The Brief

Los Angeles Unified reached deals with some of its biggest labor unions on Sunday, ahead of a planned strike on Tuesday that would shut down the district.

The first of the needed agreements was announced Sunday morning, when LAUSD announced a deal with United Teachers Los Angeles, whose members include 35,000 teachers and counselors. By Sunday evening, district officials announced an agreement with Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents 3,000 principals and other school leaders.

Still at the bargaining table: SEIU Local 99, which represents bus drivers, classroom aides and other staffers. No deal in that contract negotiation had been announced as of late Monday.

(Update, April 14, 3:30 a.m.: LAUSD and SEIU Local 99 have agreed to a deal, averting a strike. Details here.)

A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass said the mayor has also joined negotiations and been "actively working" to bring a resolution. Bass similarly joined negotiations in 2023 during a three-day strike by SEIU Local 99 that ended in a new deal.

In a statement late Monday night, the district said "talks may continue throughout the night," promising to tell families by 6 a.m. on Tuesday if schools will be open.

That matters because educators are expected to honor possible picket lines on Tuesday if no deal is reached.

“Despite UTLA having reached a tentative agreement with the school district, teachers have pledged to stand in solidarity with SEIU Local 99 and join in a sympathy strike," SEIU Local 99 said in a news statement on Sunday.

The three unions gave the district an April 14 deadline to reach agreements or else face a walkout. A strike could shut down district schools and disrupt the education of about 400,000 students and the lives of families scrambling for child care.

What are the terms of the UTLA deal?

LAUSD and UTLA announced a tentative two-year agreement. UTLA’s bargaining team had met with the district more than a dozen times since negotiations began in February 2025.

Terms of the new contract include an increase in salary scales by 11.65%, a new-teacher salary of $77,000 per year, four weeks of district-paid parental leave, expanded student mental health supports and a first-ever 20:1 ratio for special education specialist teachers.

“These wins reflect the progress we’ve fought for, enabling educators to stay fully focused on supporting students’ learning and well-being,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the union’s president, in a statement.

A district spokesperson told LAist the ongoing cost of the agreement with UTLA is $650 million and also includes “a comprehensive agreement on inclusive practices and staffing,” reduced secondary counseling ratios and smaller ratios for 11th- and 12th-grade academic class sizes.

The union’s members and the LAUSD Board of Education must vote to approve the deal. UTLA said in an Instagram post that its bargaining team "enthusiastically recommends" that union members ratify the new contract.

Learn more about the proposals UTLA made.

What are the terms of the AALA deal?

The deal reached Sunday between AALA and the district includes a 12.15% wage increase divided into retroactive adjustments and future raises. It also included more flexible time and better defined workdays.

A strike would have been a first for the union, which affiliated with the Teamsters in 2024.

The union declared an impasse in February, an assessment the district disagreed with, but it agreed to continue negotiating.

“We don't have the necessary resources to really say we have safe schools, to really say that we're servicing students,” said Maria Nichols, president of AALA, during a pre-strike rally.

What is the staff union negotiating for?

SEIU Local 99 declared an impasse in December. The state appointed a mediator to try to help the two sides reach an agreement. The negotiating teams were scheduled to continue bargaining on Sunday.

The union's 30,000 members include bus drivers, cafeteria workers, classroom and campus aides. The contract expired June 30, 2024.

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 30% wage increase over three years. 
• More hours for workers who don’t have enough to qualify for benefits.

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 13% wage increase over three years.
• A task force that includes SEIU Local 99 members to advise the district on artificial intelligence use.
• Learn more.

SEIU Local 99 reports its members make an average of $35,000 a year.

Maria Avalos is a supervision aide at Fernangeles Elementary School in Sun Valley. Avalos said she’s only assigned four hours of work a day and also cleans houses and sells tamales to support her daughter.

“We need more hours,” Avalos said. “I live in an apartment that has one bedroom for 10 of us.”

What happens if schools close?

If a deal can't be reached with every union and a strike shuts down schools, LAUSD plans to distribute food, tech support and refer families to community organizations for child care. Updates about resources and labor negotiations will be posted to a dedicated website in English and Spanish.

However, during a three-day 2023 strike, families struggled to find care and access their child’s education.

Senior editor for education Ross Brenneman contributed to this story.

Doctors and health insurers filed a lawsuit Friday alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature violated the law when they approved a healthcare tax that could substantially increase insurance premiums for Californians.

The lawsuit claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents a 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.

