Tuesday’s school board meeting while the union report was delivered.

* UPDATED May 13

As district officials and other analysts pick apart the UTLA-funded study released Tuesday that claims that independent charter schools drain half a billion dollars from LA Unified, the district’s own numbers show LA Unified actually makes money from charters.

The first finding of the 42-page union-funded Cost of Charter Schools report states that the revenue collected from charter schools does not cover the annual budget of the district’s Charter Schools Division.

But that’s not what the district’s own numbers reveal.

In January when the Charter Schools Division presented its budget, it showed that the district receives half a million dollars more than they need to pay for the division. That report, presented to the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee by Charters Division Director Jose Cole-Gutierrez, showed that the 1 percent oversight fee collected from charter schools brings in $8.89 million while the annual expenses of the division’s 47 employees including their benefits total $8.37 million.

The UTLA report puts the indirect administrative costs of the division at $13.8 million, including the cost of the square footage of space used in the Beaudry headquarters by the staff, janitorial costs and time managing and investigating charters that could be spent on traditional schools. These costs, it states, are not supported by the 1 percent oversight fee collected from charters that is used to fund the district’s charter schools division.

The UTLA study notes the district doesn’t charge the charter schools the full 3 percent it says they could charge for the 56 schools that are located on district sites. That could result in an increase of $2 million for the district, it says. School board member Monica Ratliff pointed out at Tuesday’s board meeting that many of her constituents ask why the full amount is not collected from the charter schools.

The report was immediately criticized by district staff and others, as both inaccurate and an attempt to divert attention from far larger drains on the district’s finances. District officials have been directed to refrain from commenting officially, but they are planning to respond to the report as early as a special school board meeting planned for Tuesday to discuss the budget.

An initial analysis by the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), the district’s bargaining unit for middle managers, also noted that the district’s own figures for its charters division contradicted those in the UTLA report. AALA reported that a district official said the number of charters contracting outside the district for special education — and the ensuing financial impact — was vastly misrepresented in the UTLA report. And it questioned whether UTLA was reading the regulations on charter fees correctly and whether the district could charge charters a full 3 percent.

“The report is full of glaring inaccuracies,” the California Charter Schools Association stated in a email. “It mischaracterizes how special education is funded, it ignores millions of dollars that charters pay to the district for facilities, and it guesstimates the staff time of hundreds of district employees, among many other distortions and false conclusions. We’re encouraged that the district will be scrutinizing the report to assess its accuracy. But what’s especially frustrating is that this report totally ignores the most important part of public education: student learning.”

It added, “When it comes to the district’s finances, the elephant in the room is the $13 billion in unfunded post-employment benefit liabilities that places LAUSD in the unenviable position of having to make very hard decisions in the months and years to come. It’s of course no surprise that UTLA’s report made no mention of that issue; they’d rather blame everyone else than offer real solutions for the district’s complex financial problems.”

The UTLA report comes as the district is facing a potential $450 million deficit within three years due to declining enrollment and increasing fixed costs, including pension costs, legal liability and other post-employment benefits.

The report was but together by a Florida-based consulting company, MGT of America, and Susan Zoller, a former teacher and administrator who compiled the report, presented it to the school board on Tuesday.

UTLA spokesperson Anna Bakalis said in a statement, “The data used in the MGT report came directly from the district. We stand behind the figures as given to MGT. We are glad this financial impact report has sparked a dialogue about these issues, and look forward to finding out more ways to address the findings that were laid out in this report.”

Unfunded pensions, which currently top $13 billion and have more than doubled since 2005, make LA Unified the only school district on a list of top 10 government entities across the country that can’t afford their pensions — the top spot going to the city of Detroit.

In January, a company that has performed independent audits of LA Unified for seven years told a school board committee that the district had gone into the red for the first time, with liabilities outstripping assets by $4.2 billion, in large part because of having to report $5.2 billion in retiree pension liabilities.

Another drain on the district is chronic absenteeism which results in an annual loss of $139 million in revenue. Increasing attendance in schools by only one percent — which would make it equal to the average in the state — that could bring in $45 million a year, according to district figures.

And a sweeping report of the Independent Financial Review Panel last fall found that while the district has lost 100,000 students over the past six years, it has actually increased full-time staff. The report, commissioned by former LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, added, “Given the significantly smaller population of students, these staffing levels need to be reexamined.”

UTLA itself is facing financial trouble. This year’s UTLA operating deficit was estimated at $1.5 million, fueled in large part by increased costs for staff retiree health benefits.

In a financial overview to members last May, the union treasurer, Arlene Inouye, wrote that the union has been operating at a deficit for seven of the last 10 years, partly due to a drop in membership of 10,000 members since 2007. In the last three years alone, she wrote, the union lost “more than $2.5 million.”

To address the losses, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl this year called for and won a $19 per month dues increase.

“Of course UTLA is exaggerating the financial burden of charter schools,” said Jim Blew, director of StudentsFirst California, a nonprofit group working to ensure that every California child has great teachers and great schools. “This is all designed to distract from the real issues: the need for LAUSD to create schools that families would choose voluntarily and to get its finances in order. They simply can’t blame charters for their problems when they offer weak school options and have ballooning staff during shrinking enrollment and out-of-control pension and healthcare costs.”

The Independent Financial Review Panel last fall also stated that enrollment declines were all but inevitable and charters were not the issue.

