LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education is expected today to formally sign off on a new labor contract with the teachers' union that ended a strike by educators spanning six school days.
The contract, which calls for the hiring of more teachers, along with support staff such as nurses, counselors and librarians, has already been ratified by members of United Teachers Los Angeles. The school board vote is likely to be a mere formality.
As part of the agreement, however, the board is also expected to consider a resolution pushing for a moratorium on charter schools opening within the district. Expansion of charter schools and co-location of charters on LAUSD campuses was a major point of contention with the union.
Under the contract agreement, the district is expected to support a statewide cap on charters and to provide regular reports on proposed co- locations of charter and public school campuses.
A resolution going before the board Tuesday calls on LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner to return to the board in 90 days with “a plan to pursue laws intended to authorize a moratorium on new charter schools within the boundaries of the district, and report if the authority for such a moratorium requires a voter-approved ballot initiative at the local or state level.”
The resolution also requests that the governor and state education officials “conduct a comprehensive study to inform future policy considerations for charter authorization reform,” and while that study is being conducted, that the state “impose a temporary moratorium on new charter schools in our school district.”
Members of the advocacy group Reclaim Our Schools L.A. is planning to attend the meeting with a group of district parents “to hold the board accountable to their promise” to adopt the resolution.
But officials with the California Charter Schools Association also plan to attend the meeting with charter-school parents, calling on the board to reject the resolution, saying a ban “will unfairly target the most vulnerable students in Los Angeles.”
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