bessie and Zelner Thomas. After his mother’s death at two years old, he was taken in and reared by his father’s sister, Mary A. Thomas, who later became Mary A. Green. He attend-

a student’s name, even after many years had passed. Many alumni would often come back to reconnect with him and to simply thank him for being a memorable and wonderful teacher.

Theresa Derchan, a teacher who has served at Osceola for 24 years, said, “Harvey Thomas was larger than life. His strong, powerful voice, both liter-ally and figuratively, resonated with me in so many ways. He was a man who spoke from the heart, and his wisdom imparted a sense of importance like very few people have the power to do. I will forever hold dear the privilege of being able to call him my mentor, my colleague, but even more importantly, my friend.”

At the age of 75, Harvey retired after 44 years of service to the Osceola Street community, but he continued to teach students at Osceola by volunteering twice a week in Theresa Derchan’s fourth-grade classroom for an additional 13 years.

A tribute video was made in 2002 to celebrate Harvey’s dedication to educa-tion. You can find that video at https://vimeo.com/117353423.

Harvey is survived by cousins through marriage. He will be dearly missed by so many.

To submit an item: Send details to Milestones, UNITED TEACHER, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010 or [email protected]. Ma-terial must arrive at least three weeks before publication date, and please in-clude a daytime phone number. Photos welcomed. We reserve the right to edit text for length and clarity.

Utla women’s education committee

Is Proud to present the

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

UTLA Women’s Educa t ion Commi t t ee Awards Luncheon Name Addres s Schoo l Phone (hm) ( s ch ) For more i n fo rmat ion ca l l Yvonne Fu rbush a t ( 213 ) 368 -6219 Cos t $40 .00 , Ma i l check payab l e to UTLA Educa t ion Commi t t ee , A t t en t ion Yvonne Furbush , UTLA, 3303 Wi l sh i r e B lvd . , 10 th F loor , Los Ange l e s , CA 90010 R e s e r v a t i o n

“Susan B. Anthony Woman of the Year”

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Tam O Shanter

2980 Los Feliz Blvd, Los angeles

1:00 p.m.

Honoring UTLA Women of the Year

Denise Rockwell-Woods

Jenny Chomori


21

FROM THE TREASURER (continued from page 10)

Name_________________________________________________________Emp.#_____________

Address _________________________________________________________________________

City __________________________________________________State________ Zip___________

Phone ( )_______________________________Retirement Date:______________ / ________

School/Retiring Site _______________________________________________________________

Email address (non-LAUSD)________________________________________________________

(month) (year)

Saturday, May 16, 2015The Center at Cathedral Plaza

Los Angeles

Program

Dancing

Retirees and one guest compliments of UTLAIf you are retiring between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, request a formal invitation online at

www.utla.net/2015retirementdinnerinvite or complete coupon below and mail before April 3, 2015 to UTLA, Attn: Rosa Beasley, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010. For more information, contact Rosa Beasley at [email protected] or (213) 637-5146

Cocktails

Dinner

FORMAL INVITATION REQUEST FORMLimited Seating. Reservations Required

counter the relentless attacks. He argues that unions must revitalize themselves through social justice unionism, which includes organizing around bread-and-butter issues, reclaiming our profession, and participating in the broader social justice movements.

Our collective struggleUTLA has embraced social justice

unionism through our Schools L.A. Students Deserve campaign, which is rooted in alliances with teachers’ unions in Milwaukee, Chicago, Portland, and St. Paul as we all transform our unions for these times and fight against the

corporate business model imposed on our schools. It is difficult work that re-quires more from our membership as we organize at every school and build strong relationships with our parents, students, and communities. We are build-ing a movement for the schools our stu-dents deserve, which includes the fair compensation and better working condi-tions that our members deserve. We are investing in a strong, efficient, and united UTLA not only for today but also for the future. For all the reasons above, this is why membership matters, and how the collective power of our membership is actualized. When UTLA is strong, our members are strong too.

Contact Arlene Inouye at [email protected] for questions or comments.

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By Cecelia BoskinUTLA-R Vice President

President’s report: President John Perez reminded everyone of the importance of voting on March 3, 2015. He spoke of how important the upcoming School Board elec-tion is to retirees. He also asked that retirees attend the February 12 picketing at local schools and the mass rally in the afternoon on February 26 to support our actives col-leagues in the fight for a good contract and the Schools L.A. Students Deserve.

