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LAUSD Will Pay Its Substitute Teachers During Shutdown
Teacher Jacqueline Porter-Morris shows second-grade students how to take a picture on an iPad in 2018. (Maya Sugarman/KPCC)
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Los Angeles Unified school officials have agreed to continue paying the district’s nearly 3,800 substitute teachers for as long as campuses are closed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
The district’s directive, handed down Wednesday afternoon, will pay substitutes a daily wage during the closure. The amount they’re paid will be based on a sliding scale depending on how much of the current year they’ve worked.
United Teachers Los Angeles — the labor union that also represents substitute teachers — had pushed for a “guaranteed income” for these workers.
“This is good work by the district,” UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said in a video message, “and this is a model that other employers should follow.”
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The union for LAUSD’s classified employees, SEIU Local 99, is still negotiating with district officials about their substitutes’ needs during the shutdown, according to union spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos. She said the union represents 100 substitute workers.
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