“California voters passed Proposition 35 and made it law. The state does not get to ignore that law simply because following the law is inconvenient,” medical association CEO Dustin Corcoran said in a statement.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a previous statement to CalMatters that the state wanted to balance the affordability concerns of privately insured patients against large-scale federal Medi-Cal cuts.

Newsom stopped short of opposing the 2024 initiative when it was on the ballot, but he warned at the time it would “hamstring” the state budget.

For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans.

Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.

“California is breaking the law by blowing through a tax limit voters put in place to protect Californians and businesses from higher health care costs,” said Charles Bacchi, CEO of the health plans association.

Doctors, hospitals, clinics and Medi-Cal insurers have argued for many years that the revenue from the tax should go toward improving Medi-Cal. They said that the state was inappropriately using the money to replace general fund spending, and that many providers were being paid far less than their services cost. In 2024, they asked voters to approve a limited tax that would be reserved for Medi-Cal improvements.

But Congress last year changed the rules on taxes used to generate revenue for healthcare, including the ones imposed on health plans. Rather than lose the money generated by the tax, Newsom proposed and the Legislature agreed to submit two taxes to the federal government for approval: one that complied with the 2024 initiative but would be rejected by the feds, and one that complied with federal regulations and largely disregarded the initiative.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration. Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.

Approved by state lawmakers at a time when federal science funding has become increasingly unpredictable, the bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.

“Scientific advancements are curing and preventing diseases, improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions, protecting our communities from wildfires, lowering the cost of food, and powering our economy,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the federal government to throw away that hope for a better future.”

Newsom joined Wiener to sign the bill Wednesday atop the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark built with voter-approved bond money in the 1930s that his press office described as a symbol of California ingenuity. He said the proposed science agency “does the opposite of what Donald Trump is doing (and) will allow us to double down on what makes this state great.”

It was a dramatic comeback for a measure that almost died in the Legislature earlier this year, when a more ambitious $23 billion version of the plan failed to make it onto the November ballot despite bipartisan support.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere had joined with UC leadership to lobby for the bond, hosting rallies and inviting lawmakers to a science fair highlighting projects that had seen their funding stalled or canceled by the federal government.

There were plenty to choose from: The Trump administration canceled nearly $2 billion in research grants to the University of California beginning in early 2025, later acknowledging in court that officials searched for keywords such as “health equity” and “sexual orientation” in order to decide what to cut. While a court order restored much of the money, the National Science Foundation has since slowed grantmaking nationwide, and President Trump has proposed giving political appointees more power to veto National Institutes of Health grants that don’t align with his agenda.

This spring, the National Science Foundation canceled an additional $21 million in grants to UC Berkeley, accusing the projects’ lead researchers of accepting foreign funding without disclosing it, a charge some of those scientists denied. UC President James Milliken has called the disruption of federal research funding “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.”

Lawmakers nevertheless declined to move the science bond forward this spring amid worries about competing demands on state funds – including a housing bond on the November ballot and the possible need to backfill other federal cuts. But negotiations among bill supporters, legislative leaders and the governor over the summer led to the scaled-down version that Newsom signed Wednesday.

Along with the University of California, California State University, private universities, and independent labs would all be potentially eligible for grants from the new state fund. A $7.5 billion state fund would not by itself make up for the instability in federal grants – the UC alone received nearly $5 billion in federal research funding in fiscal year 2024-25. But supporters say it could be especially helpful to researchers in fields such as climate science that are critical to the state’s future but have run afoul of Trump administration priorities.

___

Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.

___

This story was originally published by Berkeleyside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say, likely damaging aging structures and forcing school closures.

The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.

While district superintendents in especially vulnerable areas are already planning ahead, some schools may be ill-equipped to handle punishing weather. At least 59 California school districts are seeking voter approval for bonds in the November election, and have identified the need to repair or replace “leaky,” “dilapidated” and “decaying” roofs, an EdSource examination of local ballot language shows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sept. 21, ordering pumps and sandbags to be stockpiled near vulnerable areas, among other precautions. Federal flood data show roughly 20% of the state’s schools are located within flood plains. In 2023, heavy storms flooded schools in Alameda and Merced counties as well as one near Watsonville, where a levee ruptured.

“Climate-driven El Niño conditions could mean months of dangerous weather, heavy rain, strong winds, deep mountain snow and flooding,” Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference, adding that the public shouldn’t underestimate “the power of water.”

Preparing for a severe El Niño

As predictions of severe weather spread, there isn’t a school superintendent in an area that the El Niño is predicted to impact “that hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks already,” said Scott Borba, executive director of the California Small School Districts Association. Many small districts have aging buildings — some as many as 75 years old, Borba said.

