Sickout Hits Orange Schools

Orange Unified School District was hit by largely peaceful demonstrations for a second consecutive day Friday as 400 teachers staged a districtwide sickout while more than 100 students protested at one high school, waving teachers union signs about a protracted contract stalemate.

Administrators covered 50 classes and 200 substitutes were summoned, but 150 classrooms remained unfilled throughout the 31,000-student district, district spokeswoman Judy Frutig said.

At Thursday night’s school board meeting, at least 800 teachers and their supporters protested the trustees’ March 14 decision to impose a unilateral contract in the deadlocked negotiations. Many of those demonstrators were students who turned out early Friday to picket at Orange High School.

The protest lasted about an hour and involved at least 100 students, including members of the school marching band who played tunes in support of the teachers’ salary demands. School officials reported no problems and praised protesters for their behavior.

“This is an example of how well they’ve learned the importance of being part of a community, part of a unified organization,’ said Assistant Principal S.K. Johnson.

Students on the picket line Friday said they were motivated to protest because they are frustrated by the continual departure of teachers from a district that is among the lowest paying in the county. Many said that in all the upheaval--from budget cuts to contract disputes to court battles over the existence of a gay-straight group at El Modena High--the students are the ones suffering the most.

But their comments suggested that much of their understanding of the labor dispute comes from what they hear from their teachers.

“I had a biology teacher who said, ‘How can I put these other children through college when I can’t afford to put my own children through college?’ ” said Oliver Lopez, 16, one of the demonstration’s organizers. “And that really affected me.”

Many demonstrators blamed the school board for their teachers’ unhappiness, and an informational sheet distributed to the crowd depicted the board as stubborn and distant from the schools.

The flier stated that most of the trustees’ children attend private schools, an assertion that board President Linda Davis denied.

“Not one of our children or grandchildren--and there’s 11 of them at last count--are in private schools,” Davis said. “The problem is these kids have trust and faith in their teachers and believe what they’re being told. But they’re victims of gross misinformation.”

Contract negotiations between the teachers union and the board of education have been stalled for months, but bad feelings have run deep for years; the California Teachers Assn. has described the negotiations at the Orange Unified School District as among the most contentious in the state.

While board officials see themselves as correcting the irresponsible fiscal policies of previous, more liberal boards, the union sees the board as perfectly capable of paying teachers well but unwilling to do so.

The problem goes beyond money; it is the almost total absence of good will between the two sides and the strong belief that the other side cannot be trusted.

Hundreds of teachers have left in recent years, and labor protests have become common. Teachers unhappy with contract negotiations have picketed school board meetings, recruitment fairs and their own campuses.

After months of rocky contract talks, the board on March 14 imposed a salary and benefits plan that includes an 8% raise for this school year--a move protested by the teachers union.

The district’s offer would retroactively pay entry-level teachers $32,975 and the most senior educators $56,560 this school year. The union’s last proposal would have included more substantial raises for veteran teachers, with salaries ranging from $32,000 at entry level to a maximum of $63,980.

On Friday, district officials scrambled for substitutes in the wake of the second sickout in as many months. The hardest hit campuses included the high schools and Esplanade, La Veta and Nohl Canyon elementary schools.

There were reports that some parents kept their children home Friday, but it was unclear whether they had notice of a sickout.

However, district officials suspected a sickout would happen.

“We knew [Thursday], and the calls started coming in, in the afternoon,” Frutig said. “We didn’t know how many teachers or how many schools would be affected. We had enough warning that we were able to begin preparing the day before.”

Union officials said they had no role in organizing either protest.

“We did not organize or even condone this thing, if indeed there was really a sickout,” union President John Rossmann said. “That the students were out there with pickets though shows the depth to which the turmoil has reached. It’s not just the usual political activists who are pro or con on this. It’s the children.”

Picketing students urged the district to meet the teachers’ demands.

“They do all this work, in class, after school helping us, at home with papers, and they don’t get paid” enough, said protester Sean Daly, 14.

The protesters, who called themselves Students Strike Back, have vowed to rally on behalf of teachers until an agreement is reached.

“See this orange?” Lopez asked his classmates, speaking into a microphone borrowed from the school. “It represents our school 10 years ago. But in the past 10 to 12 years, you know what has happened?” He hurled the orange to the ground. “Because promises have not been kept, . . . it’s busted, just like that.”

Many students were sketchy on the details of the long-running dispute, saying only that their teachers are underpaid.

Many said it has been painful to lose favorite teachers and mentors who have left the district for better jobs elsewhere.

“In fifth grade my teacher left, and then in eighth grade my favorite teacher left and went to Santa Ana,” said David Ly, 16. “Then last year, my chemistry teacher left and went to Santa Fe Springs. It’s just awful.”

Thai Le, another protest organizer, said the departure of a favorite English teacher still smarts.

“It wasn’t so much what she did in lessons, it was time after class,” the 16-year-old said. “School was like a job for me until through her I realized that teachers really plant seeds in their students.”

Said Patrice Donaldson, 16: “It’s getting very sad. We should not be put through this.”

Some parents also supported the teachers’ sickout.

Linda Horist, who said she found out about the sickout Thursday night, kept her three children home from school Friday.

Horist said she knew nearly a dozen other parents of Nohl Canyon Elementary students who also kept their children at home.

She didn’t want her children, sixth-grader C.J., third-grader Daniel and first-grader Allison, to spend the day at school in physical education and computer activities without most of the teachers on campus.

It would not have been a constructive day, Horist said.

She said she heard some kids who had attended school say they “didn’t do anything all day.”

For some students at least, that was most certainly the case.

“[Substitutes] just stick the video in the VCR and that is all we do,” said Stephanie Pounder, 15. “I don’t mind them leaving every once in a while, but if we just keep on looking at videos you don’t learn.”

Times Correspondent Tammy Min also contributed to this story.