STRIKE: More Pay Demanded : Alpine Teachers Strike for Bigger Pay Hike

The yellow school bus churned out of the Alpine Elementary School parking lot and turned on Alpine Boulevard. It made its first stop after a journey of about 150 feet. Five pupils stepped off and hiked up a dusty path toward their homes as the bus drove off.

“They used to let the kids walk across,” explained teacher John McCambridge, watching from the other side of Alpine Boulevard. “A few years ago, one got hit by a car. They don’t want them to walk across anymore.”

That’s the kind of school district they have in Alpine, the kind that has the elementary school children ride a bus 150 feet to cross a busy street.

And that’s part of the reason a teachers’ strike seems so incongruous here.

Almost all of the 44 teachers who comprise the faculties of the two-school Alpine Union School District showed up at a picket line instead of in the classroom Tuesday, protesting a contract offer that falls about 3% short of what they’ve deemed acceptable.

“It’s so unheard-of in Alpine,” said Janet Quaid, a reading teacher and president of the Alpine Teachers Assn. “It’s, ‘Our teachers? Those little old ladies on the hill are striking?’ ”

Their unexpected action, organized late Monday by the executive board of the teachers association, forced the district to make do with teacher’s aides and substitutes. The teachers are hoping that stories their students will take home of a day without regular teachers will prompt the school board to come up with more money.

In this affluent hamlet east of El Cajon, the dispute between teachers and district leadership has been big news since last summer, when the old contract expired. Teachers have worked without a contract since then, and an impasse was declared in negotiations in October. So far, a state mediator has been unable to bridge the gap.

It isn’t clear how long the strike will last. “We’re just going to take it day-by-day,” said McCambridge. Some parents said they would remove their children from school in support of the strike.

Jere Ancell, the superintendent, sent home notices to assure parents that classes will continue for the duration of the strike, with fully qualified substitutes taking over classes.

“Once we secured the substitutes, it went fine today,” Ancell said Tuesday afternoon. “The principals were very complimentary of the programs that went on.”

In many ways, the dispute here reflects the national debate about the impact of teachers’ salaries on a quality education. Ancell says the school board has made a “competitive” offer to the teachers, placing their salaries among the top four elementary districts of comparable size in San Diego County.

Alpine’s current salary range provides from $15,311 for a starting teacher--the lowest in San Diego County--to a high of $31,857 for a teacher who has at least 13 years of experience and at least 80 units of advanced studies beyond a bachelor’s degree.

The school board is offering a 6% cost-of-living increase, plus an extra 1% for teachers in the middle range of the salary scale, and 2.8% for the longer school day and school year that have been authorized through state legislation. This would increase the beginning salary to $17,382 and the maximum to $33,768.

In a comparison of 21 small elementary school districts in the county, the salaries proposed by the district would place Alpine 6th for starting teachers, 15th for the middle scale, and 5th for the maximum.

Alpine’s teachers are seeking a 9% cost-of-living increase. McCambridge, vice president of the teachers group, said only nine teachers are in the middle range of the salary scale and thus would benefit from the extra 1%. Moreover, he points out, Alpine Union students score well on standardized tests.

The Alpine Teachers Assn. took a strike vote in February and its members were prepared to walk out. But then Ancell, who had just started as superintendent, asked the teachers to give him a chance to work out an agreement. “So we’ve given him his chance for two months,” Quaid said. “We’re still not making any progress.”

Echoing teachers across the nation, McCambridge and fellow teacher Skip Hitchcock argue that teaching salaries should be more competitive with those offered in private industry.

McCambridge, who teaches 7th grade social studies, said he makes about $28,000 a year after 10 years of teaching. “I’m about to get my master’s. Now how much would I be making, with this kind of education and this kind of experience, in private industry?” he said. “I’d probably be making $7,000 to $10,000 more.”

Both McCambridge and Hitchcock said they are giving consideration to leaving teaching for jobs in the computer field. Still, McCambridge held a picket sign that said, “I’d rather be in my classroom.”

“This sign is not for grins. I really enjoy teaching. People tell me, ‘You teach 7th grade? How can you stand it?’ I tell them I enjoy the kids,” he said.

“I would love to continue teaching,” Hitchcock said. “You do get rewards other than the financial. But that’s not enough to feed the kids at home. . . . I wouldn’t tell anybody to get into teaching.”

The strikers on Tuesday moved in waves between MacQueen Middle School and Alpine. They were there to greet the students who came out of MacQueen.

The students piled into the school buses. Questioned by a reporter, students seemed divided over whether they’d rather have their regular teachers back. Most said they watched educational movies much of the day.

“I don’t even know why we went to school today,” one student said.

“I like it this way,” another said, “because we need more vacation time.”