Culver City teachers demand pay raise

Citing the hefty raises for teachers in Los Angeles Unified, teachers in nearby Culver City Unified are demanding more money from their district, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The Culver City Federation of Teachers held a rally at City Hall last week to garner support for higher salaries. The district is offering 2% raises, in contrast to the 21% raises Los Angeles Unified is giving its teachers.

“We are not going to settle for 2%. We are not going to settle for less than the COLA,” Ray Long, president of the Culver City teachers union, told the school board last week. “We are fed up. It’s time for us to be paid what we deserve to be paid.”

Superintendent Quoc Tran said the 2% offer is merely a starting point and the district is willing to offer more.

The union says that the district received 8% more from the state this year, although the district said that figure could change pending the state budget revisions later this month.

“We could definitely afford more (than 2%), but we are not going to put the district in a position where two years from now we are unable to support salaries,” Tran said, the newspaper reported.