LA teachers sit in over layoffs

[dcsmart]

Sarah Knopp, a public school teacher in Los Angeles, reports on her union's sit-in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs.

FIFTY TEACHERS along with parent supporters disrupted a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board meeting March 10 and occupied the boardroom in an attempt to stop a vote on sending out "reduction in force" notices to almost 9,000 district employees.

Claiming a $718 million budget shortfall, the district is threatening to lay off teachers--both permanent and non-permanent--as well as counselors, administrators, custodial and support staff, and other district employees.

The board, led by Monica Garcia--an ally of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa--slunk out of the boardroom and into an undisclosed location somewhere in the building. There, on display to the public only via a closed-circuit broadcast to the cafeteria of the building, they voted 5-2 to authorize Superintendent Ramon Cortines to send out the notices. Board members Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic dissented.

For the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) members who participated, the action was transformative.
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When the school board left the room, the media stayed. School police were ordered not to arrest teacher-occupiers while the media was still present, so we were never arrested. As UTLA President A.J. Duffy explained to reporters and participants:

Some people say that what we are doing today is improper. Was it improper when they did it in the civil rights movement? Was it improper when César Chávez used civil disobedience to force Gallo wine to meet the demands of the field workers? Isn't this how India won its independence from the British Empire? In fact, this whole country that we love was born out of civil disobedience!
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FULL ARTICLE
http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/12/la-teachers-sit-in

[AnneD]

1. People need to get over this idea....

of what is proper and what is not or else nothing worthwhile will ever get done. They are trying to get rid of the unions here and our appearance at the board meeting is being called improper. Well I work for the district, live and vote in the district and I am entitled to be at a board meeting whether I am a union member or not.

[dcsmart]

2. i forgot to include the full article in the first post N/T