Senate leader: Public school budgets will rise in next few years

About a thousand public school teachers finished a one week union boot camp at UCLA Friday. After losing thousands of members to teacher layoffs, the California Teachers Association conference is training its remaining teachers in negotiating and organizing skills.

The yearly conference included workshops on school finance and online organizing. The meat and potatoes offering was a workshop called Essential Bargaining Skills.

"I learned how to, to sit on a bargaining table with our district and fight the fight for what we need," says El Segundo Middle School teacher Meredith Beachley, who says she came to the conference because she'll be negotiating a contract with the district this year.

Beachley hopes she can help negotiate an agreement with no salary cuts. Just before she stepped into a UCLA ballroom to hear the closing keynote by Darrell Steinberg, the leader of California State Senate. Beachley said she's not happy Steinberg supported a public school budget that didn’t increase funds for education.

"We need to stay on them. We’re a strong union and we need to stay on them and we need to get what we need," said Beachley. "What we want him to say. He’s going to give us what we want to hear."

In a forty minute speech, Steinberg criticized standardized tests and defended a teacher layoff moratorium included in the state budget. He closed by saying that before he’s termed out of office, he hopes to see a return to fully-funded schools.

"May they be three and a half years where we begin to rebuild, we begin to reinvest, and we begin again to make California schools the pride of the nation," said Steinberg. "Thank you so much for having me, appreciate you."

Missing from the speech, says third year teacher Pollavet Hansanugrum, was any talk about helping new teachers like him tackle the steep learning curve of the profession. He considers himself lucky to teach in a small district east of San Diego.

"I’m originally from L.A. but I got a job in Calexico because I couldn’t get a job anywhere in the city," said Hansanugrum. "Even though I’m a math major."

The one-week teachers association conference has Palm Springs teacher Amber Gascoigne pumped up to get more young teachers involved with the union. She came to the conference on faith, because she didn’t know if she’d be back to the classroom in a couple of weeks.

"I’ve been unemployed up until today," said Gascoigne. "I just got my call this morning for my job, so my whole summer has been stressful, not knowing what’s going to happen."

California Teachers Association officials say about 5,000 up and down the state can’t say the same, their layoff notices ­haven’t been rescinded.