The proposed labor deal announced Tuesday between Los Angeles Unified and the teachers union includes provisions for hiring nurses, librarians and counselors, along with class-size reductions phased in over three years, according to a summary of the proposal published by the union.
According to the summary, which was posted on United Teachers Los Angeles’ website, the 6 percent pay raise included in the proposal includes a 3 percent boost retroactive for the 2017-18 school year, and another 3 percent retroactive to July 1, 2018.
The deal also calls for the hiring of 150 full-time nurses in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, enough to “provide a full-time nurse at every school five days a week.” It also call for the hiring of 41 teacher-librarian positions in each of those years, providing a “full-time teacher-librarian at every secondary school campus five days a week.”
It also includes the hiring of 17 additional full-time counselors by Oct. 1, creating a counselor-student ratio of 500-1 per secondary school, according to the union summary.
The proposal includes the elimination of contract language that the union says would have allowed the district to “ignore all class-size averages and caps.” It calls for a class-size reduction of one student, with a secondary cap of 39 for English and math classes during the 2019-20 school year, followed by an additional one-student reduction in 2020-21 and another two-student reduction in 2021-22.
On the issue of charter schools, the proposal calls for the LAUSD Board of Education to approve a resolution asking the state to impose a cap on charter schools and to create a governor’s committee on charter schools. The tentative agreement also calls on the district to provide lists in December and February of each year of schools “threatened by co-location.” At each site on the list, a union “co-location coordinator” will be chosen to be `part of the development of the shared-use agreement.”
The proposal also includes a requirement that the district designate and fund 20 “community schools” by June 30, and another 10 such schools by June 30, 2020.
In regard to standardized testing, the district and union would form a committee that will identify all district assessments and develop a plan to reduce the amount of such testing by 50 percent.
According to the union summary, the deal calls for the union, district and mayor’s office to jointly push for increases in county and state education funding. It also calls on the mayor to endorse the Schools and Communities First ballot measure, which will go before voters in November 2020 and would roll back Proposition 13 limits on property taxes for commercial buildings, increasing tax revenue for public education.
The proposal includes other provisions on a variety of topics, including caseload caps for special-education teachers, an extension of a program exempting selected schools from random searches, efforts to expand green spaces on school campuses and increased protections for substitute teachers.