As scores of Los Angeles teachers formed picket lines for the second day of a massive strike, school district officials said student attendance plummeted and that the district lost $15 million on Day 1 of the classroom walkout. The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union reported that 30,000 public school teachers signed in at picket lines formed around the city on Monday and that more than 50,000 people -- including 10,000 parents, students and community supporters -- participated in a rain-soaked march from the UTLA headquarters to Los Angeles City Hall. Union officials said that just as many teachers hit picket lines on Tuesday, for Day 2 of the strike, in the second largest school district in the nation. It's the first teacher strike in Los Angeles in 30 years. "We are going to win this fight for basic respect for educators and basic respect for our schools," UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told striking educators Tuesday morning. "Take pride in your teaching. Take pride in being a teacher, take pride in being an educator and take pride in the organizing that you are doing for your rights right now." The Los Angeles Unified School District reported that student attendance at schools fell on Monday to 141,631 in a district of nearly 600,000 students. District officials said the number of student absences was based on daily attendance records of 1,186 of the district's 1,240 schools. At a news conference Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner said there were no immediate plans to jump-start negotiations with the teachers' union. Negotiations broke down on Friday when the union rejected the district's latest offer. Beutner said the district lost about $15 million on Monday, explaining that state funding is based on the number of students attending classes. "Ninty percent of our funding comes from Sacramento," said Beutner, referring to the state legislature. The district hired hundreds of substitutes teachers to keep schools open and cover for those on the picket lines. "The painful truth is we just don't have enough money to do everything that UTLA is asking Los Angeles Unified to do," Beutner said. "The state and county regulators have told us this repeatedly. An independent expert appointed by the state of California has said exactly the same thing." The striking educators are asking for a 6.5 percent pay raise, small class sizes and for the district to add about 1,200 support staff positions, including counselors, nurses and librarians. Beutner said if the district were to give the UTLA everything it wants, it would cost the district an extra $800 million a year. He said the state-appointed independent fact finder has told the school district that it has resources to invest $30 to $90 million more. "We haven't found a way to find those dollars. The county and the state and the independent fact finder have said we do not have the dollars," Buetner said.<doc-sep>LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Roughly 15,000 more students showed up for class Tuesday across the Los Angeles Unified School District even as thousands of teachers returned to the picket lines on the second day of a teachers strike. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner says the district is still compiling official attendance figures, but the early estimate is that more than 159,000 students went to class Tuesday, up by about 15,000 from Monday’s totals. The district serves nearly a half-million students and about 142,000 were on campuses Monday. Meanwhile, charter school teachers joined UTLA teachers at a raucous rally in Little Tokyo Tuesday alongside teachers from The Accelerated Schools charter network, who joined the strike because they are also unhappy with the contract they’ve been offered. The proliferation of independent and privately-managed charter schools is one of the sticking points in the negotiations between United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The union believes charter schools, which are also overseen by the district, are draining resources away from public schools. COMPLETE COVERAGE: LAUSD Teachers Strike The district and the union have not met to restart negotiations since Friday, when the district revised its offer to include new money included in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed state budget. The new offer included a $24 million increase from the previous offer, but was still rejected by the teachers union. The union is demanding a 6.5 percent raise that would take effect all at once and a year sooner; more nurses, librarians, and counselors; and a pledge to reduce class sizes. UTLA says a reported $1.8 billion district reserve could be used to meet their demands, but the district says that money has already been fully earmarked. The first day of the strike cost the district about $25 million because just a third of LAUSD students came to school, according to district officials. The district serves nearly a half-million students and about 142,000 were on campuses Monday.<doc-sep>As the first Los Angeles teachers’ strike in 30 years stretched into its second day, attendance ticked up slightly — about 20,000 more students went to school Tuesday — but remained at about a third of the district’s total enrollment. The school district’s top official lamented that the walkout already had cost millions in state funding on Day 1; 163,384 students showed up for class — or some semblance of it — on Day 2. Teachers, meanwhile, returned to the picket line and then converged downtown for a rally to protest the growth of charter schools, which their union, United Teachers Los Angeles, has blamed for draining funds from the district. They remained out even as the week’s second strong storm moved into the region. Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner, in a morning news conference, said the first day hit hard with only a third of the district’s students showing up for school. That cost the school system about $25 million in state funding tied to enrollment, he said. Subtract unpaid wages for the strikers of $10 million, he said, and that amounts to an estimated one-day, net loss of $15 million. Advertisement The union, which wants better wages, smaller class sizes and more support staff at schools, has argued that the Los Angeles Unified School District has the money on hand to meet its demands, even while saying that the school system also needs to get more state funding. Beutner said the union and its 31,000 members who walked off the job should join with the district in pushing Sacramento to better fund schools. “Let’s build on the renewed attention on public education in our community,” he said. “Let’s bottle it. Let’s put it on our buses and let’s go to Sacramento.” Voices of the LAUSD strike: Teachers and parents speak out » Negotiations between United Teachers Los Angeles and the nation’s second-largest school district broke off late Friday after more than 20 months of bargaining, with no resolution to the educators’ demands. District officials have said they don’t have the money to cover everything teachers are asking for, while union leaders have accused the district of “hoarding” funds. Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of UTLA, said Tuesday that members are “prepared to go as long as it takes” to get a fair contract. He joined picketers at the Accelerated Schools in South Los Angeles, a small charter school network whose educators stopped working Tuesday in their own strike for improved working conditions. The action is the first strike by charter teachers in California and only the second in the nation, according to UTLA. “This has been already an historic week for educators and for public education in Los Angeles,” Caputo-Pearl said. Teachers at Accelerated have their own contract with the charter operator, but he said the two strikes have a few common themes. Advertisement “Accelerated management has money to take care of the issues on the table,” Caputo-Pearl said. “Also in common is that Accelerated management is being driven by ideology, looking at teachers as disposable and not as indispensable. We’ve got to change that.” Educators, supporters and community members march through the 2nd street tunnel towards the LAUSD office during the UTLA strike in Los Angeles, Calif. on Monday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) By mid-morning, the area around the intersection of 1st and San Pedro streets in downtown Los Angeles was filled with teachers and supporters, chanting and waving signs outside the offices of the California Charter Schools Assn. Charters are privately managed and, while most are nonunion, UTLA represents about 1,000 charter school teachers. Caputo-Pearl has said existing charters that are struggling with enrollment also are being hurt by the “grow at any cost” strategy of some charter advocates. Advertisement Fiona Engler, magnet coordinator for Paseo Del Rey Elementary, a magnet school in Playa Del Rey, has been with LAUSD since 1985. She has seen the damage that charter schools have wreaked on the public school system, she said. Charters, she said, “cherry pick” students and send those with discipline problems back to public schools. She said she also is striking for less “hard-core testing,” of younger kids in lower grades. “Imagine just taking a test that just goes on for pages and pages and pages on an iPad,” Engler said, describing current testing requirements. “And just goes on for hours.” Jackson Downey, 15, a sophomore at Cleveland High School Humanities Magnet in Reseda, rode the Metro downtown from the San Fernando Valley with four friends to support teachers at the rally. Jackson — holding a sign that read, “Without teechars are sines wil luk like dis”— said he thinks charter schools are detrimental to the public school system. Advertisement “I see it as the end of public schools,” he said. The two days of walkouts have proved to be a massive disruption for hundreds of thousands of students and their families. The vast majority of the district’s parents and guardians are low income, and many have grappled with choosing between missing work to watch their children or sending them into an unknown situation at school. With K-12 schools remaining open during the strike, but preschools closed to most students, skeletal staffs have crammed students together to try supervising them in larger groups and struggled to keep them engaged as teachers march outside. About 140,000 students attended Los Angeles schools on Monday, down from about 450,000 on a typical rainy day. Beutner pointed to two schools — Virgil Middle and Telfair Elementary — where attendance was slightly higher, as an example of students relying on the district for shelter and a warm meal. Advertisement At Telfair, he said, about 20% of the students are homeless. At Virgil, 100% of families are living in poverty. On Monday, 60% of Virgil Middle School’s students attended class along with about 40% at Telfair. “They came for shelter from the rain. They came for a warm meal and a secure, welcoming environment. And of course they came to learn,” Beutner said. On Tuesday, teachers formed picket lines early, while it was still dry but came prepared for the rain that would soak them in the afternoon. Burroughs Middle School drama teacher Jennifer Heath was ready for the looming storm. She went to the Army surplus store on Monday night, after a day of picketing in the rain, and bought more waterproof gear. Outside the Hancock Park campus with more than two dozen teachers, Heath’s golden retriever Fenton wore a red poncho as he lay on the sidewalk next to a Maltipoo named Bailey, sporting a bandanna that said “strike therapist in training.” Advertisement Heath fought back tears as she talked about how unnatural it was not to be able to work with her students and watch over them during the