The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) last week announced it would significantly cut its winter break—a move that has the district’s teachers union crying foul.
The district March 27 announced plans to shorten its three-week winter break—which typically takes place from mid-December to the first week of January—to two-and-a-half weeks in the upcoming 2023–24 school year. For the 2024–25 and 2025–26 school years, the winter break will be cut to two weeks.
In response, on March 30 United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)—the union representing LAUSD’s 35,000 teachers—filed an unfair practice charge with the California Public Employee Relations Board and demanded the district rescind its plans in a cease-and-desist letter.
Union leaders said the district is required to negotiate with the union’s representatives before making changes to its academic calendar.
“The district’s adoption of multiple calendars with total lack of notice or opportunity to bargain, and the timing of this action, reek of anti-employee animus and retaliatory motivation,” the letter stated.
Union officials also wrote that “unilateral changes to the academic calendar violate state law.”
However, the district maintained that it did not need to bargain with UTLA while creating its calendar as the number of instructional days and hours is unchanged.
“In response to the latest unfair practice charge from UTLA, the development and approval of the instructional calendar is at the sole discretion of the superintendent and the Board of Education,” a spokesperson for the district told The Epoch Times in an email.
The spokesperson also said that prior to the approval of the new calendars, the school district held two meetings with labor partners to discuss the impacts on employee work hours and the district’s recommendation to shorten the winter recess.
UTLA sent a representative to only one meeting and failed to do so for the other, according to the spokesperson.
“The district has been, and continues to be, available to bargain the effects of the amended calendar with UTLA, and recently offered an additional meeting to bargain the effects of the amended calendar, but UTLA did not respond to the invitation,” the spokesperson said.
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the calendar was changed to help mitigate learning loss by shortening the winter break and extending options for summer schools.
“We have also maintained a student-centered focus in scheduling future instructional calendars to address family needs of childcare and food assistance, as well as provide a calendar that delivers the best educational experience,” Carvalho said in a March 27 press release.
The shorter winter recess will help lessen learning loss over winter break and instead stretch the district’s summer session by a week, according to district officials.
“I’m proud to support the new instructional calendar that centers our students and supports our families,” LAUSD board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said in the press release. “Two and a half weeks break this year and two-week winter break going forward provides a shorter instructional pause along with more regular access to meals, socialization with peers, and time to prepare for important college-readiness exams.”
Last fall, UTLA leaders clashed with district officials over optional instruction days designed to catch up students who are still struggling with pandemic-related learning loss.
In October, the district reached a compromise with the union, shifting the optional days to the winter and spring breaks—Dec. 19–20 and April 3–4.
