On Tuesday, March 10, 2009, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted to send layoff notices to some 9,000 LAUSD teachers. Hundreds of teachers and students showed up at the meeting to protest the lay-offs. One of them was Alex Caputo-Pearl, lead teacher at the Social Justice and Law Academy at Crenshaw High School. Below is his account of what happened.
Amidst crisis, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has come upon a moment in which it can most crystallize what it means to be a social justice union. The union has the opportunity to wage a direct, impactful, and widely public fight around class size, school reform, high-needs schools, and the status of newer teachers – a direct fight that has the potential to build alliances with thousands of parents, students, union members, and community organizations.
A major step was taken down the road towards social justice unionism on Tuesday, March 10, when UTLA officers and rank-and-file organized a civil disobedience action to stop the LAUSD School Board from voting to lay off 10,000 employees, over half classroom teachers, with a significant portion being permanent employees, and over half being probationary contract employees. Dramatic ripple effects of such lay-offs include a racially- and class-discriminatory impact on high-needs schools, which are harder to staff, depend more on probationary contract teachers, and would be disrupted more by lay-offs of probationary contract employees.
Lay-offs would balloon class sizes and issue a direct attack on innovative school reforms, which often occur with the deep involvement of newer, probationary contract teachers. The Southern California economy would have to withstand more unemployment in a time of economic crisis.
On March 10, Los Angeles and the country (CNN and other stations carried the story) got a glimpse of what a fight around these issues could look like.
Two hundred teachers and parents of all ages disrupted the School Board meeting in the middle of the work day and refused to leave, calling for the Board not to vote for lay-offs. The Board eventually left, and the police cleared the room except for those 60 willing to be arrested. Dozens of media cameras, microphones, and reporters encircled the protesters.
Parents and teachers gave speeches about their stories — to each other and to the media. Probationary teachers, majority teachers of color, stood up and spoke about their commitment to the students, their direct involvement in reform in high-needs schools, and their overall anger about being threatened. Parents and grandparents from ACORN spoke on their commitment to work with teachers and to defend public education, and their perspective as working class parents whose families depend upon public services.
The protesters received word that the Board had, in private chambers that would raise legal questions, voted 5-2 in favor of the lay-offs, class size increases, and destruction of reform. In part because of the presence of the media, the police refused to arrest the protesters. Though the defeat of the Board vote weighed heavily on people’s shoulders, the protesters could already get a sense of the tactical victory that would come with the expansive media coverage, generally sympathetic to the teachers and parents. And, the arrests of these leaders could be saved for another day soon.
The day culminated when the protesters marched out, greeted by hundreds of supporters and even more media. The picture perfect arrival of 70-80 students from the Coalition for Educational Justice chapters at LA High, Crenshaw, Dorsey, and Washington high schools (all high-needs schools) was a highlight — with the students coming in strong with their own independent chants and artistic banners, a clear understanding of the issues, and unbounded energy.
Now, UTLA and its allies have a chance to build on this. Small guerilla actions are happening where District offices are being "pink slipped," parent/community forums are happening, and there is talk of a one-day, illegal strike. In this crisis, the fight to protect the most vulnerable is necessary — and, it is also a golden opportunity to teach ourselves, our students and their families, and the public about what a transformation to a social justice union could really look like.
