The teachers union super PAC is starting to spend on behalf of school board District 5 incumbent Bennett Kayser, unleashing a flurry of campaign pieces to defend his seat in what is shaping up to be the most hotly contested race in this election. To date, the Super PAC, an independent expenditure committee, run by...

LA Unified today revised its salary offer to the teachers union today, increasing the level of raises to 5 percent, one percent above its previous offer. But the additional money for professional development that was included in the earlier offer, which the district had valued at another 2 percent, was not part of the new...

The slow pace of progress toward a new contract in the teachers union negotiations with LA Unified is, so far, costing Board President Richard Vladovic any possibility of union support for his reelection. The UTLA political action committee met last night, and a motion to recommend an endorsement to the union’s House of Representatives failed to...

As the teachers union’s negotiations with LA Unified drag on, one of the nation’s leading voices for teachers appeared at an event last night hosted by district board member Steve Zimmer and made a strong case for union activity and solidarity. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, delivered a fire-and- brimstone-type address to...

UTLA, the LA Unified teachers union, is offering tonight an unvarnished public view of its bargaining position in negotiations with LA Unified for a new teachers contract. Board member Steve Zimmer is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion at Occidental College that includes UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and...

The chairman of the the political action committee for the LA teachers union, UTLA, said today that, for now, the union has no plan to endorse Board President Richard Vladovic for reelection to the LA Unified District 7 board seat. Marco Flores said the committee’s next meeting, tomorrow, does not include a recommendation to endorse...

The slow pace of negotiations between LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, continued yesterday, with the district proposing new language on employee evaluations, transfers and early retirement incentives and no counter-offers this time from the union on those issues or anything else. That leaves the talks about where they’ve been, with all 12unresolved issues...

The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles and LA Unified reached an agreement last week to consolidate two positions into one. The role of “assistant principal” and “instructional specialist” as of July 1 will be merged into the role of “assistant principal elementary” or “assistant principal secondary.” The change was explained by AALA in its weekly...

UTLA, the teachers union, is helping raise money for the family of a 14-year-old boy who was killed outside Griffith Middle School in east LA last week. The family is seeking donations to help pay for his funeral expenses and remains short of the $15,000 needed as of today. Steven Cruz, a student at nearby Garfield High...

* UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines today for the first time publicly inserted himself into the district’s contract negotiations with the teachers union, calling its latest demands “entirely unrealistic” and asserting that they raise “serious ethical and equity issues” for the district. Pointing out that all the district’s other unions have agreed to new contracts...