Utla

Re "Wake-Up Call for LAUSD," June 8: Every morning, nearly 45,000 teachers take their places at the head of Los Angeles classrooms. We do not need wake-up calls or ice water in the face to know the system is facing an unprecedented crisis, and United Teachers-Los Angeles is hardly in a "delusional trance," concerned only with salaries and the right to pick classroom assignments. For nearly two years, UTLA members have done everything possible to end business as usual at LAUSD. Our biggest victory for students and taxpayers as well as teachers was a contract raising salaries from the bottom to the middle of the pack.

The leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union recently conducted a survey among its members asking if they had confidence in Los Angeles Unified Supt. John Deasy. Although it was highly unusual for the union to mount this kind of frontal attack on the superintendent, the maneuver wouldn't have raised eyebrows had it not been for the union's full-court press to influence the vote. Not only did the union send out misleading information about Deasy's record, it also posted unflattering, juvenile caricatures of him on its website.

In your article, "LAUSD Strikes Back, Makes Notes of Teacher's Time Off" (Aug. 18), the district tried to pretend that the released-time, teacher officers of UTLA are part of the "vacationgate" scandal plaguing LAUSD. We expect the district to mislead in an attempt to damage the public image of teachers. Not only is the district's claim that the UTLA officers have weeks of "banked vacation" and illness time wrong, it also mixes apples and oranges. The UTLA officers do not receive either vacation or illness time from the LAUSD.

The leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union is roiled over whether its officials made a private deal with a Board of Education candidate whom critics view as an ally of anti-labor forces. The dispute centers on an alleged understanding worked out between candidate Antonio Sanchez and Gregg Solkovits, a union vice president. According to people with knowledge of the matter, Solkovits has said that Sanchez, if he wins, would let United Teachers Los Angeles choose his chief of staff.

Play somewhere else Re "Looking for that common ground," Feb. 21 Everyone has the right to visit our public lands, but no one has the right to abuse them. This includes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who last weekend traveled to Algodones Dunes to try his hand at driving a dune buggy designed to roar over sand dunes at breakneck speeds. The Algodones Dunes area used to be home to a variety of rare species. It is also considered to be one of the most dangerous off-road areas in the nation, with numerous deaths and injuries that result from out-of-control driving.

Taught a lesson Re "Teachers' choice," Opinion, March 13 I am a newly unemployed L.A. Unified teacher. United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy certainly does not speak for me! Duffy and the leadership of UTLA sold out me and many others by refusing to negotiate furlough days instead of teacher cuts. UTLA refused to show solidarity with its newest teachers. So much for "we are all in this together." Duffy and UTLA are all talk. Unemployed teachers and families like mine are suffering because UTLA was unwilling to stand up for its newest teachers.

Authorities Thursday identified a body found on the coast near Montecito as that of a kayaker missing since Jan. 25. With a friend, Daniel Zembrosky, 24, of Santa Ana tried to swim ashore from a capsized kayak, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office. The friend made it to land and called for help from his father's home nearby. Rescue personnel searched futilely for two days but did not recover Zembrosky's body until it was spotted in the ocean Wednesday.

The leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union is roiled over whether its officials made a private deal with a Board of Education candidate whom critics view as an ally of anti-labor forces. The dispute centers on an alleged understanding worked out between candidate Antonio Sanchez and Gregg Solkovits, a union vice president. According to people with knowledge of the matter, Solkovits has said that Sanchez, if he wins, would let United Teachers Los Angeles choose his chief of staff.

In Pittsburgh, according to an Aspen Institute report, the local teachers union and the school district have gone from "sitting across the table and seeing the other as a problem to sitting on the same side working together to solve problems they both identified as critical. " In Florida's Hillsborough County, the teachers union worked with district administrators on reforms that have included a longer school day, merit-based pay and an evaluation system for teachers that takes student test scores into account.

The union representing Los Angeles teachers is pursuing a legal challenge to a key early step in creating a new teacher evaluation system that includes the use of student scores on standardized tests, union officials said Friday. United Teachers Los Angeles filed an unfair practice charge Friday with the regional office of the state Public Employment Relations Board. The union asserts that the Los Angeles Unified School District violated its legal obligation to "engage in good faith negotiation with UTLA regarding the development of … performance evaluation procedures and any related impacts.

Los Angeles teachers overwhelmingly expressed “no confidence” in L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy in  the first vote of its kind in the nation's second-largest school system. Over the weeklong referendum that ended Wednesday, more than 90% of teachers expressed disapproval of Deasy, with about 17,700 of the union's more than 30,000 members casting ballots, the teachers union announced Thursday. The superintendent called the vote “nonsense” even before knowing its outcome, and a group of civic leaders rallied to Deasy's defense.

To the cynically tuned ear, two remarks by Los Angeles Councilman Eric Garcetti in recent days seem to suggest the perils of a mayoral candidacy dependent, at least in some measure, on support from United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents local teachers. The first came in a debate moderated by former Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner, who had considered running for mayor himself. Beutner tried to pin down Garcetti about whom the councilman is supporting in a school board race that features incumbent Monica Garcia, generally regarded as a supporter of reform, against four opponents, three of whom are backed by the union.

The young staff at the Alexander Science Center has been hard hit by seniority-based layoffs, the main factor behind a turnover of at least 28 teachers in the last five years - this in a school with a faculty of about 28. Teachers say that the students at the USC-adjacent campus have suffered from the lack of stability and that the faculty has felt frustrated and voiceless. But now, three instructors from the Alexander science school are among the freshman class of delegates to the House of Representatives for United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union in the L.A. Unified School District.

It started out as a way to make sure students don't begin their school day hungry, a factor in lower academic achievement. Since Los Angeles Unified began serving breakfast in classrooms at 20 schools in January, the percentage of children involved has zoomed to 84%, according to David Binkle, the district's interim director of food services. That compares with 29% of students who participate in the district's regular breakfast program in the cafeteria before school starts, he said.

We're teachers who believe that teacher evaluation, including the use of reliable test data, can be good for students and for teachers. Yes, yes, we know we're not supposed to exist. But we do, and there are a lot more of us. In February the membership of United Teachers Los Angeles will vote on a teacher-led initiative urging union leaders to negotiate a new teacher evaluation system for L.A. Unified. The vote will allow teachers' voices to be heard above the din of warring political figures.

It's easy to see why United Teachers Los Angeles doesn't like the new Public School Choice policy at L.A. Unified, which allows outside groups to apply to take over about 250 new or underperforming schools. Those groups are likely to include a large number of charter school operators that would hire their own teachers rather than sign a contract with the teachers union. What's less understandable is why UTLA would minimize its chances of keeping some of the schools within the district, along with their union jobs.

Los Angeles teachers overwhelmingly expressed "no confidence" in L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy in the first vote of its kind in the nation's second-largest school system. In the weeklong referendum that ended Wednesday, 91% of the participating teachers expressed disapproval of Deasy, with about 17,700 of the union's more than 32,000 members casting ballots, the teachers union announced Thursday. The superintendent called the vote "nonsense" even before knowing its outcome, and a group of civic leaders rallied to Deasy's defense.