ITEM 1. UTLA had a nice rally on Monday after school and it felt like old times. An eerily familiar set of demands--fair pay, smaller classes, more support personnel, less testing--are being stonewalled by an autocratic boss. It was deja-vu all over again.
Newly elected LAUSD school board member Dr. Rocio Rivas was there and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz along with many others. The L.A. Times had a pretty good write-up from Howard Blume describing the situation as a "stress test for the nation’s second-largest school district" and that sounds about right to me. The question always is whether or not the district bosses will accept teachers as authentic partners in educating students.
To be honest, more people showed up than I expected. It was after school after all, and in addition to traditional end-of-day exhaustion, turnout was fighting end-of-year exhaustion and an after-school tutoring program initiated to address "learning loss." I'm retired and had plenty of time and energy to attend, but it was great to see old friends, many of whom I walked the line with in 2019. Thanks to all of you who were able to attend.
Negotiating with the district is a dance with many of the same steps as anything else to do with LAUSD. It always begins with characterizing the teachers as the problem and ends with "screw the teachers; let them figure it out." Decisions are made at the top to address political--rather than educational--concerns, and those making the decisions always seem unaware or unconcerned with the ways schools, classrooms, and students actually work.
ITEM 2. Which brings me to what the district calls "acceleration days," though what is accelerating is unclear. These are four extra school days tacked on to the school year either in the middles of weeks (first district bad idea) or in place of the first two days of both winter and spring vacations (second district bad idea).
Today's Times reviews the chaos over the district's attempt to look as if they're serious about helping students impacted by the pandemic and remote schooling. It seems that the district has never developed a real plan for implementing extra instructional time but has instead opted for blaming teachers and their unions for pointing that out.
Shocking only when compared with what people have a right to expect from their school district. Surprising to absolutely no one who has ever dealt with them.
The article by Blume, is titled "Only 1 in 9 Los Angeles students will attend extra learning days. What happened?" apparently for comic effect. Anyone from Blume all the way up to LAUSD Superintendent and world-class suit-wearer Alberto Carvalho--and every school employee in between--knows one thing for certain: you can't make kids do anything. A teacher's life is consumed with concocting ways to get students to believe they want what you want. It's really the whole ball game.
But, just as in their dealings with UTLA, the district thinks "because I say so" is an adequate strategy. In the article, parents complain that the details of the "program" have been missing (pause for laughter) and school board member Nick Melvoin acknowledged "[parents] don’t necessarily know what these days look like... This, I think, was one of the first public presentations we’ve done, but I’m hoping we’ll continue sharing that with parents.” Hope is not a plan.
That was yesterday's school board meeting--Tuesday, December 6--the first public presentation of details less than two weeks before parents are being asked to send their kids, often to unfamiliar schools to work with unfamiliar teachers (if the district can dig them up). And send them during what they've planned as a break and perhaps a vacation. And how will it work? "We're working on it," says the district. What could go wrong?
One parent quoted in the article is not sure her children's IEPs will be followed. One parent said their kid was doing fine in school and thought the extra days unnecessary, once again highlighting the difference between learning (parents' concerns) and test scores (bureaucrats' concerns).
The district is lucky to get 1 in 9.
Other elements highlight the disconnect between the district's "plan" and what students and teachers actually do, not to mention what district families need. The shortage of details this close to launch is LAUSD to a "T." The notion that their website has "gradually answered more of the questions" is simply a sign that they did not know enough about what they themselves were proposing to anticipate the questions in advance.
The fact that the district's decision "to keep open special centers for students with disabilities" was "in response to concerns" and not perfectly foreseeable shows once again how out of touch they are. The district's cavalier, haphazard approach disregards the needs of families to make plans for childcare and travel. It mocks families' efforts to decide what's best for their students.
In addition, we learn from the article that the district thinks it's a thing for teachers, who probably won't know their students, to have access to individual test scores, enabling teachers to "adjust their instruction accordingly." Really? When would that happen?
The district has already blown through a couple of deadlines before admitting at Tuesday's meeting that "there would be no hard deadline and last-minute arrivals would not be turned away."
Picture this: Monday morning the first day of winter break, you get your roster (if it's ready). You look at test scores (if the district has provided you proper access). You start formulating individual instruction plans for each student including the ones you think are just late but are not coming at all, including the ones who are not yet on your roster because they just showed up. You gather the necessary materials, and then you... teach? I guess.
Tuesday half the students are gone, replaced by brand new ones. Um... teach?
Wednesday vacation begins.
It's a dumb plan. You know what else is a dumb plan? The district's first idea was to insert an "acceleration [Wednes]day" in the middles of several actual teaching weeks throughout the year. By filing an unfair practice charge with the California Public Employment Relations Board, the union reminded Carvalho and his merry band that the length of the school year is an issue for collective bargaining, and no amount of "well, it's voluntary" makes it not.
That's right. just when the dumb starts to run over the top, the district just gets a bigger cup. The district's original proposal would have thrown schools into chaos as nobody would know how many students or how many teachers were going to show up for which classes.
It was a slick attempt to coerce working parents into relying on schools as childcare, and cow and con teachers and students into working an extra four days, but it was such a bad idea that when teachers said "Voluntary? No thanks" the district scrapped the plan and went back to bargaining, exactly where they should have started in the first place.
ITEM 3. And now this (h/t John Oliver):
Covid Takes Over LAUSD Headquarters at Beaudry
Forty-one cases over four floors.
Just going to leave this here.
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