Teachers in Los Angeles Unified have ratified a tentative agreement with the school district, paving the way for the nation’s second largest K-12 system to fully reopen campuses for the upcoming academic year.
Ninety-four percent of the teachers, counselors, librarians, school nurses and other certificated employees who voted supported the deal, the union announced late Thursday, June 17, at the conclusion of a three-day voting period. According to United Teachers Los Angeles, 12,193 of its more than 30,000 members cast ballots.
The tentative agreement, which the school board is expected to vote on next Tuesday, lays out health and safety protocols at school sites to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmissions for staff and students. Assuming the board ratifies it, the agreement would take effect Wednesday, as summer school programs get underway.
“With the approval of this agreement, schools across Los Angeles will have critical COVID safety protocols in place when we welcome students back to the joys of full-time in-person learning,” UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement. “The pandemic has challenged students, families, and educators in ways unimaginable, but it has also triggered innovation and taught us lasting lessons about the power of public education to heal. Educators are committed to meeting our students where they are and creating the healthy, healing, equitable schools that our students and their families deserve.”
Although Superintendent Austin Beutner had said for weeks he expects schools to fully reopen this fall, many families who spent the past year championing full-day, in-person instruction five days a week were fearful the teachers union would not agree to such a deal.
While it now appears LAUSD schools will likely offer a more traditional school day come fall, the district will, according to the terms of the tentative agreement, continue to adhere to certain health and safety measures that not all parents are pleased about.
Many of the conditions in the tentative agreement are similar to those the district and union negotiated to reopen schools this spring, such as:
- Requiring daily screenings for COVID-19 symptoms;
- Proper ventilation;
- Regular cleaning and disinfecting of facilities; and
- Making sure sites are stocked with soap, hand sanitizer and paper towels.
One of the more controversial items in the proposed agreement, however, would require staff, students and visitors to continue wearing masks on campus, though “alternative protective strategies” may be used to accommodate students with special needs who struggle to keep masks on. Either the district or union could request to renegotiate this requirement after Sept. 1.
In announcing last week that a tentative deal had been struck, UTLA indicated that the district would continue testing all students and staff on campuses weekly during the summer for the coronavirus and that the parties will discuss fall testing plans “based on evolving pandemic conditions.”
One notable change expected in the fall will be that student desks will be spaced 3 feet apart, rather than 6 feet.
The district had agreed to keep desks 6 feet apart when schools reopened in the spring, but that limited the number of desks that could fit in a classroom. As a result, students had to take turns showing up to campus and remained learning online at least part-time.
The agreement that UTLA members ratified on Thursday calls for physical distancing “in accordance with the most current … guidelines” from the county health department, which currently says that it’s OK for desks to be 3 feet apart. Should those guidelines change, either party may reopen bargaining on the issue.
Other terms of the tentative agreement will:
- Allow UTLA members with certain health concerns to request a remote work assignment, including possibly teaching online to students enrolled in an independent study program;
- Allow members to remain at their current school sites for the upcoming year without fear of being displaced; and
- Ensure all effort will be made to keep elementary teachers from having to teach “combination classes,” with students from two grade levels in the same class.