“Even if LAUSD had no more new charter schools, its enrollment would continue to decline due to demographic factors, factors that are not within its control, and that are unlikely to reverse in the coming years. All district departments must properly plan for the continued and possibly accelerated decline of student enrollment, and the board must act accordingly.”

According to Caputo-Pearl, the union has not updated its dues structure since its inception 45 years ago, which now “literally threatens the future of UTLA.”

In the video, Caputo-Pearl points out that UTLA’s monthly fees are lower than other large teacher unions in the country and lower than most other teacher unions in the state.

The video also includes a humorous reference to former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy, who resigned a year ago. Deasy and Caputo-Pearl locked horns frequently, but now Deasy is working at the Broad Center, and its affiliated Broad Foundation is currently developing a plan to expand charter schools in the district to include half of all students.

Caputo-Pearl claims in the video that UTLA has confirmed that Deasy is, in fact, the architect of the plan, which was outlined in a 48-page draft report. Caputo-Pearl calls this the “reanimation” of Deasy. Reanimation? Is that a reference to the 80s cult classic film, “Re-Animator“?

The film is about a doctor who discovers how to bring corpses back from the dead. Using the film as a metaphor, it certainly shows the ironic position Caputo-Pearl finds himself in. He helped chase Deasy out of the district, which he hailed as a “victory” for UTLA. But now Deasy is arguably in a much more powerful position as he allegedly orchestrates a plan that would wipe out half of the jobs of UTLA members.

As the trailer for the film says, “Once you wake up the dead, you’ve got a real mess on your hands.”

Check out the full UTLA video below.

A Call for a Californian 

LA Unified is currently in a hot search for a new superintendent and is already receiving applications and putting together a list of potential candidates. As the district contemplates what kind of superintendent it wants, the union that represents its principals, the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), has an interesting request: make sure he or she is from California.

The opening of AALA’s latest newsletter reads: “The time has come for the District’s next superintendent to be from California! The previous superintendents from Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and Prince George’s County [MD] have produced a mixed-bag of results for the District at best! Besides, the proof is in the pudding with Superintendent Cortines. This is his third tour of duty with the Los Angeles Unified School District and, by all accounts and Google searches, he is a Californian!”

Just simply finding any qualified candidate, let alone one with as specific a credential as where they grew up, has proven to be a challenge for LAUSD in the past. As one district staffer told LA School Report a year ago when Deasy stepped down, “The truth is there aren’t a lot of superintendents out there who have run any government agency of this size. That leaves LAUSD with a very short list of candidates with actual experience.”

Then there is Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, who said back then: “I don’t know a single person on earth who would want that terrible job. It won’t be a change agent. It will be a status quo candidate who will make life pleasant for himself by enjoying all the wrapping of the superintendency and being smart enough not to try and change a thing.”

Certainly there must be at least one Californian out there fitting that criteria.

Girls Build LA Initiative

About 7,000 high school girls from around Los Angeles County were invited this week to the West Coast premiere of a new documentary called “He Named Me Malala” at L.A. Live. The film is about the girl who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The event was part of the LA Fund’s launch of the Girls Build LA Initiative, a program designed to” encourage girls to pursue their education and challenge them to be problem solvers in their schools and communities.”

The Girls Build LA Initiative will also award grants to 50 teams of eight to 10 girls around the county for designing projects that address problems affect their education and communities.

Aside from the movie, the girls at the screening were also treated to a message from First Lady Michelle Obama. See it below:

But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive evidence in the report outlining the expansion plans that shows big investments in charters always — or evenly routinely — achieve consistent academic improvements, raising an important question: Just what can Broad and other foundations promise for an investment of nearly half a billion dollars in an expansion effort that would dramatically change the nation’s second-largest school district?

The Broad plan points to three of LA Unified’s largest charter operators that have received Broad largess — Green Dot Public Schools, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and KIPP Public Charter Schools — and says, “These organizations have turned our investments into significant academic gains for students.”

In some cases, the gains are clear, but in others they are not. One category shows a regression in test scores, and others that demonstrate only marginal gains.

The analysis looks at five years of “proficiency rates” for the organizations’ schools, spanning 2008-09 through 2012-13. Although the document does not explicitly say, it appears the data refers to scores on the old Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) exams, which were discontinued after 2012-13.

It’s also unclear what exactly “proficiency rates” refers to. For purposes of comparison with the new Smarted Balanced tests, the district and the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) combined the top two categories, “met” and” exceeded” standards. In the previous tests, the state broke down results into four levels of achievement, with one called “Proficiency” and a superior level called “Advanced.” But it’s not clear if the Broad report used one category or combined the higher two.

Swati Pandey, the Broad Foundation communications manager, did not respond to an email, seeking an explanation.

Over five years, proficiency rates for Green Dot students in English language arts actually decreased by 3 percent, while math rates at Alliance middle schools improved a total of 1 percent and English rates at the Alliance middle schools improved a total of 5 percent over five years.

Other areas are impressive — a 20 percent gain in English proficiency for KIPP schools over four years and a 13 percent increase in math for Green Dot schools, but the report does not discuss or examine the negative and minimal gains.

The recent Smarter Balanced statewide tests, which this year replaced the STAR exams after two years without any statewide tests, also show impressive results for the three organizations, but they also raised questions. (The Broad report did not include any analysis of the Smarter Balanced tests.)

Key in any analysis is the number of English learners and low-income students — two groups that have proven to be among the most challenging to educate — and these numbers never match up quite evenly between charters and traditional schools.

