On Tuesday, April 14, Van Nuys High School was open but it didn’t feel like a normal day. Many seats were empty in the first period, and it was obvious that not everyone had gotten the message that school was still on.
The strike everyone had been preparing for never actually happened. Still, the uncertainty leading up to it, with last minute arrangements and students unsure whether to show up or not. It happened because the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) let negotiations go all the way down to the last few hours before making a deal.
Reaching an agreement at 2 a.m. on the day of the deadline isn’t something to celebrate. It shows that the district left 400,000 students in the dark until the very last moment. And this isn’t the first time.
Around 2 a.m. on April 14, LAUSD and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 99 finalized a deal just hours before the strike was supposed to happen. The agreement included a 24% raise, more work hours and protection against layoffs according to NBC Los Angeles. The district had made a deal with the teachers and principals a few days earlier.
This keeps happening. LAUSD had a six day teacher strike in 2019 and a three day SEIU strike in 2023. In 2026, it came within hours of another shutdown before finally reaching an agreement. Three major labor conflicts in seven years, all decided at the last minute, it isn’t random but a pattern.
And it’s not like they didn’t have time. These contracts expired in June 2025, and negotiations had been going on for months. Even late Monday night, LAUSD was saying schools might close and that families wouldn’t know for sure until the next morning.
The final numbers make it clear that a deal could have been reached earlier. According to EdSource, LAUSD first offered SEIU a 13% raise but ended up agreeing to 24%. For teachers, the offer went from 8% to 11.65%. If those numbers were possible at the end of the day, they could have been offered before 2 a.m.
And not every family can deal with that kind of situation. A lot of students depend on school meals and many parents can’t just change their schedules overnight. During past strikes, families struggled with childcare and keeping up with schoolwork. Even though schools stayed open this time, the stress still affected people.
These negotiations also happened when the district did not have a stable leadership. The former superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, left under federal investigation, leaving an acting superintendent, Andrés E. Chait to handle the multiple contracts. Mayor Karen Bass even stepped in to help finish the deal early Tuesday morning. That is something that should be normal.
Some people argue that this is how negotiations work, both sides waiting until its last minute.
That might explain it once, but not over and over again. LAUSD keeps letting things get to the point where a strike feels unavoidable before making a deal. Avoiding a shutdown at the last second doesn’t mean the system is working, it means that it almost failed again.
Contracts that expired nearly a year ago shouldn’t be resolved a night before a strike. LAUSD needs to decide earlier and faster. The uncertainties they create have affected many students and families.
The deals that happened on Tuesday were real. But students stayed home because they thought school was canceled. The strike never happened but it disrupted many lives.
