LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Latest on the Los Angeles teachers strike (all times local):
1:10 p.m.
Some charter school educators have joined their public school counterparts on picket lines on the second day of a teachers strike in Los Angeles.
Thousands of teachers marched through downtown streets again Tuesday, demanding higher pay, lower class sizes and more support staff. It’s the first strike in 30 years against the nation’s second largest school district.
Strikers were joined in by teachers with the Accelerated Schools charter network, who are also union members but negotiate their contracts separately. United Teachers Los Angeles says the action is the first strike by charter teachers in California.
The district and the union have not met since Friday.
Schools are open during the strike but officials say attendance Monday was about a quarter of what it usually is.
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8:15 a.m.
Los Angeles Unified School District officials are urging teachers to return to the bargaining table as the strike by educators enters its second day.
Superintendent Austin Beutner told reporters Tuesday that the district does not have the money to do everything the teachers union wants, and he urged them to join him in pushing for more state funding.
Beutner says about 144,000 of the district’s 640,000 students attended schools on Monday, the first day of the strike. The district hired substitutes to replace the union teachers in schools.
Because funding is dependent on attendance, the student absences cost the district about $25 million. At the same time, the district did not have to spend about $10 million on teacher pay.
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10:40 p.m.
Parents are concerned that little learning is happening at Los Angeles schools staffed by substitutes during a massive teacher strike in the nation’s second-largest school district.
Tens of thousands of teachers will walk picket lines again Tuesday, a day after striking for the first time in three decades over issues including salary and class sizes. Talks broke down last week and no new negotiations are scheduled between the district and the union.
Taehyum Kim sent his two sons to school Monday so they wouldn’t ruin their perfect attendance records. But then he picked them up early after they complained they weren’t doing anything except playing chess. Kim says he’s considering keeping both home Tuesday.
District officials estimated that less than a quarter of students attended 1,240 schools on Monday.
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