Santa Ana Teachers Will Continue Bargaining

After many hours of negotiating, representatives for Santa Ana teachers agreed to resume talks at a later date with school district officials and a state mediator over a new teacher contract and pay raise.

The teachers had voted at a meeting Tuesday to authorize a strike if their demands for an 8% pay raise retroactive to July 1, when their last contract expired, are not met. The school board’s previous offer was a 3% pay increase.

Diane Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Santa Ana Unified School District, said that in negotiations Friday, the district offered teachers a 3.5% pay raise and a one-time bonus equal to 1% of each teacher’s salary.

District officials have maintained that there is no more money for teacher pay because the state only gave schools a 2.54% increase this fiscal year. That, Thomas said, was why the district could not promise teachers a bigger bonus.

“At this point we don’t know what we’re going to get” from the state next year, she said.

Gail King-Burney, president of the Santa Ana Educators Assn., said the district’s latest offer was “still lousy.” She said it represents “minimum movement” on the district’s part and warned that unless the pay package improves substantially, the teachers will strike.

The current average salary for a teacher is $31,800. Salaries range from $20,670 for a beginning teacher to $41,383 for senior instructors.

While Thomas would not elaborate on details of the negotiations, she said: “We feel a good deal of progress was made today. It all looks real positive to me.”

Negotiations lasted for more than eight hours Friday, with both sides agreeing to resume talks April 5.

Thomas said that about 152 teachers called in sick Friday and that the average absentee rate on Fridays is between 75 and 100.

On Thursday, about 500 of the districts teachers staged a sickout, the second in a week. On March 18, about 300 teachers, supported by student protests at Santa Ana High School, called in sick.

No classes were canceled during either demonstration.

Thomas said substitute teachers, called in Thursday and Friday, were paid $175 a day.

Schools will be closed next week for spring break.