L.A. Teachers Agree to Board Plan for Talks

The Los Angeles school district’s most celebrated report card day went off without a major snag Friday amid signs of potentially significant progress on the bogged-down labor negotiations front.

In a step toward possible resolution of a yearlong labor dispute, the teachers’ union agreed to a school board plan for nonstop, face-to-face negotiations beginning Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, despite some confusion, continued grumbling by students and some apparent report card tampering by students, union and school district officials reported no big problems Friday as hundreds of thousands of students were presented marks for their work since last September.

Pressure Tactic

As threatened by the 22,000-member teachers’ union, which has been boycotting certain non-teaching duties as a negotiating pressure tactic, marks were given to the students in handwritten form on 4-by-6-inch cards prepared by the union, rather than filed with school offices in the normal manner. The union estimated that at least 85% of teachers withheld grades from the district. The district said the figure appeared closer to 70%.

School Supt. Leonard Britton, contending that the withholding of grades could harm some students, threatened earlier in the week to withhold paychecks, starting next month, from teachers taking part in the grade boycott. Union officials have threatened to strike if that occurs.

While student concern over the grade-withholding tactic has been partly responsible for widespread campus demonstrations in recent weeks, most students accepted the unofficial report cards without loud protest when the day finally came.

“It went smoothly. This is acceptable,” said Iiesha Howard, a college-bound senior at Dorsey High School.

The key question of whether some seniors headed for college might be placed at a disadvantage if preparation of official school transcripts is delayed could not be conclusively answered Friday. But high school counselors appeared confident that they could handle any difficulties that might arise.

“For my students, I do not anticipate any problem that is insurmountable,” said Felicie Barnes, a college counselor at Dorsey, where about 150 of the 400 seniors are headed for four-year universities.

College counselors at Taft and Monroe high schools in the San Fernando Valley made copies of the grade cards belonging to students applying to college. They will examine each report card, verify any questionable grades with teachers and send copies to each school that requires midyear grades. They will also send a note explaining why the grades are not sent on official transcripts.

“If that’s what it takes to get these kids into college, I’m willing to do it,” said Linda Zimring, Taft’s college counselor.

Easy to Forge Grades

Some students and school administrators acknowledged that it would be relatively easy to forge grades. Most agreed, however, that students applying for college would not be likely to tamper with their grade cards because they know they would eventually be caught.

But Taft Principal Ron Berz said students have other reasons--such as establishing eligibility for extracurricular activities--for altering grades. Berz said he knew of some that were changed.

“This is going on all over school,” Berz said, waving two report cards he had just confiscated from a student.

Both cards had the same name, but one had markedly better grades.

Berz said students could easily obtain an additional blank grade card and fill it in themselves. During a locker clean-out at Taft Thursday, he said, administrators discovered 50 or 60 blank grade cards. He said he suspected students had found them on teachers’ desks and made copies.

Lovell Johnson, a Monroe High School senior, said he was aware that some students were altering their report cards and added that it was easy to get extra cards.

“Say you fail first period, then you go to your next period and say you didn’t get one,” he explained.

“You can write your own report card,” confirmed Shannon McIntyre, also a Monroe senior.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson agreed that forging grades was possible, but he insisted that it was a minor problem and would succeed in fooling parents only for a short time.

“Eventually, these grades will be filed,” he said.

Worry and Debate

For some students, the worry and debate over the unofficial report cards continued even after they received them. At Garfield High on the Eastside, senior Anna Gonzalez, 17, said she wants to attend a local trade school in the fall but may not be eligible unless she can present her official report card within two weeks.

“There is no way the school will accept this report card,” she said. “While the teachers and the schools are fighting, what am I supposed to do about getting an education?”

But Josh Ofstein, a Monroe senior who is applying at several Ivy League colleges, said, “Anyone who these grades really matter to knows there isn’t going to be a serious problem.”

Throughout the day, there were many instances of confusion. At Dorsey High, for example, senior Blanca Torres’ card was missing one grade from a teacher who was not participating in the union action. On another line of her card, the teacher had apparently been confused about how to fill out the form, and the information was incomplete.

For a third class, Torres’ teacher had scribbled over a mistake and marked the change with initials. Torres said her counselor told her “that doesn’t look good.”

At Gardena High School, teacher Hartley Kern, the union representative, said Gardena students applying to college were confused about where to go for counseling.

“Students know they should get their grades to a counselor,” Kern said. “But we’ve had no directive from the principal as to what seniors are supposed to do--go to a college counselor or to a regular counselor. I tell students to go to both places to make sure they’ve done it right.”

Despite the grumbling and inconvenience, many students continued to show sympathy for the teachers and support for their job action. Seventeen-year-old Lizbeth Chavira, a Garfield High senior, said, “It’s not (the teachers’) fault that they need a pay raise. They can’t support their families, and they have to do this to make things better for themselves.”

Meanwhile, under orders from a state mediator supervising the contract negotiations, the teachers’ union accepted a school board-proposed bargaining format it had rejected a day earlier. The Sunday session at school district headquarters will put school board President Roberta Weintraub and union President Johnson face-to-face, along with Britton and professional negotiators for both sides.

Nearby for consultation will be the others needed to approve new offers and any settlement--the other six school board members and elected union officers.

Diana Munatones, a district spokeswoman, said officials hope the contract dispute over wages and other issues can be quickly settled so “students can get back to class and studies and teachers can get back” to their duties. But Johnson warned Friday that the union will renew its demand for the presence of all seven school board members at the talks if rapid progress is not made.

“I find it absolutely incredible that seven elected officials will not sit down and meet . . . union officials on a contract dispute that has this whole city turned upside down,” he said.

The two sides are far apart on wage increases and other issues, including how neighborhood schools should be managed. Teachers want a one-year contract with a 12% pay increase, but the district is seeking a three-year contract and says it cannot afford much more than its current pay offer of 17.4% spread over the three years.

Contributing to this story were staff writers Amy Louise Kazmin, Ginger Thompson, Sam Enriquez, John Mitchell and Adrianne Goodman.