LAUSD teachers and staff are known for being paid not nearly what they deserve. And with the recent three-day strike, where the goal was to get the staff like bus drivers and janitors better pay, people had different opinions on the strike.

I thought it was great that they finally stood up for themselves and demanded what they deserved. But when looking deeper, the strike was not worth it.

First of all, three days off of school is a lot of missed learning. The teachers didn’t set up Zoom meetings. They were on strike, so they weren’t getting paid to teach; therefore, students ended up being almost half a week behind. And is this going to mean that there are going to be more added days to the school year?

For more than half of the strike, it was raining, but teachers and staff still stood outside schools and protested. What makes this situation even sadder is the chance that the strike came close to occurring for no reason, as there was a chance that a deal would not be reached.

Carvalho said that the district funding shouldn’t be put towards wage increases because the funding is either committed to future expenses, restricted for special purposes, or is one-time funding. So, if none of the funding can be used for wage increases, then why did the teachers and staff even go on strike? If the district isn’t capable of providing the money, then there is no point in halting learning to ask for it. 

So even though LAUSD staff really needed a wage increase, the union should’ve waited until the district could even provide the wage increase that staff were demanding. I’m not defending the district – after all, they should work on getting the money that staff need so the district can add it to their wages. But, if the union wanted to go on strike for a higher wage, then they should have waited until the district was in a position where they couldn’t say no.