Treasurer’s report: UTLA-R Treasurer Mike Dreebin informed the members of the amount in the treasury. He mentioned that if there are any excess funds, they will be used to send additional members to conferences.

Health benefits report: Loretta Toggen-burger distributed a fact sheet from the LAUSD Health Benefits Committee on what is happening with health benefits negotiations for 2016-2018. Our benefits will remain the same in 2015.

PACE report: UTLA-R Vice President Cecelia Boskin spoke on the importance of contributing to PACE. She thanked those members who contribute at each meeting as well as those who make one large contribution. All members are urged to make a contribution by mailing your check made out to PACE to Cecelia Boskin, 3547 Federal Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90066. A total of $1,470 was collected at the meeting—an all-time high.

Legislative report: Mary Rose Ortega,

Retires’ cornerReport of the January 23 General Assembly Meeting.

our legislative reporter, told us that CalSTRS has been meeting and that we have two representatives at those meet-ings. She also said that the legislature has just gone back into session and there is no news at this time.

New business: Eva Giese informed us of a luncheon to be held at Phillipe Restau-rant on Tuesday, March 10, at 1 p.m. The cost is $18 and you can sign up by making your check out to Eva Giese and mailing it to Eva Giese, 8202 Raintree Circle, Culver City, CA 90230, no later than March 6, 2015.

The following people were chosen to attend the NEA-Retired Conference in Orlando, Florida, June 26 to 28: Doris Cuarez, Annie Lanoix-Labat, Kent Kel-legrew, and Jimmy Jones. Bonnie Tomp-kins was chosen as an alternate should one of the four not be able to attend.

Guest speaker: Our guest speaker was CalSTRS Chief Operating Officer Cassandra Lichnock. She used a PowerPoint presenta-tion to explain how CalSTRS has changed its funding to keep our pensions support-ed. She also mentioned that the average CalSTRS member retired at age 62 with 54% of their salary. Lichnock told us that teachers live longer than other retirees and California teachers live even longer, with more than 400 retirees over 100 years of age.

Adjournment: Following the drawing for flowers, the meeting was adjourned at 12:25 with a moment of silence to honor longtime UTLA, UTLA-R, CTA, and NEA member Juliette Henry, who passed.

Note from UTLA-R PresidentBy John PerezUTLA-Retired President

Health benefits: The current MOU on health benefits worked well for the Dis-trict and for us. To encourage the Health Benefits Committee and the District to monitor spending as carefully as pos-sible, while maintaining the high level of benefits that we have, the current agree-ment called for a fourth year (2015) if the reserve was $200 million by June of the third year. On June 30, 2014, the current agreement was extended for the calendar year 2015 because the reserve equaled the agreed-upon amount. (There is a six-month overlap between the health ben-efits year, January to December, and the contract and school year, July to June.) Negotiations are due to begin for a new health care MOU. The negotiating posi-tion of the HBC unions is, we believe, fair to the District, will protect the reserve, and will continue the policy of the members not having to pay monthly premiums for our health care as so many of our colleagues in other school districts do.

We must remember that our excellent health plan covers more than 150,000 in-dividuals—actives, retirees, and depen-dents—and is not inexpensive. The cost to the District is the better part of $1 billion. We as retirees must also remember that the dollars that pay for our health care come from the same pot of money that pays for the salaries of our active colleagues. Our active colleagues and UTLA have to make tradeoffs between new employees, salaries, and benefits. These tradeoffs are part of a zero sum game with available District dollars. A little more in this means a little less in that.

The District is also in the process of developing an irrevocable trust to help prepay for retiree benefits for active Dis-trict employees as they become eligible for lifetime benefits. The District has ne-gotiated with CalPERS to manage the fund, which is a mixed portfolio similar

to the CalPERS and CalSTRS portfolios. Prior to the agreement with CalPERS the money in the trust was in the Los Angeles County Treasury and was only returning about 1% per year, far less than the rate of inflation. The CalSTRS and CalPERS portfolios have produced good returns over the past 20 years, with the average CalSTRS return for that period being 7.5% per year. Hopefully the new District trust for retiree health benefits will return as much as the portfolios of CalPERS and CalSTRS have. If the trust can get big enough, it will help the Dis-trict prepay for retiree health benefits so that lifetime retiree benefits will remain in our contract. The high cost of health benefits is one reason why UTLA has for years been for a national health program and has supported a single-payer plan. If the cost of health benefits is lifted from the District, and all school districts, there will be more money to educate our kids and all the kids in California.