An analysis by LA School Report shows Alliance schools had 45.4 percent of its students meeting or exceeding the English standards on the Smarter Balanced tests, compared with 33 percent at LA Unified’s schools.

However, Alliance has far fewer English learners. According to its website data, 18.83 percent of its students are English learners, compared with 26 percent for LA Unified. And Alliance students actually scored worse in math, with 23.5 percent meeting or exceeding standards compared with 25 percent for the district. In fairness to Alliance, its schools have 93 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch, compared with 77 percent for the district.

KIPP and Green Dot schools fared much better on the Smarter Balanced tests, with the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards beating LA Unified schools by double digits in both math and English.

Both the CCSA and LA Unified exchanged blows in their analysis of the Smarter Balanced results. The CCSA pointed out that LA Unified’s independent charters bested the district schools, but it was only by 2.5 percent overall in the number that met or exceeded the standards. It then released another analysis that shows if district affiliated charters were removed from the equation the demographics matched up closer and independent charters scored better than LA Unified.

The district countered with a release that showed its magnet schools outperformed charters, but it must be considered that magnets have fewer English learners and low-income students.

Jumping into the mix is the Associated Administrators of the Los Angeles (AALA), which in its recent newsletter criticized the CCSA analysis, saying the “wins” of charters on the tests are diminished “when one considers that the enrollment of traditional schools includes 6% more English learners, who presumably would be at a disadvantage on the SBAC English language arts assessment (though they were apparently not at the same disadvantage on the SBAC math assessment). In addition, the traditional schools have a slightly higher percentage of students who qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.”

AALA also said that “the analysis presented in the CCSA press release is sophomoric advocacy at the expense of rigor. Serious comparisons may only be made between schools with similar socio-economic status.”

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Coming in at No. 498 and just cracking the top 500 on the “Top” list is Granada Hills Charter High, the sole LA Unified representative. For the “Beating the Odds” list, Granada ranked at #135, along with traditional LA Unified schools Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy (#146) and the Sonia Sotomayor School Of History And Dramatic Arts (#282).

Newsweek first created the “Beating the Odds” list in 2014 in “an effort to address the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on education.”

While that is laudable, the methodology of the list is somewhat questionable and also explains why more schools from LA Unified — which has over 80 percent of the student body living at or below the poverty level — may not have made the “Beating the Odds” list. In a curious choice, the “Odds” list is based on how well a school’s low-income students score on standardized tests but does not take into account how many low-income students it has.

For example, Piedmont High in Piedmont, CA ranked “#141 on the list even though only .4 percent of its student body are living at or below the poverty level. Inexplicably, four schools are listed as having zero percent of students below the poverty level, which really calls into question what the point of the list is and exactly what odds it is some of these schools are beating.

See below for an interactive map of the Top 100 schools on each list.

Straight Outta Woodland Hills

The film “Straight Outta Compton,” which chronicles the history of the groundbreaking rap group N.W.A., has been dominating the box office for the last month.

One of the memorable early scenes shows future superstar actor and gangster rapper Ice Cube as a teenager, climbing aboard a school bus in the mid-’80s and looking out the window at a parking full of rich white kids in their fancy sports cars at LA Unified’s Taft High School in Woodland Hills. The bus, which is full of black kids, pulls out, and over the course of a few minutes the scenery drastically changes from pristine Woodland Hills to the graffiti-splattered rough streets of south central Los Angeles.

The movie doesn’t delve any further into this intriguing reveal that Cube went to a nearly all-white high school dozens of miles from his home turf as part of a bussing program, and it leaves its viewers needing Google to find out more. A little searching reveals how important this experience was to him and to his world view.

“Think about how you felt at that age,” Cube told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. “I was mad at everything. When I went to the schools in the Valley, going through those neighborhoods, seeing how different they were from mine, that angered me. The injustice of it, that’s what always got me–the injustice.”

Since taking over as superintendent last October, Ramon Cortines has shown no hesitation at reorganizing the district how he sees fit. Recently he unceremoniously reassigned three top administrators back to the role of principal while also canceling the Intensive Support and Innovation Center and reorganizing LA Unified’s Educational Service Centers into geographically based offices.

Nevertheless, all the shuffling of the deck has apparently ruffled a lot of feathers among administrators, so much so that the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles has issued a lengthy tongue lashing of Cortines and his senior staff in its newsletter for what it says is harsh and insensitive treatment of some of its members.

The piece opens with a multiple praises of Cortines, including that he has demonstrated empathy and actively listens when concerns are brought to him. Then comes the transition word.

Nevertheless….

• In more than one case, AALA members were unceremoniously sent to the proverbial “curb” without regard for the employee’s emotional and physical well-being. AALA understands it is the District’s prerogative to reassign or release administrators serving in untenured positions. However, the perception is that the District was extremely callous and insensitive in this latest reorganization at every level and in most, if not every, department of the organization.
• We have seen a trend over the last several years for each new superintendent to make his mark by giving birth to an organization model different from the last. In the birthing process, AALA members have been left exhausted and disenchanted because the District has not valued their contributions and skill set. These same members have expressed a culture of fear and intimidation that is veiled, ever-present and stifling at best.

Ouch. There is more, much more, along with the suggestion that the district’s senior staff to do “The Big Three” as suggested by David Lee in an article reprinted in The Employment Times. All in all it is a pretty harsh glimpse into the difficult task the next superintendent will have in keeping everyone happy, as even with high praise can come the sharpest of criticism.

