Teachers Will End Strike in Orange District

Striking teachers from the Orange Unified School District agreed to end their walkout Monday when state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig asked for a “cooling off’ period and offered to assist in the negotiations.

Teachers are expected to return to classrooms today, and union officials were optimistic that a contract settlement can be reached in renewed negotiations.

The 24,500-student district--which serves the cities of Orange and Villa Park and part of Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Anaheim--has negotiated unsuccessfully for 15 months in search of a new contract with the 1,100 teachers. Deadlocks in the talks led to a one-day strike April 12, two massive sickouts by the teachers and the strike that began Thursday.

The district negotiators’ last offer to the teachers was for a 2.54% one-time pay bonus and a commitment to pay all health and other fringe benefit costs for the current school year. The union’s last proposal, submitted Sunday, was for a 3.41% regular pay raise for the current school year.