PACE contributions: At the January 23 UTLA-R General Assembly our members contributed $1,470 to PACE and checks that were sent to V.P. Cecelia Boskin pushed that total, at the time of this print-ing, to $1,989. Over the past few years PACE contributions from UTLA-R have been running at $4,000 or more per year. If you can make a contribution, send a check to Cecelia Boskin, 3547 Federal Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90066.

Who goes to preschool? A recent Edu-cation Week study shows that only 40% of children in families making $49,000 or less are enrolled in preschool. The number for families making $100,000 or more is 64%. We know that preschools help and a quality preschool is as important for a kid as quality K-12 schools are.

Support the campaign for the Schools L.A. Students Deserve: Watch the UTLA website for activities that support UTLA’s campaign and join in when possible.

Perez can be reached at [email protected].

The UTLA House of Representatives approved the creation of a permanent UTLA Standing Committee on Military and Veterans’ Affairs in 2013.

The committee exists to inform UTLA members about programs such as the De-partment of Defense Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Ombudsman Service, rights they possess under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act and similar federal and state statutes, and available private resources, such as the Service Members’ Law Center operated by the Reserve Of-ficers and Reserve Enlisted Association.

The committee hopes to track individual cases, assist in grievances, assist in locating legal counsel, pursue UTLA resolutions and other actions, promote legislation and public awareness of Reserve/National Guard and veterans’ issues, and assist in media relations with respect to LAUSD violations of laws protecting service members and veterans.

Any interested teachers and health and human services professionals are asked to please contact fellow UTLA member Captain Ralph J. Ortolano, Jr., USN, at [email protected] for more information.

Join the UTLA Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee

Moving? Changing addresses?Keep UTLA updated by sending your new information

to the Membership Department by email to [email protected] or by fax to (213) 368-6231.

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ASIAN PACIFIC COMMITTEE CONFERENCE BUS TRIP TO MANZANAR

Saturday, April 25, 2015 6 AM – 9:00 PM(Details below)

WORKSHOP SESSIONS (2):Saturday, March 14, 2015 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM(Includes light breakfast, dinner & instructional

materials) – Tentative Date&

Monday, April 20, 2015 4 PM – 9:30 PM(Includes light dinner & instructional materials)

UTLA Headquarters3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

2 blocks west of Vermont Ave. at Berendo.Parking structure is off Berendo

46th Anniversary Pilgrimage

BUS TRIP TO MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE(Includes lunch/dinner, snacks, bus transportation, conference materials & point credit information)

Saturday, April 25, 2015 6:00 AM – 9:00 PMBus pick up: UTLA Parking Lot SE corner of Laurel Plaza 3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles OR @ Laurel Canyon and Oxnard

Cost: $120.00 - Deadline: March 11, 2015Enrollment Limited to the first 45 participants ~ all others will be put on a waiting list

No refunds after March 11, 2015

LAUSD Approved, two salary points available. Article 3.3 Multicultural Specific Conference.To qualify for 2 salary points, you must attend all 3 sessions.

Please enroll me in the UTLA Asian Pacific Committee’s Manzanar Conference. Enclosed is my check to register me in your conference. Sign up on the Learning Zone, keyword: manzanar

Name___________________________________________________________________Employee#_______________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Home Phone ____________________________________________________School Phone______________________________________________

E-Mail__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SALARY POINTS NEEDED ⎕YES ⎕NO

Please make check payable to UTLA Asian Pacific Committee. Send check and this form to Jenny Lam, c/o UTLA, 3303Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010 via U.S. Mail with proper postage affixed. For information, contactJenny Lam at [email protected].

Please Post

Do You......believe in equality for all people?...find inspiration in members of the

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If so, see your College Counselor or go to www.utla.net/scholarships for scholarship application and guidelinesAll entries must be mailed or delivered no later than 5:00 p.m. Monday, May 5, 2015 to

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Read Across America is a national day celebrating reading—this year on Monday, March 2—sponsored by the National Educa-tion Association and the California Teachers Association, along with many of the coun-try’s leading literacy and youth groups.

