Los Angeles high school teacher Judy Arteaga praised the contract reached between her union and the school district this week as a “good starting point” for addressing the school district’s needs, in an interview that aired Friday on “Rising.”
“In terms of how it ended, it’s a great starting point for resuming what our district needs and how we can move towards that,” Arteaga, a teacher at San Pedro High School, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton on Thursday.
“It’s definitely not a package [where] everyone got everything that they wanted, but it’s a good starting point moving towards that end,” she continued.
Los Angeles public school teachers returned to school on Wednesday after United Teachers Los Angeles and the city’s school district reached a deal on Tuesday that ended a strike involving roughly 30,000 teachers that began earlier this month.
The strike was teachers’ first in 30 years.
Teachers in the city were demanding better pay, improved working conditions, and increased staffing at the schools.
Arteaga told Hill.TV that it may take years for some of the changes to take effect.
“We have things like lower class sizes built into this contract that won’t happen right away but in a period of time, about four years, they’ll be under 39 which is where they need to be at a senior high school level,” she said.
“We have nurses. We have things that we’re moving towards,” she added. “How do we take that momentum, and move it forward to keep making progress for our district.”
— Julia Manchester
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