LA’s School Counselors Strike Back
January 23, 2019
By: E. Tammy Kim
Source: The Hechinger Report
LOS ANGELES — Thirty years ago, when United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the union representing rank-and-file educators in the county’s public schools, went on strike, Nadia Morales and Pedro Martinez were students at Los Angeles High School. Morales was the straight-A, Advanced Placement type and Martinez a class clown, so they had never before shared a classroom. But with all their teachers out on strike, classes were combined, and the two found themselves chatting in what amounted to a massive communal study hall.
After graduation, Morales and Martinez got married and trained for careers in education that led them back to their alma mater. Morales started out as an elementary-school teacher, then switched to academic counseling, which she’s done at LA High for the past eleven years; Martinez worked there, too, teaching history and social studies, until six years ago, when he was transferred to another high school in the district. And so, last week, when the couple and their two young children joined the picket line outside LA High, Morales thought of her teachers from three decades ago. “Now, I’m on that side, following their footsteps and what they fought for — for students and future teachers,” she said.