Schools
LA Unified Braces For Thursday Teachers Strike With 400 Subs
As Los Angeles Unified braces for a 33,000-teacher strike this week, the district plans to bring in hundreds of substitute teachers.
LOS ANGELES, CA — If Los Angeles teachers strike this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District plans to bring in about 400 substitutes beginning on Thursday. The school district will also reassign about 2,000 credentialed employees to work in classrooms.
The moves are another sign that 33,000 teachers are poised to walk out Thursday in the district's first strike since 1989. About 600,000 students will be affected by the strike.
"We have a duty to provide an education to our students, and we will take appropriate measures to do so," a district spokeswoman said in a statement cited by the Los Angeles Times.
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The union is planning to fight the mass hiring of subs. Union officials said they are exploring all options to consider legal action to protect the work of UTLA substitutes, according to a statement last month. Replacing striking teachers with subs is likely to be an expensive proposition.
Contracts with agencies, including the Charter Substitute Teacher Network and Maxim Healthcare Services Inc., allow for more than 4,400 substitutes to be brought in, according to The Times. In many cases, these substitutes would make more than regular L.A. Unified substitutes for the same jobs.
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A regular K-12 substitute for the district makes $190 a day for the first 20 days. The contract subs in the same position could make $227 to $315 a day, depending on which agency provides them, The Times reported.
Preschool substitute teachers ordinarily make a maximum of $167.12 daily in their first 35 days. The contract subs could make up to $240 a day.
Substitute teachers for students with disabilities usually can make up to $190 a day in their first 20 days. The contracted substitutes could reach maximum daily rates of $227 to $385, depending on the agency, according to The Times.
L.A. Unified officials would not say which roles the 400 substitutes they are initially planning for would fill or how they would be distributed across the district.
City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: Shutterstock
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