Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.
LAUSD Teachers Have Set A Date To Go On Strike

UPDATED, Dec. 19, 12 p.m. -- For more than a year, parents of the 480,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District have anxiously watched a low-simmering contract dispute with the district's teachers union, wondering when the feud might boil over.
On Wednesday, parents got their answer.
Teachers union leaders announced they will call a strike on Jan. 10 if they haven't reached a contract agreement with LAUSD by then. It would be the first work stoppage called by United Teachers Los Angeles since the union's nine-day strike in 1989.
At a press conference, UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said union negotiators would not return to the bargaining table until the district takes "a different approach to having discussions."
"We're not going to go through another 20 months of unfair bargaining practices on the part of the district," Caputo-Pearl said. "We have several core issues they've literally never responded to -- around early education, regulation of charter [schools], limiting standardized tests."
"The district knows where we are," Caputo-Pearl added. "We're right down the street from each other."
The announcement comes one day after a neutral third party -- known as a fact-finder -- unveiled recommendations for settling the dispute.
But neither UTLA nor LAUSD is bound to accept the fact-finder's suggestions. With the release of the fact-finder's report, there's nothing to legally stop UTLA from striking.
READ MORE: A comprehensive guide to the UTLA-LAUSD dispute, including a breakdown of the issues at stake.
On Tuesday, the fact-finder validated some of the arguments that both sides had been making at the bargaining table.
He urged to UTLA settle at the district's salary offer and concluded that both the union and LAUSD had valid points about regulating class sizes. The fact-finder pushed the two sides to return to the table to resolve the outstanding class size points and punt on almost all other outstanding items as too complicated, too ambitious or too costly.
LAUSD superintendent Austin Beutner may have inflamed tensions further with his comments about the fact-finding report. Materials displayed next to Beutner at a press conference Tuesday claimed UTLA had "agreed" to the district's salary offer -- a 6 percent raise.
"The report says LAUSD's offer of 6 percent is appropriate," he said, "and UTLA has agreed that it's appropriate."
Afterward, UTLA leaders accused Beutner of stretching the facts. The union has not agreed to a 6 percent raise as a matter of contract negotiations; the union's appointee to the fact-finding panel had merely concurred with the fact-finder's recommendation of accepting the district's salary offer.
"Implying that an agreement has been reached," Caputo-Pearl said in a statement, "tells us he is more interested in perpetuating falsehoods than finding a real path to an agreement."
Teachers have been working without a contract for more than a year, and negotiations have been ongoing since as early as January 2017. In July of this year, teachers declared an impasse and walked away from unmediated contract talks. Mediation followed in the fall, but proved unsuccesful.
UPDATED, Dec. 19, 12 p.m.: This story was updated to include new comments from Caputo-Pearl.
Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now.
As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.
Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
We rely on donations from readers like you to stay independent, which keeps our nonprofit newsroom strong and accountable to you.
No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, press freedom is at the core of keeping our nation free and fair. And as the landscape of free press changes, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust, but the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news from our community.
Please take action today to support your trusted source for local news with a donation that makes sense for your budget.
Thank you for your generous support and believing in independent news.

-
With less to prove than LA, the city is becoming a center of impressive culinary creativity.
-
Nearly 470 sections of guardrailing were stolen in the last fiscal year in L.A. and Ventura counties.
-
With California voters facing a decision on redistricting this November, Surf City is poised to join the brewing battle over Congressional voting districts.
-
The drug dealer, the last of five defendants to plead guilty to federal charges linked to the 'Friends' actor’s death, will face a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.
-
The weather’s been a little different lately, with humidity, isolated rain and wind gusts throughout much of Southern California. What’s causing the late-summer bout of gray?
-
Hexavalent chromium is the same carcinogen Erin Brockovich warned about in the 1990s, but researchers say more study is needed on the potential health effects of nanoparticles detected earlier this year. Experts will answer questions at a webinar this evening.