LOS ANGELES — Teachers picketed and rallied Friday as a strike against the giant Los Angeles Unified School District extended to a fifth day with a new round of contract negotiations underway.
Drums, whistles, shouts and honks from supportive drivers echoed through downtown as groups of teachers and backers walked to a rally that drew thousands to Grand Park near City Hall.
Negotiations between United Teachers Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District resumed Friday and continued into the night.
“Too many students are missing out on the education they should be getting,” district Superintendent Austin Beutner said. “We need to solve this now and get our educators and all of our students back in the classroom.”
But “we can’t solve 40 years of underinvestment in public education in just one week or just one contract,” he added. “And we can’t fix these problems working separately. We have to do it together.”
Renewed negotiations organized by Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office began Thursday afternoon and didn’t break until after midnight. The mayor said it was “a productive day of negotiations” in a brief statement on Twitter.
Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl earlier tempered expectations for an immediate resolution, noting that bargaining had gone on for 21 months before the strike and key differences remained.
Clashes over pay, class sizes and support-staff levels in the district with 640,000 students led to its first strike in 30 years and prompted the staffing of classrooms with substitute teachers and administrators.