“You’ve got leaks and dry rot and all the things that a super wet winter is going to just exacerbate,” he said.

While district leaders work with other local agencies during weather emergencies, they are largely on their own when making major decisions, such as whether to cancel school, Borba said.

“Sometimes you have some county office of emergency services’ support. But when it comes to making that decision, that decision lies with the superintendent alone,” he said.

One small school district leader who may soon be making such decisions is Raven Coit, the superintendent and principal of the 61-student TK-8 Peninsula Union School District on the south end of the Northern Humboldt Peninsula in Humboldt County. It’s perhaps the most isolated coastal school in California, roughly 600 yards from the ocean. Dunes often serve as a play area for students.

Coit took steps this year to try to limit storm damage. She had trees cut back and used money saved by deferring other projects to complete much-needed roof repairs. “There was a big storm that caused leaking. I’m proud to say that it won’t rain inside this year,” she said.

But the likelihood of impacts from El Niño remains. The school’s “in a vulnerable spot,” she said. Flooding could cut off access to the only road leading to the school. There’s a backup generator that she’s “trying to figure out if I can make it work.”

While nearly all the school’s students live nearby, many teachers do not, and may not be able to get to work. Local high school students are bussed to Arcata on the mainland — if buses can get through.

She said the school could also turn to remote learning in a crisis.

How El Niño may impact schools in coastal areas

One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas like Coit’s is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves.

They are slow moving, and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation.

“That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”

A worst-case scenario “would be an El Niño Kelvin, plus a peak king tide, plus a significant storm,” he said.

A Southern California school leader of one of those districts said it’s bracing for storms.

Don Austin, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, said that living on the coast, “I have seen our beaches get washed away with recent storms and homes destroyed.”

His schools have “roof leaks and other issues that will be heavily impacted by an El Niño,” he said.

The most impactful weather-driven damage to a California school in recent years was in March 2023 when a broken river levee caused the Pajaro Middle school near Watsonville to flood, along with the heavily Mexican immigrant and farmworker community it serves.

The school reopened in 2024. A complete replacement of the entire levee by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take a decade, officials said.

Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, said the agency is spending roughly $1 million to strengthen the levee, and that the breach that led to the school flooding has been permanently repaired. El Niño, he said, is the obvious concern, and the work is aimed at protecting the town of Pajaro and the middle school.

Leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District remain concerned about El Niño, but haven’t identified a temporary site to move students to if the school floods again, according to Peggy Pughe, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.

Asked what the district officials are doing based on their experience with the 2023 floods and the threat of El Niño, Pughe said they are “canvassing local neighborhoods, encouraging families and residents to sign up for emergency alert services.”

Data journalist Daniel J. Willis and staff writer Emma Gallegos contributed to this story.

In August, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul of the Head Start program, leaving early childhood providers in Los Angeles concerned about their ability to serve low-income children.

The proposed rules strip Head Start of many of its regulations and impose new requirements, like teaching in English only.

The public comment period ends Oct. 6 — after which the administration could finalize the new rule. It’s unclear when that will happen, and experts say it could be caught up in litigation.

Why does the administration want to change the rules?

Federal officials said the deregulation would provide for more local flexibility.

An administration statement said the moves reduce both regulatory burden and administrative costs, allowing for more available slots — as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide — and save $2.2 billion.

“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. “That’s how we renew the promise of Head Start for the next generation.”

Earlier in the administration, the White House proposed to cut Head Start entirely from the budget but reversed course.

The case against the proposed rules

Head Start providers worry the new rules, if implemented, could be the start of whittling down a program that provides early education and other wraparound services for about 70,000 children across the state.

“It's a holistic program really designed to lift kids out of poverty and to set them up for future success, so what's at risk when the standards are changed are a lot of those elements and guidelines that support the program quality,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California.

For example, Head Start provides support services beyond education, like developmental screenings and dental care, which would no longer be required under the Trump administration’s plan. The new rules would also require documentation beyond self-attestation for families experiencing homelessness.

“Putting a lot of documentation requirements in place would be very onerous for people who are in really difficult circumstances,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which serves about 2,000 kids in its Head Start programs in northern L.A. County. The program opened up a Head Start center at a family homeless shelter last year.

The administration’s proposal also sets a 5% cap on administrative costs, down from the current 15%, which Sneeringer said will be hard for nonprofits to implement.

“I think many Head Start operators are really going to struggle to even keep their programs open,” she said.