The teachers of Los Angeles will hold a rally tomorrow to support their demand for a fair contract.
MEDIA ADVISORY **
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 23, 2018
Media Contact: (213) 305-9654
Anna Bakalis, UTLA Communications Director
Tomorrow: More than 10,000 people expected in massive demonstration to demand a fair contract for educators, sustainable school district for all
WHO: United Teachers Los Angeles represents educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, early childhood and adult teachers.These educators, supported by parents, students and community leaders, are gathering by the thousands on Thursday in Grand Park after what is expected to be another uneventful bargaining session with LAUSD. After one year of bargaining, and with a $1.7 billion projected reserve, LAUSD refuses to make progress on key issues, including:
• A fair pay raise
• Smaller class sizes
• More nurses, counselors, psychologists, and librarians
• Less testing and more teaching
• Charter and co-location regulation
• Real support for school safety
• Community schools and support for families
WHEN: Thursday, May 24
TIME: 3:30 – 6 PM
WHERE: In front of LA City Hall Grand Park, 227 Spring St., Los Angeles, 90012
· Media truck parking available along Spring Street, as well as press check in.
WHAT: UTLA’s “All In for Respect” rally and major demonstration is the culmination of one year of escalating actions around UTLA’s contract demands. The union is hoping for an agreement by the end of this school year. If none is reached, strike authorization votes are expected to take place in the Fall.
Click here read more about UTLA’s bargaining proposals.
Speakers lineup includes:
· Rebecca Garelli, a middle school science teacher who led the walk-ins and successful strike in Arizona
· Alex Caputo-Pearl, UTLA president
· Cynthia Matthews and Adrian Tamayo, UTLA Bargaining Team members
· Marshe Doss, an 11th grader at Dorsey High School, leader in the Students Deserve coalition, activist in Black Lives Matter and Reclaim Our Schools LA.
· Eulalia Garcia and Eloisa Galindo, Parent organizers who recently fought off a co-location by a charter school.
World-renowned and Grammy award-winning Martha Gonzalez of Quetzal, Marisa Ronstadt, and Xochi Flores-Castro of Los Cambalache, will also give an inspiring performance.
Multiple student groups from around LAUSD will perform in the park as well as on stage, including:
· The Pacoima Singers, an award-winning, multi-ethnic performing arts group at the Pacoima Middle School Film, Media & Performing Arts Magnet in the San Fernando Valley.
· Garfield High School Marching Band
· The Rock Band Club of Cortines High School
· The Korean Drumming Seminar Students fromRobert F. Kennedy High School/UCLA Community School
____________________________________________
UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
See you there, Los Angeles! A Red Sea (autocorrect will not let me use lower case letters) a Red Sea will wash up on our corrupt and criminal board and corporate takeover intending superintendent. We will not let them destroy our schools.
In anticipation of the UTLA rally, I just found this.
I cannot believe what I just watched and transcribed.
I can only compare it to the Warren Beatty movie BULWORTH, where one of California’s two U.S. Senators, Jay Bulworth, has a total nervous breakdown, then, as a result, starts involuntarily (or partially involuntarily? … I forget) saying exactly what he wants to say, and believes to be true, throwing out his prepared speeches … tell the truth, consequences be damned.
Last Wednesday, May 16, LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson spoke to the Northridge East Neighborhood Council (Northridge is on the northern border of LAUSD / Schmerelson’s Board District.)
About 17 minutes into his 43 minute speech, he went full “Bulworth” — divulging the details of Austin Beutner’s interview with the LAUSD Board, and how the superintendent selection process was a total sham, dictated by billionaire corporate masters — most prominently, Eli Broad — who bankrolled the campaigns of the four anti-union, pro-charter LAUSD Board Members
Schmerelson’s disgust and frustration is palpable, as is his condemnation of Beutner’s total lack of experience and qualifications to be LAUSD’s Supe, with Beutner never having worked a single day in education in any capacity, be it teacher, administrator, etc.
Schmerelson’s account of the LAUSD Board’s interview with Beunter is beyond the beyond. When Beutner can’t answer — or out-and-out refuses to answer — any education-related questions, Beutner then arrogantly implies that he doesn’t need to be able to answer, because … well … because Beutner “know(s) Big Boy” — I’m presuming that “Big Boy” is Eli Broad, the biggest contributor to the four pro-privatization LAUSD Board Members, and therefore, Beutner’s selection as LAUSD Supe was in the bag, no matter what transpired in the interview, but Schmerelson thinks that “Big Boy” might refer to a famous rapper.
Instead, according to Schmerelson, Beutner blathered on incoherently that he, Beutner — as with Al Gore’s claimed invention of the internet — that Beutner went to Russia and de-nuclearized Russia, and converted Russia from Communism to Capitalism.
Beutner then went on about doing similar work in Czechoslovakia.
Schmerelson’s reaction is like, “What the f—???!!!” (not his words, mine) As in, what the-hell does all this have to do with education or running the second largest public school district in the nation? Beutner can’t be serious.
Here’s a partial transcript, starting at 17:42, with the video posted here:
http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2018/05/20/was-the-public-deceived-in-the-lausd-superintendent-search/
Scott Schmerelson, LAUSD Board member: (describing Beutner’s interview conducted by Schmerelson & the rest of the LAUSD School Board)
“Here comes this man named Austin Beutner. I said,
” ‘Is this for real? Is this for real?’
“But I learned that certain (LAUSD) Board Members had this (Beutner’s selection) all planned months ago, but I’m so stupid, that I think that everybody’s honest and fair, that I thought, ‘No, this can’t be. This can’t be (i.e. that the decision to hire Beutner had already been made months ago, and therefore, the process of interviewing multiple candidates was a total sham and a waste of everyone’s time and energy).’
“So I thought, ‘Let’s be fair and let him (Beutner) interview.’
“(Beutner’s) was the worst interview that I have ever seen in my entire life! Not one question about education (asked of Beutner) was answered!
“Nothing! Nothing!
“Here’s what he (Beutner) said … I can get in trouble for saying this, but I don’t care.
“Here’s what he said (instead of answering tough questions)
” ‘I know “Big Boy,” ‘
” (Schmerelson then asked) ‘Who’s “Big Boy” ?’
“Well, apparently “Big Boy” is a Rap artist. So he was trying to tell me that he was ‘cool’, and that he was ‘with it.’ The only “Big Boy” that I know is the one who carries the hamburger on the tray. That’s “Big Boy” for me.
“And then he (Beutner) was telling us how he was in Russia, and how he helped to take Russia out of the nuclear attack stage, and how to make Russia more like a capitalistic country than a Communist country.
“That’s nice. That’s good. Then he told us that he was in Czechoslovakia, and he worked for the Czech government and then he did this, and he did this, and he did this.
“But every time I asked him a question about education, he couldn’t answer because he really didn’t know.
“So I just said (to himself), ‘Oh no. Nobody’s going to pick this guy, Nobody!’
“And boy, was I WRONG!”
… and on it goes.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44564-striking-teachers-beat-back-neoliberalism-s-war-on-public-schools
Godspeed to my colleagues in the Golden State….