Orange District Ready to Hire Teachers, Guards as Strike Deadline Nears

Orange Unified School District officials met in an emergency session Saturday night and authorized the hiring of substitute teachers and security guards should the district’s full-time teachers walk off their jobs this week, as they have threatened.

During a 45-minute session at district headquarters on North Glassell Street in Orange, the school district’s board also approved a rate of $175 per day for the substitutes, said Josie Cabiglio, a district spokeswoman.

The actions were taken, said Cabiglio, so operation of the district would not be disrupted should a work stoppage occur.

Security guards, she said, would be needed to “protect the property and ensure the safety of people employed and served by the school district.”

The authorizations allow the district to assign the substitutes and guards without the customary approval by the board of each individual hire, Cabiglio said.

The district’s teachers, locked in a months-long contract dispute with school officials, have said they will stage a one-day strike Tuesday that could be extended.

The teachers are seeking pay raises through renegotiation of a contract that expires in 1990 but which can be reopened.

The teachers want 3.15% raises for this school year and the next. The district has offered a 2.54% raise for this year only.

In addition to pay, the dispute involves fringe benefits and a demand by the teachers for a revised pay-step schedule, which provides for automatic salary increases as teachers gain seniority and education.

The average teacher salary in the district is $33,307, according district figures, with a range from $21,686 to $40,628.

Mark Rona, president of the teachers union, the Orange Unified Education Assn., said last week that representatives of the teachers approved the one-day walkout after becoming “fed up” with the impasse.

The dispute was submitted to three fact finders three months ago.

If the walkout occurs Tuesday, it will be the first in the 25-year history of the Orange Unified School District, which has 37 schools in Orange, Villa Park and parts of Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana. There are 24,500 students in the district and 1,100 teachers.

The last full-fledged teacher strike in the county was in the Tustin Unified School District in October, 1986, when teachers staged a six-day walkout.