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Update
On Friday, May 27th, LAUSD announced that the Elementary Arts Program is fully restored to 2010-2011 central allocation 2011-2012, avoiding a potential 60% cut. Thank you who have worked so diligently to make sure the Arts have been a focus for both the District and UTLA.

The restoration still leaves Arts Education Branch funding levels 30% lower than 2008-2009, and due to fewer purchases made from schools, there will be about 20 fewer arts teachers in the program. Many LAUSD elementary students will still be denied adequate access to the levels of arts instruction at this level. We still need to fight for the restoration of arts positions K-12, but we've dodged most of a potentially devastating budgeting decision.

Middle and high schools are bearing most of the cuts to arts ed right now. Arts teachers district-wide received about 30% of the pink slips issued for single subject teachers (although arts teachers only make up 5% of the high school and middle school positions), and schools have not purchased positions back in recent budgets revisions. As of the beginning of September, 2011, there are still 105 pink-slipped arts teachers without a position to return to in LAUSD.

Schools are now responsible for restoring Arts and other needs through their own discretionary funds: the tentative UTLA/LAUSD agreement relies on school sites to restore many positions. Please engage with your school site council and administration to make sure your local school is doing what it can to give the children what they deserve! Here is the budgeting document and instructional flyer for purchasing Arts Program positions at elementary schools.

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Video Activism
Submit a 60 to 90 second video expressing how the Arts have impacted your life. Upload the video on Youtube, then submit your video here. We are sharing these videos through our Facebook page and on our Friends of the Arts Youtube channel.

Download the Video Activism Campaign Flyer. Feel free to distribute

Fundraising
Save the Arts, a newly founded-organization dedicated to preserving arts education in LAUSD, held a fundraiser event and art auction for the Arts Education Branch at the Cocoanut Grove Auditorium Theatre on June 11, 2011. All donations through Save the Arts will be used to save arts teacher positions or fund arts materials in LAUSD schools. We'ds love your donations! http://www.savethearts.net/


Sunday, March 7, 2010

LAUSD Administrators Union stands up for arts instruction

 From the AALA website: http://www.aalausd.org/

Week of March 1, 2010
PARTIAL PARCEL TAX CAMPAIGN, or DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT CLASSROOMS AND LEARNING?

For the past six months, AALA has encouraged the Board of Education to realize that a parcel tax is needed to balance the massive cuts from Sacramento. We believed that cutting the arts, increasing class size, closing libraries, eliminating administrators, as well as cutting safety at schools was devastating to our mission as educators. Some sources believe that Sacramento has sufficient revenue but has made no decisions except to pass its problems down to the local school boards. AALA has been at the forefront in urging the District to take advantage of all flexibilities regarding the budget including shortening the school year and pursuing a parcel tax.

.... continued....

AALA believes that now is the time for action. The Superintendent should be given authority by the Board to state the case publicly for the parcel tax. Site administrators should be given clear instructions about the legal way to present parcel tax information so that they are not inappropriately advocating a
position. The Board President and Superintendent should implement a thoughtful campaign to reach  out to all communities within the LAUSD boundaries. Right now, the District is spending money on consultants and outside attorneys instead of speaking up for the kids and schools who truly need this
money. Perhaps they are delirious with the $7 billion for construction, and they no longer care about instruction. There are 95 days until the election on June 8. It is time to get moving now!
Posted by at 6:52 PM

1 comments:

  1. LAUSD was formed in 1903 to overcome the rampant fraud of small charter-like school districts- the same thing took place in NYC in 1905. People who don't know their history are doomed to relive it 107 years later. When dealing with the pillars of a corrupt society, whether it is healthcare, the banks, Wall St. or public education, no matter what the fraud, these institutions remain. If LAUSD, an institution that has a bigger budget than the City of Los Angeles, was not the continuing permissive failure that it has always been, charters and other "reforms" would not be necessary. Isn't it funny (sick) that all forms of reform have to factor in the continued existence of a totally failed LAUSD...hmm, I wonder why that is? Why not just fix the underlying problem. The vast majority of people want LAUSD gone in its present corrupt form. It is only their fear, apathy, and cynicism that allow people to continue to be bamboozled by a large LAUSD dinosaur with no brain, just a common self-serving party line. Come to www.perdaily.com and talk about what you know. Administrators and teachers, you're going to get scapegoated anyway.

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