More than 30,000 Los Angeles teachers walked off the job Monday after budget negotiations broke down, sending the nation’s largest school district scrambling for temporary help. The United Teachers Los Angeles Union (UTLA) resorted to a strike for the first time in 30 years after weeks of negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) failed to produce an agreement on education funding, class sizes, and other sticking points between the two sides. The district offered Friday to “add nearly 1,200 more educators — teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians — in schools, reducing class size in thousands of classrooms.” The district also offered to place a 39-student limit on class sizes and to raise teachers’ salaries by 6 percent.
