Pact on struggling schools in Los Angeles

United Teachers of Los Angeles reached a tentative agreement with its school district that will ensure stability for struggling schools by virtually ending a policy under which charter operators take over low-performing and new campuses and dismantle the current school staffs.

“The agreement recognizes that for school change to work, schools must be stabilized and given the time and space to improve their programs without the threat of takeover,” the union said in a statement.

Individual schools under the new pact would have many of the same freedoms as charters in choosing materials and hiring staff and teachers. The agreement allows for a variety of governance models, to be determined by local staff, as well as a mechanism for waiving board policies and contract provisions on curriculum, assessment, professional development, hiring of staff (including the principal), teacher assignments, student discipline and more. Waivers would have to be approved by a supermajority vote of a school’s faculty, similar to New York City’s school-based option.

The pact also calls for targeting high-needs schools with such school-based assistance as professional-development intervention teams.

The agreement reverses a two-year-old policy known as Public School Choice where charter schools and other outside organizations were allowed to compete with groups of district teachers and administrators to gain control of the lowest-achieving schools and new campuses. Under the new deal, charter schools lose that opportunity for at least three years.

Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30
United Teachers of Los Angeles statement, Nov. 29