August 8, 2025
Welcome back Members!
My name is Sarah Schwartz, and I am the new Burbank Teachers Association President. I am a third-grade teacher at Edison Elementary and have served our union in a variety of capacities, most recently as an Elementary Director for the past 5 years. I look forward to visiting your sites and meeting with you over the coming weeks. I am excited to collaborate with all of you on the collective effort to imagine and create a better BUSD.
On August 6, we had the pleasure of welcoming over 50 new educators to BTA and BUSD. I know how overwhelming it can feel to be the new person at a school. If you have new colleagues at your site, please make sure to reach out to them and help them feel welcome. Supporting one another is critical now more than ever as public education and the committed people who make it their career once again face attacks on multiple fronts.
Union involvement gives us a platform to make meaningful change. The role of our union has always been to protect and advocate for the collective rights of educators while ensuring that quality education remains at the forefront of everything we do. Through solidarity and shared efforts, we achieve goals that we could never accomplish alone. For example, over the last few years, through organizing in BTA, you and your colleagues have again extended Elementary P.E. teachers for grades 3-5, providing crucial planning time for teachers and quality instruction for students. Together, we have secured new safety language to provide educators with additional support in addressing unsafe student behaviors, more aggressive penalties for administrators who exceed the student contact maximum in secondary schools, and the first floating substitutes in years for elementary special education meetings. These accomplishments are not enough, but they are evidence of our growing strength.
We will continue to face challenges, and we will continue to meet them, because we are stronger together. We are BTA, and together we can make a positive difference in the lives of school staff, students, and our community.
In Solidarity,
Sarah Schwartz
The Burbank Teachers Association, established in 1948 and incorporated in 1963, is the exclusive bargaining agent for teachers, counselors, school nurses, and speech and language pathologists in the Burbank Unified School District.
BTA’s mission is to provide quality public education for all students, to protect and promote the well-being and working conditions of our members, and to solidify and advance our collective bargaining rights.
We value a safe teaching and learning environment that addresses the physical, mental, and emotional needs of our members. We work to improve and maintain fair working and learning conditions. We want to always focus on attracting and retaining quality educators.
BTA continues to be a professional organization that represents and engages all members through an active presence in the community and it continues to focus on maintaining a balanced relationship with parents, district, and community members.
In the 2024-2025 school year, Burbank Teachers Association represents over 700 educators. BTA is affiliated with the California Teachers Association (CTA) and National Education Association (NEA).
We are governed by an Executive Board elected by the membership consisting of the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, two High School Directors, Middle School Director, two Elementary School Directors, and two At-Large Directors. The policy making body is the Representative Council consisting of elected members from each school site with a total membership of about 50 representatives.