Ivy Academia has awesome teachers

Last week my son Jordan’s high school, Ivy Academia had Teach Appreciation Day. His school is a small charter school. I love the small school environment but about a year ago I began to notice some odd things about Ivy.  I began to notice that many of the teachers did not come back.  After researching a little I found the school has a 34% teacher turnover rate.  I started asking questions at the beginning of the year as to why this was happening and found out Ivy Academia Charter School is paying teachers 17% less than the average LAUSD teacher.  This means they make around $7,400 a year less than LAUSD teachers.  At the same time Ivy spends 10% of their budget on administration which is twice as much as the average for California  schools and districts. I am not a union person and I have never belonged to a union.  During my research I found almost every teacher voted for bringing the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) in to represent them.  They did this after years of trying to get the school to pay them fairly. UTLA and the teachers have been in negotiations for almost a year now trying to get comparable pay and benefits to what LAUSD pays their teachers. 

Another thing I found out was that the teachers are forced to sign a contract that says they can be fired at any time, for any reason (or no reason) without notice and with no way to protest termination.  By the way, the Executive Director at this school is paid more than most of the people with comparable jobs in the LAUSD.  She and her Board of directors have made a proposal that basically says that once the Ivy’s three campuses increase their enrollment from 1,199 to 1,200 they will start getting paid what LAUSD teachers are paid.  How weird is this?  Teachers have no control over the enrollment at Ivy.  Maybe the Executive Directors salary should be tied to enrollment since she controls the efforts spent to recruit students.  The Ivy school board actually elect themselves – they are not elected by parents.  Ivy is a charter school and is supported exactly like other public schools – with our tax dollars.  As taxpayers we have the right to make sure that our tax dollars are spent properly.  These teachers are not paid adequately, they have no health care and they are subject to termination for no reason.  A school with an $8million budget can and should do better by its teachers, regardless of how many students are enrolled. I, like those of you reading this letter, love living in the West Valley, Northridge, Encino and Sherman Oaks areas.  We have great resources available to us and we need to manage them in a way that maximize their utility.  Ivy Academia High School is a great institution available to us in our community and a number of us have children attending Ivy Academia High School.  Let’s stand in support of our teachers.