Tustin Unified Teachers Picket High School in Contract Dispute

Almost half of Tustin High School’s 85 teachers picketed outside the school before classes on Monday morning in what their union president said was part of a continuing effort “to make the public aware that a definite crisis” exists in the school district.

Tustin Unified School District teachers have been working without a contract for the entire school year and are “fed up,” said Tustin Educators Assn. President Sandy Banis, adding that the teachers could “very likely” strike in September if no agreement is reached.

“Teachers don’t want to come back in September without a contract,” and the union leadership will probably decide within 10 days if it wants to call a strike vote, Banis said. The leadership will follow the direction of its five-member negotiating team, she said.

‘Won’t Change Anything’

Supt. Maurice A. Ross, while recognizing the “possibility” of a strike, said the union’s threat “won’t change anything. It won’t create any more money.”

A ruling by the state Supreme Court last Monday recognizing public employees’ right to strike will have no effect on the association, Banis said. Because the union has filed two unfair labor practices charges with the state Public Employment Relations Board, it was already in a “protected status,” she said, in which it has the power to strike. But, she added, “we’re hoping . . . we won’t have to resort to a strike.”

Monday’s demonstration was held before school, and teachers were in their classrooms on time, Tustin High School Principal Peggy Lynch said. “It’s pretty much business as usual in the classroom,” she said.

All last week, teachers demonstrated outside the A. G. Currie Junior High-Jeane Thorman Elementary school, and additional picketing is planned for Wednesday morning at Helen Estock Elementary School, Banis said.

Contract negotiations, which began last August, have been stalled for several months. An independent mediator has been able to bring the two sides together on issues involving a longer school year and longer school day, but many points of contention remain, according to officials for both sides.

Mismanagement Charged

Banis said the major stumbling block in the negotiations is the lack of a cost-of-living salary adjustment in the district’s proposals.

“The district is crying poor, but if the administrators really feel that way, then they’ve mismanaged funds,” Banis said. “Every other district in Orange County gave teachers a cost-of-living adjustment,” she said.

Ross, in his eighth year as superintendent, said mismanagement has nothing to do with the district’s financial woes. Because the district has experienced a declining enrollment, state funds have tightened accordingly, and there is simply no additional money available for salaries, he said.

Last year, he said, the district’s state funds increased only 1.8% from the year before. To cut costs, the district has closed nine schools in seven years and depleted a reserve fund of almost $3 million, he said.

Bill Ribblett, a spokesman for the California Teachers Assn., said salaries in Tustin range from $15,023 for an entry-level teacher to $31,607 for a teacher with a master’s degree and 30 years’ experience.

Of Orange County’s 28 school districts, Tustin is “on the very bottom of every comparison chart,” he said.

Salary Figures Contested

Ross contested those figures, saying they fail to consider factors such as seniority, which he said places most Tustin teachers at the upper level of salary schedules.

“Last year we had the highest average teacher’s salary of the 12 unified school districts in Orange County,” he said. “A teacher in Tustin cost $2,400 more than a teacher in Saddleback Valley and $6,000 more than a teacher in Irvine.” In four of the past five years, employee benefits have risen more than 10%, he said.

According to the Certificated Salary Survey 1983-84, published by the Orange County Department of Education, Tustin ranked fifth of 11 unified school districts with an average salary of $28,591, and was 10th highest among all 27 school districts surveyed.

“You have to remember that all of those districts have received raises,” Banis said. If the most recent figures were available, she said, Tustin would rank 15th or lower. “We have dropped substantially. We are not the highest paid and we don’t have the highest average. That is not true,” she said.

In addition to salary questions, unsolved issues include health benefits, class size, transfers and teacher evaluations, Banis said. Teachers who “stand up for their rights” often receive “very questionable” evaluations, she said, likening the evaluations to “reprisals.”