L.A. schools have a proud tradition of joining in on the fun and holding special reading-themed events for students. If

your school held a RAA celebration this year, be sure to send the photos to UTLA for possible use on Facebook and in the UNITED TEACHER.

Send your Read Across America shots to [email protected]. Please include your school name, contact person, and event details.

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Monday, April 20, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pmTuesday, April 21, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pmThursday, April 23, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Saturday, April 25, 2015, 7:30 am – 12:00 noonMonday, May 11, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pmTuesday, May 12, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pm Thursday, May 14, 2015, 3:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Saturday, May 16, 2015, 7:30 am – 12:00 noon

United Teachers Los Angeles3303 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010

(Validated parking in rear of building, off Berendo Street)

Please sign up by going to www.thesupportnetwork.net and filling out the online survey. You will receive a confirmation by email from Michael de la Torre, NBCT, program coordinator. Please remove filters or add to your address book to accept emails. Signing up by phone will not be accepted. Walk-ins and late comers will not be admitted. RSVP will only be accepted up to 48 hours prior to an orientation. 75 participants is the maximum for each orientation.

Please encourage your colleagues to attend a meeting.

TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE SUPPORT NETWORK, CANDIDATES MUST ATTEND AN ENTIRE ORIENTATION MEETING.

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representative from LAUSD School Board Member Monica Garcia’s office. They shared concerns that we had about im-mediate implementation of BIC and shared the fact that parents and teachers were planning a press conference to publicize it.

What we won!We received notice later on January 16

that there was no need to hold a news conference with UTLA. UCLA-CS as well as the other five pilot schools on the RFK campus could postpone BIC implementa-tion until May 2015.

Lessons we learned (that might help you too!)

• BIC comes from a federal initiative to provide breakfast to students (federal law requires that students in need be fed but

does not mandate a specific program, such as Breakfast in the Classroom). Monica Garcia and Nury Martinez wrote a Board resolution for BIC; John Deasy initiated a three-year implementation plan to bring BIC to all schools. The LAUSD School Board approved it.

• To create the best decisions for our school communities, UTLA members and parents need to work together.

• UTLA chapter chairs need to hold weekly/biweekly UTLA chapter meetings so members can regularly communicate face to face.

• UTLA members can help parents meet regularly to discuss issues at our sites.

• LAUSD wants to mandate a one-size-fits-all program. Schools need to continue sharing experiences. LAUSD says BIC is working well, but we know that at most sites it is not.

• Secondary teachers’ voices are as im-portant in expressing concerns about BIC as elementary teachers voices are.

• UTLA is advocating for more local shared decision-making rights as a con-tractual demand and UTLA will support school sites that are organizing in that effort.

• Shared decision-making at local school sites takes a concerted effort to listen to all stakeholders.

• Shared decision-making is the key to making the best decisions that meet the needs of the school and the community.

• LAUSD does not want negative pub-licity around its BIC implementation, history, or plan.

• If we create a vision, share our own narratives, and determine what we need, we can change BIC as well as other top-down mandates and serve students better!

SPEAKING OUT (continued from page 7)


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Ruben Salazar Memorial Scholarship Contest 2015

United Teachers Los Angeles East & North Areas

Ruben Salazar was a journalist for the Los Angeles Times. He was killed in 1970 while covering the National Chicano Moratorium Against the War in Vietnam and the ensuing riot through the streets of East Los Angeles. In 1971, UTLA’s East Area initiated a scholarship fund in his memory. It is now sponsored by UTLA’s East and North Areas. This is the 44th year that UTLA awards scholarships to Graduating Seniors enrolled at any LAUSD High School, Continuation School, or High School Completion Program at a LAUSD Community Adult School.

