Summary

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is facing a teachers' strike and is considering relaxing volunteer policies to keep schools open and maintain state revenue, despite concerns about student safety and the potential for harm.

Abstract

With the impending teachers' strike in LAUSD, the school district is seeking to maintain operations by easing the process for parents and community members to volunteer at schools. This move is seen as a way to keep schools open and continue receiving Average Daily Attendance (ADA) revenue from the state, even if it means compromising on the adult to student ratio and potentially endangering students. The district's court filings acknowledge the risk to students' health and safety, yet they plan to proceed with school operations during the strike. The timing of the policy change has raised suspicions among parents and advocates, who argue that the district should prioritize student safety over maintaining the status quo, especially considering past incidents and financial settlements related to student harm. The LAUSD School Board's decision to relax the fingerprinting requirements for volunteers has been met with resistance, as it may expose children to individuals who have not been properly vetted, including potential sex offenders. The board's actions are seen as contradictory to their "Kids First" motto, with critics pointing out a history of questionable decisions, including the appointment of a board president under investigation and hiring a superintendent with no education experience.

Opinions

The LAUSD School Board is prioritizing the district's operational needs over the safety of students by relaxing volunteer policies ahead of a teachers' strike.
Critics, including Carl Petersen, argue that the district has not learned from past mistakes, such as the Miramonte case, and is risking student well-being for financial reasons.
Board Member Scott Schmerelson presented data showing the potential danger of unvetted volunteers, highlighting the risk of exposing children to registered sex offenders who may not be listed publicly.
Nick Melvoin's stance is seen as hypocritical, as he acknowledges the district's history of sexual abuse cases involving employees who passed background checks but still votes to weaken existing protections for students.
The community is skeptical of the district's "Kids First" stance, given the series of decisions that appear to prioritize adult interests over the welfare of children, especially those in special education.

Kids First?

“[If there is a strike] these students’ health and safety would be in jeopardy. They could get hurt, hurt themselves, or hurt others.”

- Exhibit A in LAUSD Court Filing

With their teachers set to walk out of their classrooms, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) needs bodies. In order to get the upper hand in a strike, the District will need to keep their schools open and to do that they only need to meet one requirement — they must keep the adult to student ratio below legal limits. The students do not actually have to be learning anything, they just have to be in the school collecting ADA (Average Daily Attendance) revenue from the state.

Unfortunately for the LAUSD School Board, District officials have not been able to hire enough substitutes who are willing to cross the picket line. Therefore, they used a long-running complaint about the onerous process that parents face when offering to volunteer on campus to force a vote to make it easier to get bodies on campus during the strike. While the Board at first rejected the change, Superintendent Beutner convinced them to take another vote. Before they did, I made public comment on this issue:

Like Ms. Garcia just said, this has been an issue that has been talked about for years. Sitting in Board Meetings I have heard parents come and complain about how difficult it is to volunteer at a school. So yes, this is a very important subject that we need to take up. But boy does this timing seem really suspicious.

Right now you guys are going to take this up? Right before a strike? So you’re going to let people who haven’t been fingerprinted into our schools?

I understand that if it is one on one they have to be fingerprinted now. But without teachers in that school, there is going to be a lot of people doing one-on-one who are not supposed to be doing one-on-one.

I think we need to look at this after a potential strike and then take a look at how we can improve things. Because yes, we need to get parents and community more involved in our schools, but this is not the right time.

I would have thought that this School District would have learned its lessons from Miramonte and the millions of dollars that you guys have paid out in claims. This is one of the reasons why we are having financial problems is because you don’t think these policies through. How many kids are going to be harmed because you didn’t want to check volunteers because of a strike?

Now in your filing with the court, the district admits that our children are not going to be safe. I have two daughters in special education. Your paperwork says they are not going to be safe. That’s the words of the District. But you’re going to keep the schools open if the teachers go on strike?

Ever since the charter majority took over it has been “Kids First” on all the paperwork. But when are we going to start putting kids first? First, you appointed a president who was under investigation. Then nobody stepped up and said “you need to go” when he got arrested for public drunkenness. Then you hired a Superintendent without any education experience. Now the teachers are going to go on strike.

Kids first, when does that start?

Board Member Scott Schmerelson followed up public comment by presenting data that showed how the proposed policy would endanger children. “There are in our communities, registered sex offenders: 56,110 on the web site. But, 21,602 registered offenders are excused [from] being listed for a variety of reasons, and [these] may not relate to the risk of recidivism. So 21,602 people who are sexual predators are not on the list.” These potential risks will not be flagged to school personnel without the fingerprinting check. Unfortunately, Schmerelson was the only vote against the policy.

When his colleague, Nick Melvoin, took his turn to speak it seemed at first that he would insist on making sure that students would be adequately protected. While backing up my point about the Miramonte case by pointing out that “this District has spent over $300 million in the last few years settling cases of sexual abuse”, he drew a much different conclusion. Since the employees who had committed these crimes had “passed fingerprints and background checks and Megan’s law”, this was not relevant to changing the rules for volunteers. He urged the Board to continue the discussion in the future, but then voted to weaken protections already in place instead of strengthening them.

Even before this vote, the District had admitted that it could not keep all students safe if its teachers were to walk out. Has the Board now increased the danger by putting up a “help wanted” sign that is visible to every potential child abuser in the city?

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Carl Petersen is a parent and special education advocate, elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and was a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race. During the campaign, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action and Dr. Diane Ravitch called him a “strong supporter of public schools.” His past blogs can be found at www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.