AALA, the union which represents district administrators, posted an article in its weekly newsletter pointing out what it says is a low level of assistant principals working in the district.

The new system was announced in the recent newsletter of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), the union that represents principals and other district administrators.

The new School Leader Growth and Development Program includes a number of key changes to the previous system, including a four-level evaluation instead of two.

The old system ranked administrators “meets standard performance” or “below standard performance” while the new one has four evaluation levels — “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing” and “ineffective.”

“It’s really important to note the district has really listened to directors and principals and made modifications in the last two years,” AALA President Juan Fletcha told LA School Report.

The new system also has a portion of the evaluation based on student performance measurements and test scores, which is not new, but what data is used may be changing in the next year.

For high school principals, the data includes graduation rates, the percentage of students on track to meet the A-G graduation requirements, AP enrollment and AP exam pass rate. It also includes the high school exit exam, although the state Legislature is currently debating if the exam should be eliminated.

Since the new Common Core-aligned California Standards Test was only given this year as a practice test, it is not part of the evaluation, but once the test does become official it will need to be renegotiated with the district as to what role it will play in evaluations, Fletcha said.

“That is something that we will have a conversation with the district, especially when we know how the information is gong to be used and relayed to the public,” Fletcha said.

The new system also has a more simplified process in some areas, including the “individual focus elements,” which has been reduced to five from seven.

“The principals were saying, ‘So its a good process where we learn about our professional development yet to collect evidence to justify the element is very labor intensive,’ so we think we can learn as much and the process can be as rich, but it doesn’t need that many elements,” Fletcha said.

The new system will only be used to evaluate K-12, options school and early ed principals this year, but Fletcha said the plan is to eventually evaluate other administrators, including adult education principals and assistant principals, the same way. Until then, other administrators will be evaluated under the old system.

Juan Flecha, president of AALA

Taking over as new president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), Juan Flecha says the time has come to take advantage of an improving economy and restore support staff and janitors at LA Unified schools.

In an interview with LA School Report, Flecha outlined plans he has for the 3,000 certificated and classified administrators he now leads after assuming the presidency on July 1. Foremost among his goals, he said, is restoring staffing levels to the same level they were before drastic budget cuts made during the past recession.

“I know that all of my administrators are hard working, but I want to improve the working conditions for all my principals,” he said. “There is an upturn in the economy so we can do it.”

Flecha served as principal for Eagle Rock High School and Thomas Jefferson High School before he took over as Administrator of Operations in Educational Service Center North, which covered 200 schools K-12 from Verdugo Hills to Woodland Hills.

SInce he was elected to AALA’s presidency in March, Flecha has been meeting every Wednesday morning his predecessor, Judith Perez, who had been with LA Unified for 46 years. She has agreed to work at least two days a week in his office despite her retirement.

“Dr. Perez has been incredibly collaborative and will ease the transition,” he said.

And that transition, he said, is moving toward well-defined goals. For example, he cited a successful tiny elementary school in the San Fernando Valley that has a principal aided by only one four-hour administrative assistant. The principal still has to fill out all the same paperwork that a larger high school must complete, but she answers the front office phone if the staff person is away.

“I want to get clerical staff back to the norms of five to seven years ago,” Flecha said.

That also includes renewing full janitorial staff. When Flecha recently told principals that they would each have a plant managers back at the school, he heard their cheers first-hand.

“I don’t want them to have to hear complaints that no one emptied the trash,” he said. “And it would be nice to have floors mopped up every once in a while.”

He said he sees his job as president to lobby to restore the cuts of the past. That includes library aides and two to three campus aides for every school.

He takes credit for getting the campus aides back in the schools. They’re the people usually wearing yellow vests who sign in visitors at the front of the school and keep order on the playground.

The good news coming into his job is the UTLA agreement that gives everyone a 10 percent rate increase. AALA benefits from that through a “me-too” contract arrangement that replicates improvements won by other unions.

Perez was on the health benefits committee, and he wants to assure that strides made in that area will continue. And, he wants all administrators to be better educated about their contracts and the collective bargaining process.

Meanwhile, he said, he hopes to “keep the institutional memory of the association created by Dr. Perez and keep negotiating in good faith with the district.”

AALA Judith Perez makes her final appearance before the LA Unified school board on June 9, 2015.

Judith Perez‘s 46 years with LA Unified came about through a random encounter in her early 20s.

“I was not one of those people who knew at age five I would be a teacher,” she told LA School Report.

After moving to Los Angeles in her early 20s and bouncing around a few unsatisfying jobs, she ran into, of all people, her old college roommate from the University of Texas at Langer’s Deli on Alvarado Street. Perez didn’t even know her friend was living in LA.

They sat down to catch up, and it turned out her friend was a teacher at LA Unified and loved the job. Intrigued, Perez decided to enroll in the same USC credentialing program her friend had taken and before long started work as a teacher with the district.

That was in the fall of 1969.

After 18 years of teaching, 22 years as an administrator and six as president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, Perez will be stepping down and retiring on July 1. She will be replaced by Juan Flecha.

Perez said she thought the biggest ways the district has changed are the expanded opportunities for women and the increase in collaboration between principals and teachers.

“If you look at the district as a whole, then and now, it was very difficult to promote women within the system outside of the classroom. The leadership of the district was male. Virtually everything was,” Perez said.