Scholarship Applications & Information may be : - downloaded at www.utla.net/scholarships - requested by email at: [email protected] - requested via phone 800/ 556-8852 ext. 206

Applicant Form & Essay or a Poem must be : - received by 5:00 PM — Friday, April 10, 2015. -received via mail or can be dropped off to:

United Teachers Los Angeles c/o: Ruben Salazar Scholarship Committee Eric Barrientos

3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010-1794

Winners will be notified by April 24, 2015

Scholarships will be presented at the 44th Annual Awards Dinner held on Thursday, May 7, 2015

Announce their


26

UTLA ClassifiedsCLASSIFIED AND DISPLAY AD POLICY: UNITED TEACHER will not accept ads for legal services in the areas of worker’s compensation or personal injury; nor

advertising for tobacco or alcoholic beverages; nor advertising deemed misleading or offensive to members; nor advertising inconsistent with the programs and

purposes of United Teachers Los Angeles.

How To Place Your UT Classified Ad Print your ad from your computer or use a typewriter. Count the number of words in your ad. Area code and telephone number count as one word. Email and web address count as one word. Street address counts as one word. City and state, including zip code, count as one word. Abbreviations and numbers are considered words and are charged indi-vidually. The classified ad rate is $1.50 per word for each time your ad runs (there is no charge for LAUSD job share/employment available ads). Multiply the number of words in your ad by $1.50. This is the cost for running your ad one time in UNITED TEACHER. If you’re running your ad in more than one issue, multiply the one-time total by the number of issues you wish the ad to appear. We have a ten word minimum ($15.00). All ads are payable in advance by check or money order. Please make check payable to UTLA. The deadline to receive your classified ad at the UTLA Commu-nications Dept. is noon on the Monday that falls two weeks prior to the publication date. Any questions? Call (213) 637-5173. Mail ad and payment to Classifieds, UNITED TEACH-ER, 3303 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

Looking to job share at your school for the 2015-16

school year. I have experience in primary and upper

grades and have taught gifted, ELD, and students

with special needs. I prefer to teach the afternoons

in the West or North Valley areas. If you are look-

ing for a dedicated and enthusiastic teacher, please

contact Angineh Andreas at (818) 515-9477 or

[email protected]. Thank you.

Job share partner wanted as soon as possible at

your school or mine. My school is on Westside.

Third grade. I have 20 years’ experience teach-

ing and I’m very flexible, responsible, and open to

learning new things. Please call or text for more in-

formation. Thanks. Adrienne (310) 494-8422.

Enthusiastic and experienced elementary school

job share partner wanted for the 2015-2016 school

year. Location must be at their school. Preferred lo-

cations include West L.A./Mid-City. Please contact

me at [email protected].

Job Share with an enthusiastic, experienced teacher

starting 2015-2016 in District 1 in the West Valley. This

elementary school position is at a National Blue Ribbon

and California Distinguished school in Chatsworth that

has a 10 out of 10 rating on greatschools.org. There is

synergy among the teachers at my school. I am also

open to teaching at your school in the West Valley area

as well. Please contact me, Kerri at (818) 497-1282 or

[email protected].

Job share partner wanted for 2015-2016 for a RSP K-4

program at a traditional school in Local District 4. My

partner teacher went back to full time. Position is for

the afternoons, split days. Great program, assistant,

and school! Must have a special education credential.

Thanks! Contact M. Abraham at [email protected].

Job share partner needed for the 2014-2015 school

year to share my RSP position. I am at a wonder-

ful school in Highland Park (East Area). I would like

to split days. Must have experience with Special

Education, have a clear Special Education Creden-

tial and knowledge of Welligent to complete IEP’s.

Forms must be submitted by April of 2015. Please

contact Leandra at (323) 304-8045.

Job share partner needed. I teach Social Studies

at a Southside high school. Looking for a partner

to teach in the spring of 2015 and possibly longer.

Please contact Sarah at [email protected].

The mathematics department at Downtown Magnets

High school is seeking a job-share candidate for the

2015-16 school year. We are a high-functioning, estab-

lished, collaborative department and we are looking for

a candidate who loves to be in the classroom and is

primarily focused on student learning! If you’re interest-

ed, please email your resume to: [email protected].

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Refreshments will be served. Saturday, March 7,

2015 12:30-2:30 P.M. Century21 My Real Estate

Company 7825 E. Florence Avenue, Downey. Call

(213) 909-1349 with questions or to RSVP.

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JOB OPPORTUNITY

TEACHERS—Primerica is expanding locally looking

for teachers who want part-time and summertime

work. Put your skills to work. No experience need-

ed, set your own hrs. Only need to be ambitious.

