LAUSD Education Workers Are Rising up!
For Respect, Fair Pay, More Hours & Staffing, and Against Subcontracting & Layoffs
Nearly 30,000 school support staff are the backbone of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and right now, they are under threat. The district’s continued undervaluation of their work and the threat of mass layoffs has triggered a staffing crisis that is failing students, families, and the entire school community. All the while, the district sits on over $5.03 billion in reserves.
We must act now to demand full staffing support and ensure education workers are valued and respected for their contributions to student learning. Learn more about us and join our fight!
Updates
We Are on the Frontlines of Clean, Safe & Supportive Schools
We Are on the Frontlines of Clean, Safe & Supportive Schools
Often behind the scenes, but always at the heart of the work, LAUSD’s school support staff (or classified employees) build trusting relationships, ensure stability, and provide the academic and emotional support students need to thrive.
They are the food service workers who feed the children, the bus drivers who greet them in the morning and get them safely to school, the special education assistants who guide our most vulnerable students, the custodians who keep campuses safe and clean, the stock workers and truck drivers who keep schools supplied, and all the many other support staff who keep schools running and children learning. Get to know them and the work they do through their stories.
Our Stories
The Problem at LAUSD
For decades, LAUSD has depended on an essential workforce of support staff to operate while consistently failing to give them the respect, support, and stability they deserve. The recent 4-3 vote by the LAUSD Board of Education to lay off 3,200 of them makes the core issue undeniable: The district has built a system dependent on the labor of people it refuses to prioritize. Chronic understaffing, poverty wages, too few hours, and subcontracting of LAUSD jobs have become the norm.
This isn’t just a budget problem. It’s a values problem. LAUSD knows the struggles of its workers and the impact on students, and has chosen—again and again—not to act. This fight is about more than a contract. It’s about dignity, respect, accountability, and real investment in the people who hold our schools together. This is how bad it is:
Wait, Didn’t LAUSD Classified Employees Get a 30% Raise in 2023?
Yes, and they fought tooth-and-nail to win an increase the district should have given as a moral imperative. By mid-2022, housing, gas, food and other costs-of-living had jumped 9.1% over the previous 12 months—the largest increase since 1981! With record inflation and low pay, the 30% raise brought many school employees just to the poverty level. Enough to scrape by, but far from enough to meet basic needs in Los Angeles.
Wait, Didn’t LAUSD Classified Employees Get a 30% RAISE in 2023?
Yes, and they fought tooth-and-nail to win an increase the district should have given as a moral imperative. By mid-2022, housing, gas, food and other costs-of-living had jumped 9.1% over the previous 12 months—the largest increase since 1981! With record inflation and low pay, the 30% raise brought many school employees just to the poverty level. Enough to scrape by, but far from enough to meet basic needs in Los Angeles.
$532,986
+$422 per hour, 40 hour work week
The amount LAUSD has spent paying two Superintendents since Alberto Carvalho was placed on paid leave while under federal investigation and Interim Superintendent Andres Chait took over to cover his job. LAUSD is wasting money to the tune of $422 an hour on superintendents while school support staff struggle to make ends meet and are facing layoffs.
$35,218
The average salary for a SEIU Local 99 member at LAUSD, well-below poverty level for a family of four.
$5.03 bN
The amount LAUSD has up to in reserves. They can afford to pay living wages.
LAUSD Under Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and the Move To Privatize Public Education
Since arriving from Miami in 2022, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has continued to move money away from the district and into the pockets of privately held companies, spending an average of $658 million per year in outside “consulting and professional services”. Under his tenure so far, this amounts to a $1.2 billion increase when compared to the three Superintendents who preceded him (Cortines, King, Beutner).
During that time, LAUSD employees have been pushed to the breaking point. Thousands of workers once deemed essential have been stripped of their health benefits and have seen their hours unilaterally reduced. Executive pay, on the other hand, continues to climb to all-time highs. Today, 160 of LAUSD’s top officials—none of whom work directly with students—earn more than the Governor of California!
WHAT We’re Fighting For
LAUSD school employees are fighting to raise wages and improve working conditions to ensure students have the full staffing and support they need – inside and outside the classroom. In current contract negotiations, workers are calling for:
Wages Above Poverty
The average salary for support staff at LAUSD is $35,501, putting them on the threshold for extremely low income. Wages at LAUSD have been so low for so long that even the 30% wage increase won after employees went on strike in 2023 only lifted them to poverty level. Their earnings continue to fall short of meeting basic needs.
Full-Time Work
Increased Staffing for Student Services
No Privatizing of Public Education
From special education to after school programs to the purchasing of supplies, LAUSD has been hiring dozens of private, outside companies to provide essential student services. This practice poses serious student and campus safety concerns, may violate state labor laws that protect public employees from having their jobs outsourced and amounts to a massive waste of public dollars. The district has no vetting process for the hundreds of subcontracted employees coming into our schools, nor accountability for their schedules or performance.
Wages Above Poverty
The average salary for support staff at LAUSD is $35,501, putting them on the threshold for extremely low income. Wages at LAUSD have been so low for so long that even the 30% wage increase won after employees went on strike in 2023 only lifted them to poverty level. Their earnings continue to fall short of meeting basic needs.
Full-Time Work
Increased Staffing for Student Services
No Privatizing of Public Education
From special education to after school programs to the purchasing of supplies, LAUSD has been hiring dozens of private, outside companies to provide essential student services. This practice poses serious student and campus safety concerns, may violate state labor laws that protect public employees from having their jobs outsourced and amounts to a massive waste of public dollars. The district has no vetting process for the hundreds of subcontracted employees coming into our schools, nor accountability for their schedules or performance.