She added, “It was a much smaller district in terms of the feeling of it. People tended to know each other more. It was a much more relaxed setting. School started at 9 a.m. The hours of the day were shorter. This was before teachers were unionized. As a teacher, I had a lot of responsibilities outside of the classroom for supervision and many other things at the school. The feeling was different. It was an environment that did not promote employees questioning anything, particularly teachers.”

Today, likely from teachers unionizing, Perez said she thinks schools function more as a collaborative effort.

“(LAUSD) was organized in a very traditional manner. The principal was in charge and decided what would be done and how it would be done. I found over time, for a lot of reasons, that has changed, and schools are far more collaborative now,” she said. “There’s much more attention to creating a collaborative culture where all the people at the school are involved in the decision making, and there is much more focus on the students now than there was then.”

Unfortunately for Perez, one of the programs she has been a big advocate for — the School Readiness and Language Development Program (SRLDP) — looks to be doomed, as Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced plans this month to cancel it entirely. However, he wants to expand the transitional kindergarten program, a spoonful of sugar that seems to have helped the medicine go down, even for Perez.

“I think that the current plan to expand transitional kindergarten is a move in the right direction,” she said. “It does not address the need of every child to have early education experiences of high quality, but I do think its a good step, and I do think that it will help children in SLRDP classes.”

Perez was among the program’s original teachers 40 years ago and spent much of her last appearance before the LA Unified school board on June 9 advocating for the program. (Check the video below to see her remarks to the board.)

Cortines announced SRLDP’s planned cancellation just a few days later. Perez did say she felt that within the district and even nationwide, the idea of universal early education appears to be taking hold like never before.

“It’s fascinating, all other wealthy nations, and some that are not so wealthy, have free preschool programs for children,” Perez said. “We know what the research says about it, we know it is essential, but I do agree that there is national interest in that now more than ever before, and that makes me very optimistic.”

As far as retiring, Perez said she “has never done it before” and isn’t sure if she knows how to. She has plenty of upcoming plans, including consulting part time for AALA, spending more time with her grandsons, traveling and writing.

“The rest of it,” she said, “remains to be seen.”

The agreement is set to be voted on for ratification by members of AALA — which represents principals and other district administrators — between June 5 and June 9 and would then need to be approved by the LA Unified school board.

If the members ratify the agreement, the school board would vote on its final approval in August, and members could expect the raise and backpay to be reflected in their September paycheck, according to the AALA newsletter.

The negotiations on AALA’s contract were reopened after the district reached an agreement on a new three-year contract with the LA teachers union, UTLA, that gave them a 10.4 percent raise. AALA and several other unions that represent district workers have so-called “me too” clauses that entitle them to receive comparable treatment should one union receive a raise higher than others.

AALA provided some details on the agreement in its newsletter. They include:

That’s the view of Ben Austin, political director for Students Matter, the Vergara people, and founder of Parent Revolution, the trigger law people.

“The politics of education reform in Los Angeles the past two decades largely rises and falls with the politics of the sitting mayor,” he said. “When you have a reformer in a mayor like Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa, you have a stronger reform movement. When the mayor is disengaged in education, like Jim Hahn and Eric Garcetti, the movement tends to go into hibernation.”

And that’s why, he said, “the stakes are high” for Rodriguez, founder of a charter school and the antithesis of the incumbent he defeated, Bennett Kayser, UTLA’s closest ally on the board, who generally voted against charters for spooling money out of traditional public schools.

“If Ref hadn’t pulled this out, the reform movement would have gone back into political hibernation for the rest of Garcetti’s term,” Austin said. “He showed that it’s possible to win against UTLA without a reform mayor.”

LAUSD reaches deal with clerical employees

LA Unified has reached a three-year contract deal with the union that represents its clerical and office workers.

The deal with the California School Employees Association Local Chapter 500, covering 3,900 employees, includes a 2 percent salary increase in 2014-15, a 2 percent increase in 2015-16, with a living wage adjustment to $13 an hour for those who make less than $13 an hour; and a 2.5 percent in 2016-17, with a living wage adjustment to $15 an hour for those who make less than $15 an hour, according to a district press release.

“I want to thank CSEA for their professionalism and dedication to our students. This agreement continues to honor our joint commitment to serve the students in our District while at the same time respecting the rights of our employees,” Vivian Ekchian, LA Unified’s chief labor negotiator, said in a statement

The deal requires ratification by union members and the school board.

AALA to start “me too” negotiations

Speaking of union negations. . .

just because both the school board and UTLA have ratified their three-year contract agreement that includes a 10.4 percent salary raise, that doesn’t mean negotiations connected to the issue are over.

The district has several “me too” agreements with other unions that require the district to improve their contracts. The district reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) last year that includes a “me too” clause.

In its weekly newsletter, AALA told its members that negotiations with the district would begin next week and that it expects “that AALA will receive comparable treatment, not necessarily, the same treatment as another group of employees. Therefore, AALA members will not automatically be granted what was negotiated with UTLA. We must return to the bargaining table and work out an agreement that is comparable. We anticipate that our negotiations will be complete by the end of the school year.”

The Mini-Urban Challenge is a national event that challenges high school students to work in teams to design, build and program a robotic vehicle built from LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kits that can accurately navigate autonomously through a model city utilizing avoidance collision and path-finding algorithms, LA Unified said on its Facebook page. The competition is intended to expose students to the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The event is sponsored by the Doolittle Institute, the Air Force Research Laboratory and John Deere.