Call and ask for Mr. Pratt at (310) 641-1566.

TRAVEL

BLACK PARIS - TEACHERS & OTHERS - See How

Josephine Baker, Miles Davis, Paul Robeson, etc.

enriched French Culture - July 6-15, 2015...Join

us! E-Z Payment Plan. Visit www.equator3Tours.

com, (212) 348-5449.

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GUST 7, 2015. An African Heritage Cultural Jour-

ney...Join us! E-Z Payment Plan. Visit www.equa-

tor3Tours.com, (212) 348-5449.

LAUSD EMPLOYMENT

Job share/employment

available ads in LAUSD

employment section are FREE.

LAUSD POSITIONS AVAILABLE

Patrick Henry Middle School and Patrick Henry

Math, Science, Technology Magnet are expanding

in the 2015-2016 academic year. We are accepting

applications for the following positions:

Magnet Coordinator/Targeted Student Population

(TSP) Program Adviser: The position will include re-

sponsibilities associated with being the magnet co-

ordinator of our math, science, technology magnet

and TSP Program Advisor.

Multiple Subject 6th-Grade Teacher: Candidate

needs to have a strong science background and

enjoy incorporating regular hands-on labs and proj-

ects to enhance our magnet and develop scientifi-

cally literate students.

Single Subject in History and English Teacher: Can-

didate needs one of the following credentials:

a. Single subject credential in history and single

subject credential in English; b. Single subject

credential in history and a supplemental to teach

English; c. Single subject credential in English and a

supplemental to teach history. Candidate needs an

engaging history and English program that will en-

hance our math, science, technology magnet and

develop 21st-century learners.

Application process: Interested candidates, please

send a letter of interest, a current resume, and two

letters of recommendation to Patrick Henry Middle

School, Dr. Sandra Cruz, Principal, 17340 San Jose

Street, Granada Hills, CA 91344; phone (818) 832-

3870; fax (818) 368-7333; Email: [email protected].

DEADLINE: Friday, March 27, 2015, at 3:00 p.m.

Visit the school website to view flyers detailing job

description and desirable skills for each position:

https://www.edline.net/pages/Patrick_Henry_Mid-

dle_School/openings. Video of our magnet pro-

gram can be found on YouTube: https://www.you-

tube.com/watch?v=iZNZoaAYi2g.

South Shores Elementary Magnet School for the

Visual and Performing Arts (located in San Pedro,

ESC S) is seeking highly qualified applicants for

teaching positions for the 2015/2016 school year.

Candidates must be knowledgeable in teaching

Common Core curriculum, as well as demonstrate

initiative in applying the new standards in creative

and engaging ways in the classroom to reach all

learning abilities and modalities. Extensive experi-

ence working with children in the visual and per-

forming arts, with a strong emphasis in dramatic

performance, directing, or vocal music instruction,

is required. Experience in integrating technology

into the classroom is favored. Please email a cover

letter with your resume to Please email a cover let-

ter with your Please email a cover letter with your

resume to [email protected].

LAUSD JOB SHARE

Reduced workload special ed position at Carlson

Hospital School: wonderful position at UCLA—it’s

heaven! Work on the campus in lovely setting with

outpatient middle and high schoolers. Have all the

perks of being at UCLA and working alongside their

faculty. It’s truly a “dream job” with much staff sup-

port, rarely any discipline problems, high-functioning,

polite, academic kids. Never do an IEP—really! Only

for one year with me as next year will be my final year

to do the reduced workload (my partner retired). But

this could get your foot in the door for Carlson (best

special ed school around!). Looking to do semester

on, off for 2015-16 year. Email or call Patrick Mc-

Guire, [email protected], or (310) 581-1973.

Job share partner wanted for 2015-16 school year.

Elementary school in Eagle Rock. Position is for the

mornings. Please call/text Heidi at (818) 400-7260.

Looking to job share for 2015-16 school year in an

RSP program in District 1. I have experience in co-

teaching, a special education credential, masters

in SPED and fluent with Welligent. Please email

[email protected].

At UnitedHealthcare, we’re dedicated to the communities we serve and believe nothing should stand in the way of quality, affordable health care.

We provide a broad portfolio of health care plans as well as dental, vision, life and disability offerings to help you get the right coverage at the right price.

