For one group of moms, the threatened Los Angeles Unified School District strike that would shutter campuses next week is provoking outright fear.
“I don’t know what I will do,” one woman said in Spanish on Wednesday afternoon, crying.
She is a street vendor from East Hollywood who barely makes ends meet in this expensive city. She is a single mom to a 14- and a 17-year old. And she is an undocumented immigrant.
Her children depend upon school meals. But she likely wouldn’t go district-organized food distribution centers because she is terrified that immigration agents will target the sites.
“I pray to God that the school district and the teachers come to an agreement so the strike doesn’t happen,” said another mother, who also works as an East Hollywood street vendor. “We don’t have a voice or vote on this decision, and the kids are the most affected.”
The historic LAUSD employee walkout — which for the first time would involve three major unions representing teachers, most nonteaching staff and school administrators, including principals — is set to begin Tuesday if the unions do not reach agreements.
Families of the district’s more than 390,000 students are reeling with the prospect of life routines thrown into days of uncertainty. They are scrambling for daycare, worrying about food, fretting about their ability to work.
On Thursday the district said on their website that they continue to meet with union leaders and are “committed to reaching agreements.” They posted lists of food distribution sites and community-based “child supervision” sites that could take in a limited number of children.
As both sides prepare for a potential strike, many parents are voicing strong support for the unions’ goals of providing better pay for educators, administrators and school staff.
On Thursday, a coalition of parent groups supportive of the unions gathered outside the LAUSD headquarters to voice their concerns, with several expressing frustration at facing a third strike during their children’s schooling.
“Unfortunately, this is my third rodeo,” said Carmel Levitan, who has two children at Eagle Rock elementary and high schools. She said budget cuts had left schools “understaffed with people who work to the bone while district priorities are misplaced.”
Levitan, an Occidental College professor, attended with others from Parents Supporting Teachers, a 30,000-member Facebook group. She has a flexible job and an older child who can watch her youngest, so she plans to join the picket line.
In interviews across the sprawling district this week, parents of all backgrounds are worried about another major disruption to their children’s education — and pleaded with all sides to settle and keep campuses open.
Some parents caught off guard
At Parmelee Avenue Elementary and Dual Language School in South Los Angeles, several working parents said Wednesday that they did not know there was a strike planned.
“Oh, s—!” said Jay Barnett, a 36-year-old mother of four LAUSD students when told about the possible strike by a Times reporter as she walked her daughter to class. She said district communication had been sparse so far — “no call, no text, no email” — and fretted about missing work at Sweetgreen, the fast-casual chain restaurant where she makes salads.
In the San Fernando Valley, Caden Chernoff, a mother of two LAUSD students, said the timing could not be worse. Friday is the deadline for parents — many weighing public vs. private education — to accept or decline offers via the district’s enrollment lottery system for its vaunted magnet schools and other programs.
“The district is making themselves look terrible to parents who are considering where to send their kids to school next year,” said Chernoff, a professional adviser for parents navigating enrollment. “They have options.”
Noting that the strike would come as Supt. Alberto Carvalho is on paid administrative leave following an FBI raid on his San Pedro home and downtown L.A. office, Chernoff said it feels “like all the wheels are falling off the bus.”
Jen Saxton, whose daughter attends transitional kindergarten in Sherman Oaks, said in an email that during a strike, she’s “going to have to start spending upwards of $120 a day to get my kid into camp since my husband and I both work full-time.” There would be additional daily charges, she said, to cover childcare for a few extra hours after camp programming ends.
“It would be great if LAUSD would at least offer low-cost childcare during the strike, even if it is not teachers and school,” said Saxton, whose daughter attends a free after-school program offered by the district.
Saxton forwarded an email sent by a Sherman Oaks dance and theater school on Wednesday advertising a one-day, Disney-inspired camp on April 14, “pending the LAUSD Teacher Strike.”
“Reserve your spot now!” the email said, adding: “Check out our Summer 2026 Camps while you’re at it!”
Parents lament more school disruptions
The strike would come after years of disruptions in the nation’s second-largest school district, in which more than 86% of students are low-income.
Teachers went on strike for six days in 2019. Campuses were closed for in-person instruction for more than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic — harming students’ academic progress and mental health. And in 2023, classrooms closed for three days because of a strike by the district’s lowest-paid employees — bus drivers, custodians, special education assistants and cafeteria workers — that was supported by teachers who walked off the job in solidarity.
Schools were closed during the deadly Eaton and Palisades fires last January. And this year, immigrant families within LAUSD, whose student body is more than 70% Latino, have been gripped by fear that immigration agents would target campuses. Many students have had family members and friends detained or deported.
The timing of the strike “makes me wonder where the compassion is” from the leaders of both the district and the unions, said Evelyn Aleman, founder of the nonprofit Our Voice: Communities for Quality Education, which advocates for low-income Latino and Indigenous families.
“We do not want a strike. We cannot handle a strike,” she said.
Aleman organized a Zoom interview Wednesday with two Times reporters and five mothers whose children attend LAUSD schools. The women, are all living in the country without legal documents, including the street vendors from East Hollywood. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their immigration status.
They empathized with the educators and support staff seeking better wages. But they did not want their children to become collateral damage in the labor fight.
Some had children with special needs who get extra help at school, and worried about them falling behind. And they worried about losing income while they stayed home from work to care for their kids.
“We’re thinking about what will happen to our kids, the economy, the ICE raids. We’re constantly thinking: What are we going to do?” said one of the moms, an Indigenous woman originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, who sells toiletries and vitamins as a street vendor.
Parents of students with special needs worried
Outside Parmelee Avenue Elementary in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood Wednesday morning, a woman with three foster children said the boys, two of whom are autistic, were new to the school and adjusting to a new routine. She did not know a strike was pending.
“Muy mal,” she said in Spanish. Very bad.
At the front gate, Lorena Valencia said cuts to the school have been noticeable, with fewer teachers and assistants for kids with special needs. During a strike, she said, she would carefully explain to her daughter — a 7-year-old with long, braided hair and a Labubu plush toy swinging from her red backpack — what the teachers were demanding.
Shantal Ray,the mother of an 8-year-old, said she supported the threatened walkout.
“They do so much for the kids, and they’re under-appreciated,” she said. “The teachers are sick and tired of it.”
Roger Medina, 34, is stressed about family logistics and had not realized the threatened strike date was Tuesday. His family has a delicate routine. He works at Vons, with a varying schedule that he plans around two weeks ahead of time — and he drops off his 12-year-old daughter each morning. His wife, who cleans hospitals, starts work before dawn and does school pickup in the afternoon.
He does not know what he will do for childcare, he said with a sigh.
His daughter started first grade on Zoom during the pandemic — that terrifying time when he, as a masked, essential grocery store worker — could not miss work.His wife worked at a spa then and had to stop working.
Medina does not want his daughter’s education being disrupted yet again.
“You get worried about what they miss,” he said. “It’s important.”
Coronado is a special correspondent. Times staff writers Jaweed Kaleem and Howard Blume contributed to this report.
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