Strike averted: Covina school district and teachers reach deal

A teachers strike has been averted in Covina.

Educators and the Covina-Valley Unified School District reached a tentative agreement after a late-night bargaining session Wednesday. The deal means classes will go on as scheduled Thursday morning.

It comes after hundreds of teachers protested in front of district headquarters from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The main sticking points had been an increase to the workload for special-education teachers and a hard cap on healthcare benefits, which would have significantly impacted newer teachers.

Now there's a sigh of relief for parents and 13,000 students in 18 schools district-wide.

If there had been a work stoppage, one teacher said 80 to 100 students may have spent time in large spaces like gyms or cafeterias during the school day and all extracurricular activities would have been canceled.