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Discussions are resuming for the first time since more than 30,000 educators left work this week to demand smaller classes, additional staff and higher salaries for teachers.
"We have an impact," said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "This impact is felt throughout the city and we just have to keep doing it."
But while teachers are demanding millions of extra dollars to finance their studies, the Los Angeles Unified School District said it has already lost $ 97 million to the strike.
Indeed, the state finances schools on the basis of daily attendance and the number of schoolchildren dropped during the strike. On Thursday, for example, about 84,000 of the 600,000 students in the district went to school, said LAUSD. That's a 37% drop in attendance since Wednesday.
Karen Goldman's mother is well aware of the money lost by the drop in attendance. This is one of the reasons why she is preventing her fifth grade son from going to school.
"I have a teacher. I feel that the message I sent him by not sending it and creating a budget loss is better than sending it to me, because that would allow the strike to be completed more quickly ", she declared. .
But do not expect teachers to end their strikes anytime soon, said the union president on Thursday.
"After 21 months of negotiations, I think it's unrealistic to say that this will end after today," Caputo-Pearl said.
Teachers on strike are not paid. But the union leader said that it was vital to survive Superintendent Austin Beutner, a former banker who had no previous experience in teaching.
"If this happens in the next week … we have to last a day longer than Austin Beutner," said Caputo-Pearl. "We have to last a day longer than someone who has never taught in a classroom."
The school district reports that children are still learning.
Although students are expected to go to school during the strike, many parents withdrew their children due to the huge shortage of teachers.
But the LAUSD stated that students were learning, though sometimes in auditoriums rather than in classrooms. At Adams Middle School, a deputy director filled in and gave a lecture on Thursday.
Last week, LAUSD stated that 2,000 re-assigned administrators and approximately 400 substitute teachers would help replace more than 30,000 striking educators. On Wednesday, the school district updated the number of replacements to 1400.
LAUSD did not answer CNN's questions about the number of teachers who are not on strike and who are still in school. class.
Beutner defended the decision to keep schools in working order, especially for low-income families, who can not afford daycare and have no safe place where their kids can go.
"Although classroom instruction is not the same without teachers, we have a responsibility to keep schools open and to provide students with a safe space, shelter from rain, meals and instruction. modified, "he said.
The big fight around money – and a big deal
This impasse boils down to two questions: how much money should be spent to increase staff and teachers, and if the school district actually has this money .
The district offered $ 130 million to meet union expectations, but the UTLA rejected that proposal.
The teachers 'union said the school district should tap into reserves amounting to $ 1.8 billion to fund additional staff and increase teachers' salaries.
But the union president said the school district was "always wrong in its forecasts, so we do not believe these numbers."
"Three years ago, they predicted a $ 105 million reserve and a reserve of $ 1.86 billion, with a reduction of $ 1.7 billion, said Caputo-Pearl.
If there is a financial problem on which both parties are in agreement "It is that they need more help." About 90 percent of the district's funds come from Sacramento, Beutner said.
California's newly elected governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed an increase in public school funding and wants the stalemate in Los An freeze ends quickly.
"This impasse disrupts the lives of too many children and their families, Newsom said in a statement Monday.
But it is unclear how much extra money the Los Angeles schools could receive, or when.
Rosalina Nieves and Stella Chan of CNN contributed to this report. [19659040]
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