Students Strike a Theme in Camp-Out Protest: ‘We Want Our Teachers Back’

Jerid Maybum, an El Modena High School student, figured Saturday that he was learning more by camping out on the grounds of the Orange Unified School District than he does listening to substitute teachers.

“We got substitute teachers asking us what we should do. At least here we can talk to some of our teachers. We are here because we are tired of doing nothing at school,” Maybum, 17, said Saturday, sporting a white T-shirt with homemade lettering proclaiming “Student N Strike.”

Saturday was the third night Maybum and about 40 other El Modena students, teachers and parents slept in four tents pitched on the lawn of the school district administration building on North Glassell Street in Orange.

“We will stay out as long as it takes,” Maybum said.

The strike entered its ninth day today, and both sides are scheduled to meet with a state labor mediator. Mark Rona, president of Orange Unified Education Assn., said negotiations continued until 3 a.m. Saturday.

“We are pretty close,” Rona said Saturday. “We are fine-tuning the language.”

Rona said chances are good that the district and teachers could reach an agreement sometime today.

Maybum said he hoped the students’ own protest would hasten that accord.

“I don’t think the board cares about us. We can’t vote them out of office. But if we stay out of school, they’ll lose enough (state) money, and maybe they’ll have to do something,” Maybum said.

The district’s latest announced offer was a 2.54% one-time-only bonus for teachers this year. The union’s last proposal was a 3% regular pay raise retroactive to July 1.

Jennifer Gentry, a 16-year-old junior at El Modena, said it was important that teachers return to the classroom for the last three weeks of the school year.

“We want our teachers back, but I don’t think the board cares enough about teachers. If they did, they wouldn’t be out on the street,” she said. “But we have to stay here to make a point that we stand behind our teachers.”

Darin Day, another senior scheduled to graduate on June 16, said he is frustrated that a test for his math class has already been delayed the past two weeks.

“And we haven’t gotten any homework since then, either,” Day said. “You don’t realize how something like this disrupts your life . . . including not having any homework.”

Maryiana Herde, a striking drama teacher, has joined her students’ sit-in and has kept them busy with spontaneous lectures. Other teachers, one student said, have also come by and talked to students about pending lesson plans and final term papers.

“We learn more here than we do at school. The teachers give us interesting lectures, and we talk about important things,” said Staci Hamblin, another senior about to graduate.

Gentry concurred with her schoolmate.

“We don’t get bored here. We talk to our teachers. They are very interesting people,” she said.