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That’s what it is.  That’s all it is. 

LAUSD “management” (Beaudry Big Wigs, Superintendent, Board Members) may talk all they want about negotiations and good-faith bargaining, what it means to cross pickets lines and usurp graduation stages, what constitutes fiscal prudence and what constitutes negligent constraint, etc .

But at the end of the day, those who face teachers across the bargaining table:  have, and they will have, and will only ever have, lost the support of the pupil’s parents –– all parents –– if they fail to place more teachers at the head of more classrooms.

Board President Zimmer said it all right here, back in 2013: On Why Class Size Matters (@ 1:25 “I’ll clean it up”).

“Our parents are sending us messages: … if they weren’t … sending a message about class size it wouldn’t be on the front of every charter school website”.

In striking, our teachers are giving voice to that message. UTLA is sticking up for our children, their education, our democracy.  For all of us.  For the message parents are trying to send.

Salary and fair recompense is part of a complex package of grievances, to be sure. But it is one of several parts only.

Working conditions for adults on campus are working conditions for children:  they are one and the same. This coincidence does not invalidate the perspective, it actually underscores it.

Children’s safety relies on more adults being present.  Children’s health relies on nurses and counselors and food service workers being present.  Children’s learning depends on aides and librarians and janitors being present. Children’s growth is measured by a teacher working in conditions that enable them to teach.

It’s that simple.  Class Size Matters.

And until Austin Beutner, his elected and self-appointed privatization pals understand that we get it, that we get that teacher’s conditions are student’s conditions, there will be no support from Angelenos while we trudge the picket line in lock-step with our teachers.