“The messages we are required to send [home to parents] are inaccurate and untruthful. Everything is not copacetic at all of our schools. Some schools have over 200 students with [just] one credentialed person.”

- Juan A. Flecha, President
Associated Administrators of Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) could have shut down the schools when their teachers walked off the job and then made up the missing days after the strike was over. Instead, they kept the schools open and encouraged parents to send their children into an environment where they admitted they might not be safe. To make matters worse, the School Board weakened the rules regarding background checks for volunteers just as the strike was about to begin.

“[If there is a strike] these students’ health and safety would be in jeopardy. They could get hurt, hurt themselves, or hurt others.”

- Exhibit A in LAUSD Court Filing

With their teachers set to walk out of their classrooms, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) needs bodies. In order to get the upper hand in a strike, the District will need to keep their schools open and to do that they only need to meet one requirement - they must keep the adult to student ratio below legal limits. The students do not actually have to be learning anything, they just have to be in the school collecting ADA (Average Daily Attendance) revenue from the state.

Unfortunately for the LAUSD School Board, District officials have not been able to hire enough substitutes who are willing to cross the picket line. Therefore, they used a long-running complaint about the onerous process that parents face when offering to volunteer on campus to force a vote to make it easier to get bodies on campus during the strike. While the Board at first rejected the change, Superintendent Beutner convinced them to take another vote. Before they did, I made public comment on this issue:

“If I asked my teachers in my old school for help, they wouldn’t worry about it. They worried more about their pay.”

- 4th Grade Charter School Student

Jose, a fourth-grade student at a charter school, was so nervous as he spoke before the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board that he was fighting back tears. The tension in the gallery was thick as the audience held its breath for the young boy. Board President Monica Garcia intervened and suggested that he take a deep breath. The founder of his charter school gave him a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She also had an ear to ear smile on her face.

“Privatizing forces have appropriated the language of civil rights and social justice movements, while simultaneously gutting our schools of resources and selling our schools away to corporate-run charter companies.”

- Reclaim Our Schools LA

As noted by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board members in their joint statement dated August 21, 2018, “students and their families will bear the brunt of a strike action.” Many parents of the hundreds of thousands of students who attend District schools are scrambling to make arrangements for their children knowing that if schools remain open, LAUSD lawyers have admitted that “the health and safety of students” would be threatened and a normal academic program will be impossible to maintain. Students who depend on meals delivered by the schools are especially vulnerable as the district has not stated how these programs would be handled if schools are forced to close.

“In addition to threatening the health and safety of students, a strike would also...”

- Exhibit A in LAUSD Court Filing

For over 25 years the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has been unable to satisfy the terms of a Consent Decree meant to ensure that students with special education needs receive the education that they are entitled to by law. Yet when faced with a strike by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the District has suddenly shown a concern “that students with disabilities not be deprived of legally-mandated services.” Therefore, lawyers for the District asked the court to enjoin “UTLA, its officers, and representatives from causing, encouraging, condoning, or participating in any strike, slowdown, or other work stoppage by any UTLA bargaining unit member who provides educational services to LAUSD special education students.”

“Whereas, The District is committed to creating the most enriching academic environment for all students, which includes a reduction in class-size;”

- LAUSD School Board

On June 18, 2013, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) School Board voted for a resolution that directed their “Superintendent to examine the feasibility of implementing class-size reduction for the 2014-15 academic calendar and to develop a long term, class-size reduction strategy that will yield positive academic results”. In the over five years that have passed since the resolution should have been implemented, the District has had four different Superintendents. The class size ratio has remained exactly the same.

“When we say $1.4 billion for special ed and we only have $700 million from the federal government and the other $700 million are coming from every child in this district, I’m not about defunding special ed. I just know that we have a serious issue to [sic] how can we serve our own kids?”

- LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is not always a welcoming place to a person who needs accommodations. According to a report released on October 25, 2017, a child with a physical disability would be unable to enter through the main entrance of one-fifth of the schools within the District. Once inside, they could not access all areas above the first floor in a quarter of all facilities. “Fewer than one-third of schools have accessible restrooms on campus.”

“Austin Beutner you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side.”

- LAUSD Parents and Students

As if the responsibility for educating 694,096 students was not enough, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) also owns and operates a television station. KLCS is part of the Public Broadcasting System and one of the Los Angeles homes for Sesame Street. It is also responsible for broadcasting and live-streaming public meetings held by the LAUSD Board. For many working parents, this is the only way to oversee the actions of their School Board.

While others struggled to flee the Borderline Bar and Grill, Ventura County Sergeant Ron Helus and a still unnamed California Highway Patrol officer ran towards danger. As Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub told reporters: “Both Sgt. Helus and the CHP officer knowingly and willingly went into what can only be described as a combat situation, risking their own lives to save many others”. The two officers were the ultimate good guys with guns; Helus was a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and the CHP officer was a nine-year veteran of the CHP and had a military background. At the end of the encounter with a mass-murderer, the CHP officer pulled Helus’ dying body out of the building. The coroner later revealed that it was his gun that likely delivered the bullet that ultimately ended Helus’ life. Neither police officer managed to hit the shooter.

“The District representatives were not helpful in suggesting remedies”

- Cheryl Ortega

Under what circumstances should the police be called on a five-year-old child? According to parents at Mayberry Elementary School in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles, the principal has called the Los Angeles Police Department about students under her charge on six different occasions. In one incident, a kindergarten student was questioned by police after he “pulled his pants down to a playmate”. When the boy’s mother, Britney Ingram, attempted to find out what was happening, she was told by the officers that the matter was a “confidential problem”, that she could not “be present while they questioned her son” and “that if her son did not testify they would take him to the police station.” Another parent who attempted to record the events was removed from the school at the direction of the principal despite the fact that she “was a registered [school] visitor at the time this happened”.