Teachers Stage Walkout Over Stalled Talks : Camarillo: Most of district’s educators protest negotiations delay with one-day action. Substitutes and parents keep schools open.

Camarillo teachers walked off their jobs Thursday to protest stalled contract negotiations over salary increases and improved medical benefits they are seeking from the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District.

About 200 of the district’s 285 teachers participated in the walkout, organized by the Pleasant Valley Educators Assn.

Teachers picketed at each of the district’s 13 schools Thursday morning before moving on to the district’s headquarters on Temple Avenue.

Many carried signs that read, “We Want Respect,” “I’m Fed Up With Leftovers” and “We Deserve a Bigger Bite.”

“This is a one-day walkout to make our point,” said Linda Erwin, a drug-prevention teacher. “We’re not going to stop until we get what we want, what we aptly deserve.”

Jean Johnson, who teaches bilingual education at Camarillo Heights Elementary School, said teachers had no choice but to walk out.

“This is what we have to do to get a cost-of-living raise,” she said. “I feel badly we have to do it this way. I felt like crying this morning.”

Ina Lea Parker, president of the educators’ association and a fourth-grade teacher at Las Posas Elementary School, said the teachers want an 8.5% across-the-board salary increase and full coverage of medical benefits.

The district in March offered a 5.91% salary increase retroactive to July 1, 1990, plus a contribution of $4,430 a year toward each teacher’s medical benefits, up from $3,900.

Despite the walkout, no schools were closed Thursday, district officials said. Substitute teachers were called in and some parents volunteered to help out with classes, they said.

Still, many schools were forced to combine classes. And in some cases, students were asked to gather in a gym or other multipurpose room where they spent much of the day playing games or watching videos.

Stacy Higgins, a seventh-grader at Los Altos Intermediate School, was among a number of students who called their parents to come and pick them up.

When she arrived at the school, Stacy’s mother said she supports the walkout.

“I hope the teachers get what they want,” Lydia Higgins said. “They deserve it. It’s a very hard profession. I would never be a teacher.”

District officials said they were not surprised by the walkout since rumors had been circulating that it might happen.

“Considering the situation, everything went fine,” district Supt. Shirley Carpenter said. “Our No. 1 concern today was safety. We tried to keep things as calm and orderly as we could.”

Carpenter said she received a number of calls from parents about the walkout.

“We had calls from parents adamantly in support of the teachers, and we had others who are saying fire every teacher involved because they jeopardized the safety of the children,” she said.

Carpenter said the walkout was in violation of the teachers’ current three-year contract, which expires in December.

Carpenter declined to talk about whether the teachers would be penalized for their actions.

“The teachers, in negotiations, said they would never do this,” school board President Leonard Diamond said. “They lied to us. They are not negotiating in good faith.”

But Parker, the teachers’ association president, said the school district is shortchanging teachers. She said the benefits coverage is far from adequate.

Many teachers have been forced to either drop some of their health insurance or pay $400 a month or more to cover their families, Parker said.

Moreover, Parker said, the district has $3.2 million in reserve, much of it left over from last year’s budget.

But district officials contend that the state and the school board already have mandated uses for that money. Most of it is earmarked to hire new teachers, purchase materials, fund special educational programs or be used as an emergency fund, said Jan Maez, the district’s director of budget and fiscal services.

Maez said only $479,874 of the money can be used for teachers’ salaries.

Most of the teachers who participated in the walkout attended the school board’s meeting Thursday night to restate their demands and to urge that district officials return to the negotiating table.

Times staff writer Adrianne Goodman contributed to this story.