(June 9, 2006) -- Just days after candidates backed by the Teachers Ass'n of LB ("TALB") won a second seat on the five-member LB Unified School District governing board and a seat on the LB City Council, TALB announced late this afternoon (June 9) it has negotiated an agreement with LBUSD management that "is worth 11% for the first 2 years with salary to be bargained for the 3rd year while maintaining fully paid health care for all 3 years."
"This is one of the best salary and benefits settlements in the entire state so far for 05-06 & 06-07," says TALB in a mass email.
And in an editorial included in the emailing, TALB indicates it plans to target at least one, and perhaps two, more Schoolboard incumbents for defeat in 2008 to gain a working majority on the LBUSD governing board.
"[W]e need to make sure we limit the Superintendent to 2 rubber-stamps on the school board (he had 5, now he has only 3, by April 2008 we need to make sure has 1-2 less)," says the TALB-emailed editorial.
The TALB email indicates the teachers' 2005-06 salary increase "will be 4% across-the-board, fully retroactive to July 1, 2005 and increases on longevity steps that are equivalent to a .64% raise. The 2006-07 salary increase will be 6% across-the-board starting July 1, 2006 and a contraction of the salary schedule that is equivalent to a .38% raise.
The union won a guarantee of fully paid health benefits for all three years." Rank and file teachers will vote on the deal in the coming days.
In April, TALB-backed Michael Ellis won the LB School Board seat given up by Schoolboard president Suja Lowenthal who dropped her reelection campaign to seek the 2nd district City Council seat vacated by Dan Baker. (Lowenthal won the Council seat on June 6). In the Los Cerritos/Bixby Knolls area, veteran Schoolboard member Mary Stanton was almost defeated by TALB-backed Jim Deaton. On June 6, TALB-backed Dr. David Barton defeated School Board incumbent Jim Choura in a district that parallels much of ELB's 5th Council district.
TALB's well-organized ELB school board campaign helped boost TALB general counsel Gerrie Schipske in her race against ELB Councilman/Vice Mayor Jackie Kell. In the final unofficial tally (with some provisional and absentee ballots not yet counted), Schipske had a 262 vote lead over Kell, who ran a write-in campaign in hopes of retaining office under term limits. Kell has not conceded defeat and says she is waiting for the final count before deciding her next move.