Tamar Galatzan, Bennett Kayser, and Steve Zimmer have found themselves caught up in the failures of the LAUSD during the last two election cycles. With the unpopular actions of the Board leading up to the strike and a vast majority of Angelinos taking the teachers' side during the work stoppage, the "throw the bums out" mentality has only gotten stronger.
Losers:
LAUSD Students
Most children stayed home for at least part of the strike. Even those who did attend mostly watched movies or engaged in other activities that did not come close to fulfilling the educational mission of the District. To serve students correctly (and recoup the millions of dollars that will otherwise be lost from the state) the LAUSD must add these lost days back into this year's schedule.
Students with Special Education Needs
The District told a court that children with Special Education needs would be in danger if their educators were allowed to strike. They then had principals call parents with the message that it was completely safe to send their children to school as teachers walked the picket lines. Can the parents of these children come to any other conclusion than they were nothing more than pawns in a fight between adults?
While some changes were made in the contract to benefit special education teachers, it is unclear how these students will directly benefit. In fact, there is concern that the number of students will actually go up in some classes for children with autism.
Parents of these most vulnerable children were among the supporters of the strike but many feel that their children were left out. Once again, it seems that nobody on either side of the education divide is willing to fight for these students.
Austin Beutner
The LAUSD Superintendent bet the farm when he pushed the District into a strike. If he thought that parents were going to turn against the union, he was proven wrong when 83,928 students (out of almost 500,000) showed up to school on the fourth day of the strike. In the midst of the strike, a survey by LMU found that 80 percent "somewhat" or "strongly support" the work stoppage. In the end, Beutner had to make concessions on every demand by UTLA and outright caved on the issues of class size, a nurse in every school and a librarian in every secondary school.
At last count, 18,886 people have signed a petition calling for Beutner's resignation. The Superintendent of the country's second-largest school district is clearly under a microscope. That should not be surprising given that he had no prior professional experience in education before taking the $350,000 a year job.
Board Member Nick Melvoin
Melvoin was the most vocal of the LAUSD Board Members in the months leading up to the strike. He is on record as saying the teachers were going to go on strike for two days just to get it out of their system and then return to work with basically the same contract that they were offered prior to walking out. He could not have been more wrong.
The best that can be said about this freshman Board Member is that he stuck to his guns even as the situation collapsed around him. While Board President Garcia waivered in her support of Buetner, Melvoin stood by him. Expect to see that in a campaign advertisement when he runs for reelection in 2022.
Monica Garcia
There is a reason that the charter industry spent over $600,000 in Garcia's election against two opponents (I was one of them) who combined raised less than $17,000. She has alienated the special needs community, has a history of putting her foot in her mouth and rarely faces stakeholders outside the protective environment of a charter school.
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