The Narratives of LAUSD UTLA Teachers at Roosevelt Magnet

Our names are Brenda Gonzalez and Ivone Santana, we are currently UCLA undergraduate students that had the privilege of working with two teachers who are part of UTLA, at Roosevelt Magnet High School located in the city of Boyle Heights. We conducted a total of four interviews with teachers and had the honor of sharing space together as we entered their classrooms and heard their narratives on the LAUSD 2019 Strike. Through our research and narrative sharing with teachers at Roosevelt Magnet we learned that teachers truly value our public educational system along with their student needs for a better education as teachers proved to go above and beyond their role as mentors/ femtors to help their students succeed. We hope to shed light on the voices of UTLA teachers as we share this blog.

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Overall Research Reflections on UTLA Strike

Teachers are not only educators, they are selfless individuals who create a better future for children through social justice and Femtorship/ mentorship, while focusing on student-empowerment through understanding their personal lived experiences and ultimately crossing the picket line for them. 

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Teachers at both Roosevelt and Roosevelt Magnet come together as a collective to strike.

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Inside Roosevelt. 

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Aileen’s classroom space. 

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Reasons for the Strike

One of the main reason for the strike was for school equity. Although Roosevelt High School does have a nurse and librarian on site everyday, most larger schools do not because of insufficient funds. Mr. Molina stated that Magnet and Roosevelt both have to divide their funds in order to have a nurse on campus five days a week. However, not many schools in LAUSD have this luxury. Due to the media, the public believed that a major reason why the teachers went ons strike was for a wage increase. However, Mr. Molina stated that although teachers salary is not enough to thrive in Los Angeles, a major reason for the strike was for students and their wellness. It is the responsibility of the district to ensure that their students well-being is a priority. 

“For the students the important thing is the support staff that the district has to ensure now. I talk to other schools and they have a nurse once a week. God forbid your child is sick when the nurse is not there. The resources and support resources need to be there for the students”.

Aileen chose to go on strike because she has worked within LAUSD for over 12 years. She has worked for both public schools and charter schools but shared that she would rather work for a public school such as Roosevelt Magnet. The main reason that pushed Aileen to go on strike was access to education similarly to Eduardo Molina. As a teacher with her experience in working with LAUSD she highlighted clear disparities in education amongst Asian and White counterparts as opposed to Latina/o students and Black students. She also addressed that while she was in the process of obtaining her Masters at UCLA she knew from the get go that she was going to work in an Urban school setting which she feels is necessary to understand. With this her main concern and reason for the strike was access to education within LAUSD for underrepresented communities such as the one she works in. Additionally, Aileen and Mr. Molina went on strike for the conditions of LAUSD not the conditions of Roosevelt Magnet as their classroom sizes are smaller and they operate differently than a traditional public school.

“ I feel like there is a lack of action and clear evidence that they are working towards a more equitable system because it's still a lot of students that are not achieving at the rates of like Caucasian or Asian counterparts and other districts.”

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Eduardo Molina working in his office. 

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Mr. Eduardo Molina is a resident of Santa Ana, Orange County. He is an educator/Chicano/father. He has been teaching in LAUSD, specifically MSTMA for 15 years as a government teacher and has recently transitioned as the school coordinator. His pedagogy consists on being not just an educator, but to serve as a mentor to his students throughout their education process as he shares: “I never liked the title teacher- student, I preferred mentor-mentee, I never saw myself as a teacher.. Sometimes the kids taught me a lot about myself too..I never wanted my relationship with my students to end the day i graduated..as they continue their academics I know they’ll be able to reach out to me because I know their stories, I know their background”.

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Research Question

What was your experience like working for LAUSD, what actions lead to this strike? How was the outcome beneficial for students, teachers and the overall community?

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One thing I do feel grateful for is that the administration allows the teachers to take on teacher leadership positions to support the school wide and then also our professional growth. So I'm a restorative justice teacher and leader in which I lead the school's culture team. So on the culture team consists of the students, a few students, teachers and staff. And we get together monthly to kind of brainstorm events or  major dates for, for us to help improve school culture.

Aileen Gendrano Adao

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Here is a picture of Ms. Aileen Gendrano Adao in her classroom at Roosevelt Magnet High-school. 

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Aileen Gendrano Adao is a Filipina-American mother, scholar and teacher from Los Angeles. She has been teaching for over 12 years and has taught all levels of high school English including Introduction to Drama, primarily serving the Boyle Heights and South Los Angeles communities. As someone who believes in constantly learning and growing in her practice, she received National Board Certification in English Language Arts, recently completed UCLA’s Principal’s Leadership Institute, and also completed Breathe for Change’s Yoga and Socio-Emotional Wellness Program. Currently, she teaches 12th Grade English and AP English Literature and Composition and supports the Restorative Justice implementation at the Math, Science, and Technology Magnet Academy at Roosevelt High School as the Restorative Justice Lead Teacher.  Last Spring, she was recognized as one of LAUSD’s 2018 Teachers of the Year. Her pedagogy can be described as a balance of examining rigorous, complex text while providing nurturing, student-centered, community work grounded in social-justice and social-emotional learning strategies.

Aileen Gendrano Adao

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To begin our blog we would like to first and foremost start off by introducing ourselves, our names are Brenda Gonzalez and Ivone Santana, we are UCLA undergraduate students who were also a product of LAUSD schools. We both knew from the get go of our Oral History and Collective Memory: Research Methods and Applications of 21st-Century Narratives course at UCLA that we wanted to shed light on the strike as it touches many aspects of our personal lived experiences in receiving our k-12 education within LAUSD.

Our research is centered on the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) against Los Angeles Unified School District. On January 14, 2019, 30,000 teachers walked out in what was the first teacher's strike in Los Angeles since 1989. Teachers stood at the picket line to shed light on the need for bettering our public educational system in Los Angeles the second largest districts in the country which serves approximately about 64,000 students who are predominantly students of color.