Deasy’s salary turns heads at AALA

The Los Angeles Daily News recently reported that former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy made nearly $440,000 in 2014 in salary. The number certainly turned a few heads and earned rebukes from UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and board member Bennett Kayser.

In its weekly newsletter, the Associated Administrator’s of Los Angeles joined in and tossed out a few barbs of its own.

The measures would move the city and school board elections to November so that they would align with the more high-profile national and statewide elections, a move designed to increase voter turnout. LA City Council and LAUSD elections would be held on the same day as the presidential election beginning in 2020 and with mayoral, citywide and gubernatorial elections in 2022.

The flip side to the argument is that LAUSD and city candidates could receive less attention and would have to raise more money to get noticed amid the more high-profile elections.

So what does Angelenos’ leader think? He has no opinion.

As he told the Los Angeles Daily News, “I can see both sides of the issue. Sometimes it’s not cut clear. I take a position when it’s very clear to me … I think this is something that should be in the hands of the voters.”

Garcetti did add that because he could benefit from the change, as it would add 1.5 years to the mayor elected in 2017, he didn’t feel he should weigh in on it.

Premature cheers from AALA over testing 

 Magnolia Science Academy before county board

The LA Unified school board denied the five-year renewal application of Magnolia Science Academy in Bell in November, basing their ruling on a report by the district’s inspector general that found the charter management group is “fiscally insolvent.”

However, Magnolia has a second chance at life through the LA County Board of Education, and its application for renewal was scheduled to be heard at the board’s meeting on Tuesday.

The school was facing an uphill battle, as the County Superintendent of Schools Arturo Delgado had recommended denying the application. The board did vote, but it was to simply grant a 30-day extension as it asked for more information from Magnolia.

The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles and LA Unified reached an agreement last week to consolidate two positions into one. The role of “assistant principal” and “instructional specialist” as of July 1 will be merged into the role of “assistant principal elementary” or “assistant principal secondary.”

The change was explained by AALA in its weekly newsletter: “APs and ISs have similar duties and responsibilities at school sites and often are used interchangeably. However, APs earn seniority while instructional specialists are temporary advisers and do not earn seniority. ISs may be released from their positions at any time with no recourse. Some superintendents have encouraged principals to use the budget process to replace APs with ISs which has destabilized schools, caused job insecurity and decreased the number of APs throughout the District. Consolidation will afford greater protections to all while stabilizing school staffs.”

Caputo-Pearl on KABC 790

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the LA Unified teachers union, UTLA, appeared yesterday morning on the KABC 790 radio show McIntire In the Morning to give his response to a sharp letter from LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines that criticized the union’s contract demands as unreasonable and a path to severe layoffs in the district.

There weren’t any huge surprises in Caputo-Pearl’s comments, but his appearance on the show along with the Cortines letter certainly illustrates how both sides are ramping up their PR campaigns as contract negotiations appear to be stalling.

“We were very surprised and disappointed in his letter… We think the letter is just scare tactics,” Caputo-Pearl said on the show. He also added, “[Cortines] comes across saying our demands aren’t fiscally possible, when we’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars that have been put into the iPads, the MiSiS, unnecessary legal costs, we’ve got a bunch of six-figure salaries still hanging out downtown that came in under John Deasy.”

Negotiations resume today.

Board election boiling down again to unions vs. charters 

A quick look at the money coming into the LA Unified board district 5 race shows that it’s fast building up to the usual battle between the teachers union and charter schools.

Among independent expenditures, the teachers union, UTLA, has invested $4,601.52 on behalf of incumbent Bennett Kayser while the political action committee for the California Charter Schools Association has spent $28,574.80 on behalf of Ref Rodriguez, a charter executive.

So far, neither of the other contested races, in districts 3 and 7, has drawn any outside spending, according to the LA City Ethics Commission. But it’s still early. The election is March 3.

Heroes in Education Awards Dinner

LAUSD school board President Richard Vladovic is hosting the 2015 Heroes in Education Awards Dinner tonight at 6 p.m. tonight at the Carson Civic Center. The event will “honor an array of individuals including teachers, administrators, parents, custodians, community partners and volunteers from across LAUSD’s 7th Board District who have distinguished themselves in supporting quality education and student achievement,” according to a district press release.

This is the first such event in District 7 since 2008.

LA Unified leads country in teachers earning top certification

The district said last week 128 of its teachers earned the profession’s highest credential. It was the most in the country for the second year in the row.

The credential awarded by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards typically takes up to two years to complete, according to a district press release.

“I’m very proud of the dedicated teachers we have and their commitment to demonstrate their expertise and to push themselves to a higher level,” Peggy Taylor Presley, who directs the Teacher Support Unit for L.A. Unified, said in a statement.

Meatless Monday campaign 

Actress Holland Roden, who co-stars in in the MTV show “Teen Wolf,” has launched a Meatless Monday poster campaign for the Humane Society of the United States with an unveiling at Hamilton High School, according to LAUSD’s Facebook page, which added that the district “supports the program by offering a meatless menu items on Mondays as well as a daily vegetarian option.”

Launched by the Aspen Institute and the Bezos Family Foundation,the Aspen Challenge provides a forum for high school students and teachers to take on some of the world’s most pressing issues. Equipped with tools and support, teams design a solution to their selected challenge and seven weeks later present solutions on stage in a daylong competition. Teams are selected to advance and showcase their work at the Aspen Ideas Festival, according to the Aspen Challenge’s website.

