Fountain Valley : Teachers Protest Pact Implemented by Board

In a move protested as “dictatorial” by the teachers’ union, the Fountain Valley School District Board of Trustees last week unilaterally implemented a proposed contract that the teachers have rejected.

The action gives the 298 teachers in the district an immediate pay raise and the guarantee of three more pay raises each July 1 through 1988. “Another important thing is that this action implements the board’s commitment to reduce average class sizes from 30 to 1 (30 students to each teacher) to 27 to 1 during the next three years,” said Cheryl Norton, communications director for the school district.

The teachers, however, said they were angry because the board acted without continuing contract negotiations. “This is just policy; it isn’t a contract,” said Kathy Wright, chief negotiator for the Fountain Valley Education Assn., the teachers’ union.

“We are going to file an unfair labor practice (charge) with the Public Employees Relations Board.”

The teachers have asked for higher pay over the next three years than is included in the policy implemented by the Board of Trustees on Tuesday. The new policy gives the teachers an immediate 5.7% pay raise; another 5.7% raise on July 1, and 6% pay raises on July 1, 1987, and July 1, 1988.

The teachers had asked for 5.9% next July 1; 6.3% on July 1, 1987, and 6.7% on July 1, 1988. Existing pay in the district ranges from $17,115 for a beginning teacher to top pay of $36,666 for the district’s most senior and most experienced teachers.

The union and the board of trustees, during stalemated contract talks over salary, also had disagreed over teacher-transfer language.

Norton said the new policy “will save jobs for teachers. . . . We are still a declining enrollment district, but with smaller classes, we will keep teachers and not have to lay more off.”

Wright said the teachers are unhappy because they think contracts should be negotiated. She said the teachers have unsuccessfully sought to negotiate for more than a year.

Wright said she thinks the school board unilaterally implemented the policy language “because they’ll have to transfer a lot of teachers if the new reorganization goes through.”

The school district is considering coverting its seven kindergarten-to-grade 8 schools to kindergarten-grade 5. The grade 6-8 students would then all go to existing middle schools. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the school district offices, 17210 Oak St.