Nancy Aguilar and her two daughters stood outside the Long Beach Unified School District building holding signs that read “Teachers Deserve a Raise” as they faced the wind and cold to support the Teacher’s Association of Long Beach (TALB) on Wednesday, March 1.
Aguilar has been working in the district for 19 years as a dual language elementary school teacher, and said that when she started, “LBUSD was the place to work at.”
However, she said, things have not been that way for a while. For Aguilar, it seems like the relationship between the district and teachers is no longer a partnership.
“It feels like the district has all the power, like they’re dangling a carrot in front of us,” Aguilar said, in reference to the district’s promise of a raise.
LBUSD and the TALB have been in contract negotiations since September 2022. Bargaining updates on salary increases and the suggested addition of four days to the school year for personal development have caused a rift between the two.
TALB members and supporters have been rallying since the district’s last board meeting on Feb. 15 and sharing their discontent through public comment, emails, signs and chants.
“There’s power in numbers, and that’s why we’re out here,” said Mimi Kao, a Los Cerritos Elementary fifth-grade teacher.
The Teacher’s Association of Long Beach and students protest the proposed additional personal development days for teachers outside of the Long beach Unified School District building on March 1, 2023. (Briana Mendez-Padilla | Signal Tribune) 
The Teacher’s Association of Long Beach and students protest the proposed additional personal development days for teachers outside of the Long beach Unified School District building on March 1, 2023. (Briana Mendez-Padilla | Signal Tribune) 
The Teacher’s Association of Long Beach and students protest the proposed additional personal development days for teachers outside of the Long beach Unified School District building on March 1, 2023. (Briana Mendez-Padilla | Signal Tribune)
Millikan High School teacher Michele Mize said she showed up to remind the board and the district that educators have voices.
“I think that the decisions that they’re making are so far out, they are so far from the classroom, that it’s hard for them to really grasp the reality of what’s happening on our campuses and with our students,” Mize said.
An overall feeling of underappreciation and lowered morale was echoed both by teachers outside rallying and those who gave public comments.
“We just feel professionally undervalued, so we want to speak our truth, and hopefully somebody in that room will listen,” Mize said.
According to the district’s latest update, the district proposed at the Feb. 24 bargaining session to phase in the four professional development days over the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
Multiple educators have pointed out that they are not opposed to the four days for lack of wanting to work, but would rather do something more valuable for their students and their job during that time.
“We’ve told you in no uncertain terms that district professional development isn’t very good. For a teacher it’s an hour or more of wasted time where we could have been doing something useful,” Peder Larsen, TALB vice president, said during public comment.
According to a survey conducted by TALB with responses from over 1,500 members, 45.5% of survey takers said the personal development days are “less than valuable” and 22.4% said it’s“not valuable at all.”
“We as TALB, teachers, psychologists, early childhood educators and librarians, we volunteer our time because we believe in what we do, and that’s being taken advantage of,” Kao said.
The chants and cheers from protestors outside could be heard well after public comment as the board continued with their meeting.
Echoing statements from their previous board meeting, the board said they could not comment on the negotiations as it is a non-agenda item.
The district and TALB’s next bargaining session is scheduled for March 9.
