Compton Teachers Strike for One Day in Protest

About two-thirds of Compton’s 27,000 students stayed home Tuesday as more than 1,200 of their teachers staged a daylong strike over working conditions and a salary scale that has consistently made them the lowest paid public school educators in Los Angeles County.

The walkout, led by members of the Compton Education Assn., occurred three days after negotiators failed to agree on pay provisions in a proposed three-year contract. The Compton Unified School District teachers, working without a formal agreement since Sept. 30, contend that the low pay has become particularly demoralizing because they continue to face overcrowded, sometimes decaying classrooms without adequate educational supplies.

Wiley Jones, the union’s executive director, said teachers want an immediate raise of between 10% and 17.5% to bring them into the average range for teachers in the county. School district officials are offering a 5% raise in the contract’s first year, followed by increases over the balance of the agreement if certain state money becomes available.

“I don’t know of a school district in California that can give that kind of raise,” Supt. Ted D. Kimbrough said of the union’s request. “There’s only so much money, and going on strike is not going to do anything but deplete the amount of money we have,” he said. A strike that reduces the average daily student attendance, Kimbrough said, also cuts the amount of state revenue that the district receives for teacher pay.

800 Attend Rally

Kimbrough said about 17% of the district’s teachers showed up for work Tuesday and about a third of the students. Some classes were taught by substitutes.

At a mid-morning rally of roughly 800 union members, many waving signs that read “Compton School District Unfair to Teachers,” union President Pat Ryan charged, “We have told the district that we feel that they can do better . . . and they have been stonewalling.”

Jones also said the strike had been effective because shortly after picket lines went up around each of the district’s 34 schools, Kimbrough telephoned to ask that union leaders return to the bargaining table later in the day.

“I think the district has a realization that teachers in this district are very serious about not being at the bottom of the heap any longer,” Jones shouted to the cheering crowd. “They’re serious about having secure and safe classrooms; they’re serious about being treated as professionals. . . . We are going to step forward and make sure now that this administration will not treat us as third-class citizens anymore.”

Jones said union leaders would remain open to continued negotiations as teachers return to work today.

Although teacher pay has long been at issue in Compton, no prolonged strike has occurred since 1973. The last time teachers staged a one-day walkout was in 1983. In 1985, students boycotted classes for several days until teachers reached a contract settlement.