L.A. teachers union members vote to boycott extra learning day mid-semester

Los Angeles teachers union members have voted to boycott the first of four optional, extra learning days for students, saying the district plans “simply feign support for students,” the union announced Friday.

The first extended learning day is scheduled for Oct. 19, a key time in the middle of the semester when students can improve grades and seek help, district officials said. So far there is no indication that the day will be canceled.

The extra days were intended to “provide additional instruction to students identified as in need of intensive intervention,” the district said in a statement Friday. As planned by the district, regular classes would be suspended and students could receive tutoring or lesson reviews or even attend special workshops that a school put together. Although students and teachers could opt to take the day off, officials have said they hoped for widespread participation in what the district regards as a cornerstone strategy.

United Teachers Los Angeles has opposed the optional learning days — for which teachers would be paid — as a poor use of resources and as a violation of state rules requiring that changes to working conditions must be bargained over in formal labor negotiations. The union has filed with state labor regulators to intervene on its behalf and return the calendar to the “status quo.”

Among roughly 34,000 union members, 18,257 participated in a survey this week. Within that group, 93% voted to support a boycott, the union said. The union represents counselors, librarians and nurses as well as teachers.

About half of union members did not vote or voted against the boycott. It is uncertain if those teachers are willing to work and whether the district will have the staff it needs for that extra school day. The first extra day falls on a Wednesday during a normal school week.

There is broad agreement that more learning time in general is good for students. Gov. Gavin Newsom helped lead the call in California for increased schooling time as a primary strategy to recover from learning lost or delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

All possible efforts toward a faster academic turnaround are essential, said Ana Ponce, executive director of GPSN, a local education advocacy group.

“We know more time and differentiated supports benefit all participating students,” Ponce said. “We hope the district and its partners find a way to resolve their differences to maximize the opportunities provided to students.”

Extra learning time can come in many forms — more instructional minutes during the regular school day, longer school days, programs before and after school or on Saturdays, additional summer opportunities. L.A. Unified is attempting many of these strategies.

A review of 30 well-regarded studies of extended learning time, overseen by the U.S. Department of Education, showed mixed results. “Increased learning time programs had a small positive effect on elementary school students’ literacy and math achievement,” and no benefit at the middle school level, while research was wholly inadequate at the high school level, reviewers concluded.

Students performing below academic standards benefited, but not so much if they were “at risk” students, a group likely to be performing far below standards.

The review found that increased learning time had a small but statistically significant positive effect on student motivation when it came to attendance, homework completion, effort and eagerness to learn.

Among 100 large and urban districts, 44 referenced an extended learning year strategy in the 2021-22 school year, and these included L.A. Unified, according to Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization based at Arizona State University.

The union release referred to L.A. Unified’s extra learning days as a “$122 Million Stunt” that “prioritizes optics over student needs.”

“LAUSD has made clear that they would rather squander $122 million of precious education dollars,” the union said in its statement. “These ‘Accelerated Days’ are to distract from the district’s refusal to support an equitable education for all students by denying our children support and services proven to ensure student success. By arbitrarily scattering these days throughout the school calendar, real teaching and learning will be disrupted and dollars that were meant to be used on education will be wasted.”

The district has asserted that the days are not arbitrarily scheduled, but inserted at key — and available — points in the academic calendar.

“This is to accelerate students’ progress toward grade-level proficiency, social emotional learning and high school graduation, while providing teachers and other employees an opportunity to earn extra pay,” the district statement said.

L.A. Unified also challenged the union’s math, stating that the $122 million included $52 million to pay employees to attend the three optional professional training days held on Aug. 9, 10 and 11.

“The majority of educators participated in these optional, paid adult learning days,” the district said in its statement.

The district has defended its process for scheduling the days by noting that they are optional.

Although the school year is in progress, union leaders are presenting this year’s academic calendar as a matter still to be negotiated. The union has proposed one optional school day, which would fall directly after the last regular day of the school year in June.

Union members have been working under an expired contract since July 1. UTLA is seeking a 10% salary increase for each of the next two years. Its statement said the money for the extra school days would be better spent on smaller classes and higher wages.

L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho said the next contract would at least protect union members from the recent harms of inflation, which he estimated had diminished the buying power of wages by about 9%.

Negotiations between the parties are underway on the full union contract.