Fullerton Union High School Teachers OK Strike; No Date Set

Teachers in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District have authorized a strike, becoming the fourth Orange County teachers’ union to do so this year. No date has been set for an actual walkout.

The central issue in Fullerton, as it has been in the other school districts voting to strike, is a pay raise for teachers.

A fifth school district, Magnolia Elementary, which has schools in the Anaheim area, is on the verge of a strike-authorization vote, a union official in that district said Tuesday.

A strike-authorization vote means a union can call a walkout without any further notice. Such authorization was voted earlier this year by teachers in the Santa Ana Unified, Orange Unified and Huntington Beach City Elementary school districts. Orange Unified teachers staged a one-day strike April 12, and Santa Ana Unified teachers had two massive sickouts before finally ratifying a new pay raise and contract April 18.

Fullerton Joint Union High School District has 11,982 students and 494 teachers. The sprawling district includes La Habra, Buena Park and part of Yorba Linda as well as the city of Fullerton. Officials said Tuesday that the district has never had a teacher strike.

The district has offered its teachers a 2.05% pay raise, but the union has asked for 4.5%. Currently the average teacher pay in the Fullerton high school district is about $40,000, district officials said. They said pay in the district ranges from $20,661 for a beginning teacher to $45,048 for the most senior instructor.

Sandra (Cricket) Virden, president of the Fullerton Secondary Teachers Organization (FSTO), said that the 494 teachers in the sprawling north Orange County school district voted Monday by secret ballot at their respective schools. The vote total was tallied late Monday night.

“We had a 90% turnout of teachers on Monday for this vote, and they overwhelmingly authorized FSTO to call a strike when needed,” Virden said.

Virden said that while no date has been set for a walkout, one would be called if negotiations between the union and the school district do not improve. “If the district thinks this (strike vote) is a bluff, just let them call it,” she said.

In Fullerton, as in all of Orange County’s 29 separate school districts, the state budget is the “third party” to the disputes between teachers and the administration. Since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, there has been a constitutional lid on local property taxes. Such taxes formerly were the dominant source of income for local schools.

To make up for the local tax loss since 1978, the state has been forced to give bigger portions of its income to school districts. The school districts, however, say the state is not giving them enough. This year the state gave a 2.54% cost-of-living increase to the schools. Teacher associations, including the one in Fullerton, have demanded a larger pay raise than that amount.

Deputy Supt. J. Kenneth Jones said Tuesday that Fullerton Joint Union High School District has already offered the teachers a pay package that exceeds the 2.54% cost-of-living adjustment money from the state.

“Including the amount of money that must go for steps (automatic increases for teacher seniority), our district is offering a total compensation package of 3.5% for our teachers,” Jones said. He said the district made the offer despite a goal of trying to keep “within its means” by not spending more money than comes in each year. The annual cost of the 3.5% pay package would be $725,557.

Joe Merlo, one of the five school board members for the high school district, said Tuesday that Fullerton has been lucky in past years to get cash bonanzas from sale of surplus land and awards in legal cases. “But we on the board have tried to use that extra money for education programs, such as reducing class sizes in English and math,” Merlo said.

Both Merlo and Jones said they hope the impasse with the teachers can be settled without a strike.

“I think we can reach some kind of resolution,” Merlo said.

“A strike would be costly for both the teachers and the district, and we’re hoping we can find a solution,” Jones said.

Virden, the union president, was less optimistic about negotiations. “We’ve been without a contract since our last one expired June 30,” she said. “We’ve been in negotiations since September. In my 19 years as a teacher, I’ve never seen my fellow teachers as angry as this. And as I was counting (strike) ballots on Monday night, that anger was re-emphasized.”

As Fullerton high school teachers announced their strike vote, the elementary school teachers in Magnolia School District said Tuesday that they are nearing a strike-authorization vote of their own. Karen Bisel, president of the Magnolia Educators Assn., said about 125 teachers Monday night picketed a Magnolia school board meeting in Anaheim.

Teachers in Magnolia are asking for an 8% pay raise, and the district’s last offer is for a 2.54% pay hike. The average teacher salary in the district is $33,703, and the pay range is $19,196 to $41,851, according to Supt. Arch Haskins.

“A strike-authorization vote is under discussion, and we’re definitely moving in that direction,” Bisel said.