CFT United

Local 1021

LA turns out for education.… Thousands of people jammed Grand Park on February 26 in a rally for “Schools LA Students Deserve.” They wore red to send the message to Los Angeles Unified: Teachers will not stop fighting for high-quality education including culturally relevant classes; smaller class sizes in fully-staffed clean and safe schools with social and emotional support for students; and fair compensation for teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians. Students, parents, and community groups joined United Teachers Los Angeles at the rally.

Educators write from the heart and an English movie that will inspire

The Educator And The Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges The Gates Foundation | By Anthony Cody

Point by point, in The Educator and the Oligarch, Anthony Cody takes on the wealthiest man in the world, and his foundation, to defend the teaching profession and public education from corporate education reform.

Ray Gaer sees the Local Control Accountability Plan, or LCAP, as “a different forum for unions to talk about things that matter and an opportunity to build more cooperative relationships. The president of the ABC Federation of Teachers says, “We can talk about how programs are selected and developed and how money is spent before getting to the bargaining table.”

Adam Siegel, UC Davis librarian and grievance steward for Local 2023 was awarded a $12,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate a contemporary Russian work of fiction into English. Siegel, a translator of numerous languages, will use the grant to translate Vasilii Golovanov’s The Island: or, A Justification for Meaningless Travels.

Proposition 45 With increasing health insurance costs continuing to burden consumers, Prop. 45 is designed to reduce the pace of premium increases. The measure requires insurance companies to justify rate increases prior to passing additional costs on to consumers and gives the insurance commissioner the power to approve rate increases. A similar system of checks and balances in the auto insurance market has saved consumers billions of dollars.

Many members have inquired about the budget trailer bill that places a much-needed cap on K-12 district reserves and adds more transparency and public accountability measures for these districts. 

Chris Hables Gray is widely known in academic circles for his research on the U.S. military post-World War II. The UC Santa Cruz lecturer has also written extensively about how technology is transforming humans.

Her voice swelling with hometown pride, elementary school teacher Melinda Dart says, “Tom Torlakson was a student in our Daly City schools — and he went on to become a teacher and state superintendent of all schools.”

During his early years, Torlakson’s mother worked as a school secretary and his father as a welder. After high school, Torlakson attended San Mateo Community College before entering the Merchant Marine and serving in Vietnam. Upon his return, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history, a master’s degree in education and a teaching credential at UC Berkeley.

The CFT and the California Teachers Association filed a notice of appeal asking that Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling in Vergara v. California be reversed in its entirety. Stating that Treu’s decision striking down five California Education Code provisions “is without support in law or fact,” the appeal says Treu’s reversible errors are “too numerous to list.”

Senate Bill 1266, introduced by Republican Senator Bob Huff (Diamond Bar), and signed by Gov. Brown on September 16, requires public schools to stock emergency epinephrine auto injectors, known as EpiPens, on campus. This is an expansion of the law that said schools could stock the devices for students with a severe allergy to make it a mandate that all schools have the device on hand.