Check out the YouTube video below for highlights from last year’s challenge.

Rock stars jam for LAUSD arts

A lineup of major rock stars, including Slash, Duff McKagan and Richie Sambora, played a benefit concert last Monday at The Roxy in West Hollywood to raise money for Adopt the Arts, a charity dedicated to funding music programs at LA Unified elementary schools.

The concert, which was dedicated to honoring music legends Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Butch Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band, raised over $106,000, reported Blabbermouth.net.

Adopt the Arts is a non-profit co-founded by Matt Sorum, who has been the drummer for Guns-N-Roses, Velvet Revolver and The Cult. Click here to learn more about the charity, and click on the video link below to see a clip of the Roxy show.

AALA president retiring 

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) President Judith Perez will be retiring when her term ends on June 30. Perez made the announcement at AALA’s executive board meeting on January 12, according to AALA’s newsletter.

“In June, I will complete 46 years of service as a teacher and administrator in LAUSD. It has been challenging, exciting, sometimes frustrating, but always rewarding. I look forward to keeping busy with a variety of interesting projects,” Perez said, according to the newsletter.

SoCal students share ideas for ‘Future Cities’

The Wildwood School in Los Angeles is hosting a regional meet Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the Future City competition, a national event in which students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, design, and build cities of the future. This year’s theme is “Feeding Future Cities,” and an estimated 40,000 middle school students from from 37 regions around the country are expected to participate.

Winners of the regional will move on to the national finals in Washington D.C. on Feb. 15-18, with the top prize a trip to U.S Space Camp.

Bob Bravo’s Podcast

In his first podcast of 2015, LA Unified’s Local Instructional Service Center-South Superintendent Bob Bravo interviewed Dana Bowden and Kate Beaudet of Powerful Choices Education Consulting, which trained some LAUSD teachers over the winter break on teaching writer’s workshop. Click here to listen to the podcast.

Among those that found the extra bump in their bank accounts are members of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), which includes school principals, assistant principals, administrators as well as maintenance, operations and food services managers.

According the district, school administrators can expect a check ranging from $1,100 to $2,700 depending on their pay.

“Both AALA bargaining units negotiated the 2 percent bonus and are pleased to have received it,” union president Judy Perez told LA School Report. “While 2 percent is not ideal, we appreciate the fact that we did reach an agreement with the district on compensation for the next three years.”

The California School Employees Association and Teamsters Local Union 572 reached the same salary agreement with the district. All four groups also received a 2 percent raise in August, plus a 4.5 percent increase over the next two years.

In all, LA Unified officials report the cost of the bonuses is $12.4 million.

“All of our employees made sacrifices during the ‘Great Recession’ and we are extremely grateful…We know 2 percent isn’t nearly enough to show our appreciation for all the dedicated services to our students, but it is a step in the right direction,” the district said in a statement.

The district is still in contract talks with the teachers union, UTLA, with the two sides reporting little progress. They are leagues apart on the salary issue; UTLA is demanding a 17.6 percent salary increase while the district has not budged from the offer it made with almost everyone else – a 2 percent bonus, 2 percent salary increase for this year and next, and a 2.5 percent boost in 2016-17.

That was the deal accepted by AALA. But despite the three-year contract, Perez says, it plans to re-open salary negotiations next year to obtain improved compensation.

“It’s not the end of the story. We are going to keep working on getting more for our members.”

The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) overwhelming ratified new labor contracts with LA Unified for two groups of employees, ensuring that school leaders will remain on campus even as district teachers continue negotiations and threaten to walk off the job.

“It’s as decisive as it can be,” AALA president Judy Perez, said of the votes.

“Our members have been eagerly awaiting a raise for seven years. They recognize the district has been in severe financial straits due to the recession, and we’re glad we can move forward,” she told LA School Report.

Nearly 90 percent of active principals and assistant principals voted to approve their new contract, giving them a 2 percent lump sum payment for last year, a 2 percent raise for the school year that’s about to begin and next year, and a 2.5 percent increase for 2016-17. Among district managers, 95 percent agreed to the same deal.

The district announced new contracts with two other labor groups.

Police Officers, Detectives and School Safety Officers who belong to the Los Angeles School Police Association (LASPA), agreed to a three year salary raise deal starting in 2014-15; and Teamsters Local 572, whose members include school administrative assistants, cafeteria managers, area operations supervisors and bus supervisors approved a similar contract with a bonus payment for the last year.

The specific terms of those deals were not announced.

“This is terrific news,” the district’s Chief Labor Negotiator Vivian Ekchian said, referring to all the new agreements. “It means that the membership is in tune with the District’s message of putting students first.”

So far, LAUSD has reached accords with nine bargaining units. That leaves UTLA as the largest of the district’s labor partners without a contract.

In a statement sent out today district officials said, “We look forward to UTLA leadership continuing to join District negotiators at the table to make this a reality.”

David Tokofsky

An earlier version of this story said Tokofsky was leaving AALA, the principals union. He is not.

David Tokofsky, a former LA Unified school board member and a strategist for the school administrators union, has joined Englander, Knabe & Allen, a lobbying and public relations firm.

He is expected to help grow the firm’s education practice.

After teaching 12 years at John Marshall High School, Tokofsky served on the district school board for more than a decade. More recently, he has worked for the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), which represents principals and other school administrators.