day. “We need to invest in public education,” she said, holding up a sign with “FUND THE FUTURE” in red block letters. Christina Silva, a special-education teacher, said she’s worried about her students, many of whom have individualized education plans that require one-on-one attention from teachers or aides assigned to them. “How do we close the achievement gap when we’re out here?” Silva said. But in the long term, getting smaller classes for her students will help them emotionally and academically, she said. Advertisement Dennis Gonzalez, a student at James Monroe High School in North Hills, said his parents have been bombarded with phone calls and text messages, warning them that their son would be penalized for staying home during the strike and insisting that school was the safest place to be. Still, Gonzalez chose to support his teachers. Their concerns are his concerns, he said after marching downtown on Tuesday. “It’s not just about the teachers — it’s about us,” said Dennis, 17. “It’s even about our kids, one day.” Some students who missed school Tuesday said they still planned to do homework. After a full day of picketing and marching with her teachers, Venice High School junior Makena Cionio planned to catch up on her four Advanced Placement classes. Her teachers treated the students “like adults,” she said, and gave them plans so they could keep with their studies. Advertisement<doc-sep>
(CNN) — A massive teachers’ strike calling for millions of dollars more in school funding may have also cost the school district millions of dollars, the superintendent said. But the Los Angeles teachers’ union isn’t backing down. In fact, it wants to “show such a massive presence that (it) disrupts business as usual in downtown LA.” An estimated 32,000 Los Angeles teachers and staff members hit the picket lines this week, demanding lower class sizes, higher salaries and more counselors and nurses in over 1,000 schools. This was the view of City Hall just before tens of thousands of striking teachers, students, & their supporters marched through downtown. We are demanding smaller class sizes for our students as well as a full-time nurse and counselor in our buildings 5 days a week.#utlastrong pic.twitter.com/itewxUdxmX — United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 14, 2019 “We have 46, 45, 50 students in a class. It’s unacceptable,” said Andrea Cohen, a teacher at John Marshall High School. Even though the Los Angeles Unified School District said all students should keep going to school – and possibly be taught by substitute teachers or reassigned administrators – many did not on the first two days. Only about 1/3 of the usual number of students who go to school on a rainy day actually showed up Monday, Superintendent Austin Beutner said. And because the state funds schools based on daily attendance, day one of the strike was extremely expensive. “The district on a day like yesterday would lose approximately $25 million in funding,” Beutner said. Of that, the lost wages of UTLA members not at work Monday was approximately $10 million. Attendance was up Tuesday by about 14,000, or 8% of those absent the prior day, he said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. None of that matters to members of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, who are also taking a personal financial hit as they strike. “I’m not rich. This is a sacrifice for me,” said second-grade teacher Wendy Ron. “I am not getting paid while I’m out here.” Beutner said he was willing to participate in negotiations. “If it’s necessary, I’ll be anywhere or anytime with UTLA leadership to resolve this. We want this resolved now,” he told reporters. ’We just don’t believe those numbers’ The months-long impasse between the UTLA union and LAUSD comes down to two issues: how much money to spend on more school staffing and teachers’ raises, and whether the school district actually has that kind of money. Beutner noted that an independent fact-finder agreed that the district doesn’t have the money to cover UTLA’s demands. “The experts have all said we do not have the ability to spend more than we’re spending,” he said. LAUSD has offered $130 million toward what the union wants, but UTLA rejected that proposal. Today @LASchools presented UTLA with a new offer to significantly reduce class size and ensure no increase in any class size, increase nurses, counselors and librarians at all schools, along with a 6% salary increase and back pay for the 2017-2018 school year. pic.twitter.com/jchW2fCHsm — Los Angeles Unified (@LASchools) January 12, 2019 The teachers’ union has a whole different take on the numbers. UTLA says the school district should tap into $1.8 billion in reserves to fund more desperately needed staff members, as well as increasing teachers’ pay. The superintendent says that the $1.8 billion is already earmarked for education spending during this three-year budget cycle. At this rate, LAUSD said, it might not even have enough money to meet a required 1% reserve by the 2021-2022 school year. But UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said the school district has “always been wrong in their projections, so we just don’t believe those numbers.” “The district’s three-year projections have always been wrong,” Caputo-Pearl said Tuesday. “Three years ago, they predicted a $105 million reserve; they ended with a $1.86 billion reserve. They were off by $1.7 billion.” But is the union fighting the right battle? Beutner said the state actually provides 90% of the district’s funding, not LAUSD. The union president acknowledged that much of the requested money would have to come from Sacramento, and said it’s taking steps to try to get it. “We have been a big part of the fight for more state funding,” Caputo-Pearl said. “We’re in conversations with the governor’s office – that is a part of the puzzle. But that $2 billion reserve belongs with our students in classrooms.