It’s the eve of a teachers' strike in the second-largest school district in the nation. Parents are getting together to prepare, making handmade signs in support of their kids' teachers.
Amanda Kent looks at her daughter as she decides what to draw on her poster board. “I think a picture would be nice, do you want to draw a picture of Ms. Focker?” she asks.
“I don’t want to draw a picture,” replies Hannah.
“You don’t?” asks Kent.
Hannah shakes her head.
“No.”
Decisions are being made at San Rafael Park in Pasadena. From what to draw and what colors to use, parents like Amanda Kent from Dahlia Heights Elementary School show their teachers support by making posters.
“And so tomorrow we get up and we’re gonna head out there and meet up with our teachers at the school and hold up our signs that we’ve made and sit in the rain with them and . . . yeah, sit in the rain and yeah . . . and we are going to do whatever we can to support our school,” says Kent.
Hannah and her friend Iris support the strike, but Iris is a little conflicted, because she loves to learn.
“I don’t think it’s good that they are going on strike because if they are, we don’t get to go to school and learn as much as we would if they didn’t go on strike,” says Iris.
Thousands of United Teachers Los Angeles teachers went on strike Monday.
This move came after nearly two years of failed efforts to negotiate a new contract for educators in the Los Angeles Unified School District. These parents fully support their teachers. Every sign counts. That's why Lindsey Meyer Clough organized this party.
“Part of me feels just devastated at the thought of standing outside the school that I love and protesting it and at the same time, I know that we are doing the right thing,” says Clough.
As the party continues, Melissa Obryant a teacher who's spent 19 years in the LAUSD and teaches at Rockdale Elementary walks by.
She was full emotion when she saw the support and hugs Clough.
“As I always feel when you get together in person with people and talk about the issue, I feel so encouraged and I feel like our teachers are physically seeing the parents who are showing up and the kids who are showing up for them,” says Clough.
Her way of showing up is by striking on the first teachers walk out in three decades.