Santa Ana Teacher Contract Talks to Resume Today; District Hopeful

Santa Ana Unified School District officials and union negotiators for 1,750 teachers go into another round of contract mediation today amid guarded optimism by the school district that a settlement will be reached this week.

Teacher union officials, however, were less optimistic. “I haven’t seen anything yet that the district’s put forth that is very positive,” said Gail King-Burney, president of the union, the Santa Ana Educators Assn.

By contrast, district officials said they see some hopeful signs in the nine-month struggle to get a new contract for the teachers. Disagreement over a pay raise has been the key stumbling block, both sides have said.

Teachers voted March 22 to authorize a strike. Union officials said the strike would not be called, however, unless all hope is lost for settlement of a contract.

A state-appointed mediator has been working with both sides for the past month. District officials said Monday that they think the mediation may produce an agreement by the end of this week.

“We have mediation sessions scheduled Tuesday and Friday, and we have hopes of being able to settle,” Assistant Supt. Don Champlin said Monday. Champlin said that teacher attendance on Monday--the first school day after Easter break--was about normal and that this was a “good sign.”

The current salary range for Santa Ana Unified teachers is from $20,670 for beginning instructors to $41,383 for the district’s most senior teachers. The average salary, according to the district, is $31,800 a year.

Champlin said 94 teachers were absent on Monday. This is about the normal figure for illnesses among teachers on that day of week, Champlin said.

For the two weeks preceding the Easter break, teacher absenteeism in Santa Ana Unified became unusually high. Although union officials specifically warned against such actions, many individual teachers at a mass meeting last month urged use of massive absenteeism--popularly called “sickouts”--to put pressure on the school district.

About 300 teachers called in sick on March 18, and on March 24 about 500 teachers staged another sickout. On random other days, teacher absenteeism has been running higher than normal, according to district officials.

The district has denounced such actions, saying they are unfair labor practices because contract negotiations are still continuing. The district is seeking a Superior Court order to halt further sickouts by the teachers.

The union, meanwhile, said it has demonstrated its good faith by reducing its pay-raise demand on March 25 from 9% to 6% for the current school year. The school district on March 25 increased its offer to the teachers from 3% to 3.5%, with a one-time-only added 1% payment.

In an interview Monday, King-Burney said the district’s increased offer on March 25 was unimpressive. “We went down from 9% to 6%, and they only went from 3% to 3.5%,” she said. “I don’t see anything optimistic about that.”

Nonetheless, a proposed meeting of teachers tentatively set for today has been deferred, King-Burney said. But, she added, “we’ll be rescheduling that mass meeting, maybe for Wednesday, if there’s no movement at the (negotiating) table on Tuesday. We’re not going to waste any more time in mediation.”