For more information, call Anthony Campbell at 415-778-3845.

©2014 United HealthCare Services, Inc. Health plan coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company and UnitedHealthcare of California. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc., OptumRx or OptumHealth Care Solutions, Inc. Behavioral health products are provided by U.S. Behavioral Health Plan, California (USBHPC) or United Behavioral Health (UBH).

UHCCA691267-000

Stepping upfor the health of the community


27

U N I T E D T E A C H E R

GRAPEVINEEvenings for Educators at LACMA

For more than 30 years LACMA’s Eve-nings for Educators series has provided K-12 teachers with opportunities to talk about, discover, and create works of art. On April 14, learn about the exhibition “Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School.” The artists from the Hudson River School, together with 19th-century writers, helped forge a uniquely American voice that has come to define national identity. Explore the relationship between art and civics through realistic and romantic depictions of the Americas from the exhibition. Tickets are $15 per person for the evening, which runs from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. For more information, please visit www.lacma.org/programs/education/evenings-educators or call (323) 857-6093.

Chocolate in the Americas: Salary point workshop at UCLA

Explore the history, science, and heri-tage of chocolate (cacao) in this two-day workshop (March 21 and 28, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.). Using different fields of science, social science, and the humanities, the course will examine the history of choco-late and its impact in the Americas, from its

origins in the rainforest and use among the Maya and Aztec, to contemporary issues related to its cultivation and consumption. The course includes a chocolate-making workshop with the owner of L.A.’s only bean-to-bar chocolate shop. Approved for one LAUSD salary point (multicul-tural). Registration $60 (includes parking, breakfast/lunch, course materials, and chocolate). Visit www.international.ucla.edu/lai/outreach for more details and to apply. Contact: Cynthia Gomez at [email protected] or (310) 825-4572.

Salary point workshop on using visual texts to teach writing

In the salary point class “Using Visual Texts to Teach Writing,” participants will learn how to use documentary, film, and TV in their classrooms to teach analytical, persuasive, and creative writing to their students. They will obtain instructional strategies and ideas to design lessons for their grade level that meet Common Core standards. The classes will be held on consecutive Saturdays, March 14 and March 21, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Ham-ilton High School. There is a $25 material fee. The class is worth one salary point. Please contact Curtis Hartman: [email protected].

Summer seminar on Korean history and culture

Explore Korean history, culture, contem-porary issues, and Korean Americans at the USC-KAFE Summer Seminar for K-12 Teachers, July 12 to 17. This collaborative program of the Korea Academy for Educa-tors (KAFE) and USC Korean Studies Insti-tute is sponsored by the Korea Foundation and held on the USC campus. Successful applicants will demonstrate interest in learning about Korean history and culture and the ability to create lessons based on what they learn. One or two LAUSD salary points available. For more information, visit www.koreaacademy.org or email [email protected].

Workshop on using poetry to sharpen writing skills

Suzanne Lummis, Los Angeles poet, cofounder of L.A. Poetry Festival, and UCLA Extension Writers’ Workshop instructor, will be holding a workshop “Poetry: The Word, Written, Read and Imagined,” for grades 6 through 12 teachers. The program has been ap-proved by LAUSD for three professional development hours. Learn to develop techniques to expand communication skills that are based in more sophisti-

cated, more creative, and more expres-sive use of language. Lummis will lead discussions to encourage developing a group of strategies for each participant’s particular classroom assignment and field of study. Learn how to help stu-dents “get something on the page” to talk about—a starting point. The work-shop will be held on Saturday, April 4, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Arroyo Seco Regional Library Community Room, 6145 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, 90042. Fee is $45 per registrant. Registration due by March 30. Online registration www.lummisday.org/events or down-load application to register by USPS. For information: Carmela Gomes, [email protected] or (818) 429-8755.

Low-cost tech salary point workshops

QuikiTech.com is offering eight classes, with each class being only $50 per salary point. Classes include Microsoft Office, Excel, Word, Gmail and Google Tools, Teaching Students 21st Century Technol-ogy Skills, Technology for Math, the iPad Enabled Classroom, and Keynote. Go now to http://quikitech.com. For any ques-tions, contact Donny Wise, instructor at QuikiTech, at (424) 256-9789.

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