“I am happy to associate with the leading public affairs firm in Los Angeles,” Tokofsky said in a press release. “The teamwork at EKA in all policy arenas is the type of professionalism I have loved in the field of education.”

Most of the issues before the board are much less contentious than those addressed a week ago. They include:

• Board member Bennett Kayser’s effort to form a task force charged with replacing the district’s potentially asthma-triggering cleaning supplies will come up for a vote.  It is the only resolution for action on the agenda.

• A plan for a different task force will be introduced by Monica Garcia. This time one that, if passed, would develop a district-wide plan within three months for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Education to be implemented in the Fall of 2015.

• And Steve Zimmer has drafted a motion for phasing in the data resulting from the administration of the Smarter Balanced tests now that LA Unified “will sunset the use of API scores as a measurement and evaluation tool for schools communities and all other assessment purposes.”

In a closed session meeting the six members will address the usual: existing litigation, personnel dismissals, and student discipline cases. They will also meet with representatives of various labor groups who are entering into negotiations with the district on new collective bargaining contracts. Among them are the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA), Los Angeles School Police Association (LASPOA), Service Employees International Union Local 99 (SEIU), and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).

After the meeting, the same board members will reconvene in the afternoon. for a special joint meeting of Committee of the Whole and the Adult Education Committee of the Los Angeles Community College District.

Much of the discussion will focus on Assembly Bill 86, an effort to coordinate public schools and community colleges to serve the needs of adult education students.

For board agenda, click here.

For board materials, click here.

LAUSD Supt. John Deasy unveiling budget

The budget proposal LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy will present to the school board tomorrow has won lukewarm responses from three of the district’s biggest labor partners — the teachers union (UTLA), the principals union (AALA) and the support workers union (SEIU Local 99).

After reviewing documents the district released on Friday, each group expressed cautious optimism that Deasy’s fiscal vision for the next three years — boosted by new money from the state — is heading in the right direction but with more that needs to be done.

In short, because the proposal includes new hires and at least a suggestion of raises for current employees, the unions viewed the proposal as potentially good news for their members.

“Superintendent John Deasy’s proposed 2014-2015 budget does not go far enough to help the District’s students or educators, but it is a start,” UTLA said in a statement that seemed to capture the consensus response.

The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents principals and other school administrators, said, “Based on the limited information AALA has to date, it appears the superintendent will bring budget recommendations to the board that will begin to restore services and personnel which are in support of schools and students which were markedly reduced and eliminated over the last six years.” And the SEIU Local 99 said, “While we are encouraged by the District’s strong investment in serving students with special needs, we urge Board Members to build standards in the LCAP to ensure that all students can learn in a clean, safe, healthy and supportive environment.”

LCAP stands for Local Control and Accountability Plan, which every district is developing to account for the new state money.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, who is facing UTLA President Warren Fletcher in a runoff election for union president this month, echoed the moderate tone of his union’s response and called attention to greater needs, saying, “As we urgently try to address the social and emotional needs of our students, prevent drop-out, and prepare students for college in an era of ever-more-restricted college access, LAUSD remains profoundly below the national average in counselors, nurses, librarians, and social workers per student.”

Deasy’s formal presentation of the budget to the six board members tomorrow kicks off a 10-week period in which lobbying, debate and compromise will shape the district’s $6.8 billion budget. It includes an extra $332 million that state requires be spent on helping children from low-income families, foster youth and English learners.

While the budget proposal includes hiring 1,210 new employees — and 3,417 over the next three years — it allows for pay raises but omits any specific numbers, largely because that’s a matter for contract negotiations between the district and its unions.

The UTLA statement took note of that, saying, “What is conspicuously missing is any significant reduction in class sizes across the District. And, this budget does not include any proposed salary increases for employees who have not had a raise in 7 years.”

Caputo-Pearl said the absence of a specific pay raises was “a dramatic blow to retaining excellent educators and stabilizing schools, and to the idea of fairness and equity.”

The budget is the biggest item on tomorrow’s agenda, and a debate among board members is likely to continue until June 17, the deadline for a final LCAP and budget.

Complicating the process is the very real possibility that the debate will play out without an equal voice from District 1. If no candidate wins a majority in the June 3 special election, a winner will not be declared until after an Aug. 12 runoff.

District 1 has a non-voting advisory representative sitting with the board, Sylvia Rousseau, and her input will carry weight in deliberations. But she cannot vote.

Besides the budget, the board has the usual long list of items to consider tomorrow, including a possible vote on a resolution from Steve Zimmer, calling for a non-voting student voice to the board by mid-2015, as part of a wider effort to get input from students on matters before the board.

George McKenna

George McKenna, one of the seven candidates running for LA Unified’s open District 1 board seat, picked up a strong endorsement today as the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the union representing principals and their assistants, said it would support him in the race.

The endorsement means that AALA will contribute $1,100, the maximum allowed, to his campaign.

“George McKenna demonstrated that he understands the needs of students and how to work with principals, assistant principals and teachers in meeting student needs,” said Judith Perez, president of the union. “From his background and experience as a teacher, a principal and a superintendent, he has a knowledge of educational issues and leadership, and he’s not afraid to speak up on behalf of students.”

AALA interviewed nine of the original 13 candidates for the board seat, including the seven who have qualified for the ballot. Each candidate was asked the same 11 questions, Perez said. The endorsement represents approval by two panels of AALA members.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the June 3 special election, Perez said AALA would interview those heading into the Aug. 12 runoff and consider another endorsement.