Windfall Raises Hopes of Ending L.A. Teacher Strike

Gov. George Deukmejian’s surprise disclosure Wednesday of a $1.9-billion budgetary windfall for schools raised hopes for an end to the teachers’ strike that has paralyzed the massive Los Angeles Unified School District.

Day 3 of the teachers’ strike--begun amid reports of “Molotov cocktails” at one school, the arrest of a striking teacher at another school and drastically plummeting attendance--ended on an upbeat note following Deukmejian’s announcement.

“This is very good news,” said Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles. “If they (district officials) don’t want to settle with us now, they just want to break the union.”

And, school board members seemed encouraged when they emerged from a five-hour closed-door session.

“There clearly is more money,” school board member Julie Korenstein said. “The information we are receiving from Sacramento is very positive and very encouraging.” Fellow board member Warren Furatani described a “whole different feeling” among the board members who had previously been discouraged by the slow, tense negotiations.

Despite the upbeat mood, Korenstein said it is doubtful that the strike could be settled before Friday. School officials are uncertain how much of the extra funding can be reserved for salary increases, because the state Legislature may earmark a portion of the funds to finance reductions in class size and the maintenance and upkeep of aging school buildings.

Los Angeles Unified officials who initially expected only $34 million from the state during the next fiscal year are now expecting a share that could be four times larger.

That revelation thrust negotiations into a new context, however, with leaders of the teachers’ union promptly increasing their salary demands.

Johnson said the union will now push hard for a 26% hike in a three-year pact, compared to earlier demands of 24% over three years and, before that, 21% over two years. District officials have most recently offered a 21.5% hike stretched over three years.

The district did not immediately respond to the union’s latest demand.

The governor’s announcement came as the education process rapidly deteriorated in Los Angeles and amid rising tensions on the picket lines.

More than 250,000 students skipped school Wednesday to stay home, visit beaches or cruise shopping malls. A roughly equal number of students attended class, encountering a crisis that some say has transformed the nation’s second-largest district into an overgrown day-care center, with a curriculum dominated by educational games and videos.

District officials said morning attendance reports showed that 287,000 students showed up for class Wednesday--less than half of the district’s 594,000 students. That figure compares to 325,000 on Tuesday and 430,000 on Monday.

There was a slight increase, meanwhile, in the number of teachers who reported for work, district officials said. About 8,200 teachers reported to classrooms Wednesday, 550 more than the day before.

Union officials said that about 23,000 of the district’s 32,000 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians have honored the picket lines.

‘Fact-Finding’ Report

In another development Wednesday, a state “fact-finding” report, which said Los Angeles teachers are already among the highest paid in the nation, appeared to provide leverage for the district. The school district’s current salary offer is “very fair and reasonable,” the fact-finding panel said.

UTLA negotiator John D. Britz, in a dissenting report, called Geraldine M. Randall, fact-finding chairwoman, “so biased as to qualify for the position of chief negotiator for the district.” Randall wrote the report after hearing arguments from district and UTLA negotiators.

In the fact-finding report, the panel said: “UTLA presented no data to the fact-finding panel which would change the conclusion which is inescapable . . . under all of the usual and customary comparisons, the salary offered by (the school district) is very fair and reasonable.”

The fact-finding process, which is required under state law, is the last step before a strike can be legally called.

The purpose of the three-member panel--made up of a chairman and a negotiator from each side--is to break negotiation deadlocks.

The report, which covers 14 negotiation issues, also recommended against the agency fee provision sought by the UTLA, which would require all 32,000 district employees represented by the union to pay annual fees.

The report suggested that both sides submit to arbitration the district order last year to withhold pay of teachers refusing to turn in grades and perform playground supervision.

The union, which originally planned to strike on May 30, moved up the walkout to May 15 after district Supt. Leonard Britton threatened to withhold paychecks if teachers did not turn in grades by the 15th.

Even before Deukmejian’s announcement, Johnson and school district officials said the state budget report could prove a turning point in negotiations.

“Salary clearly is an area that is taking longer to smooth over,” Korenstein said in an interview before Deukmejian’s announcement. “I certainly would like to see the strike not go further than Friday. On both sides there is a desire to find a compromise. My hope is that we will settle by the weekend.”

In addition to a pay hike, teachers are seeking relief from unpaid duties such as playground patrol, and a majority voice on school decision-making committees. The school district wants teachers, parents and administrators to have equal say on the committees.

The union represents about 22,000 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians. Striking teachers account for almost two-thirds of the district’s work force of 32,000.

At Hollenbeck Junior High, extra police were assigned Wednesday after three “Molotov cocktail” firebombs were thrown at the school overnight, causing no injuries and only superficial damage.

At Banning High School, driver’s education teacher and football coach Rocky Garibay, 35, was arrested while walking the picket line and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

A district spokesman said the arrest stemmed from a confrontation Tuesday in which Garibay allegedly struck a substitute teacher with his picket sign. Garibay, who was acting as the captain of the picket line, also reportedly spat on the substitute and pounded on his vehicle.

Banning High School Principal Augustine Herrera sent the substitute home Wednesday morning “for his own personal protection.”

Tensions at Banning, located in mainly blue-collar Wilmington, were especially high. Some 2,600 students are enrolled at the school and the daily absence rate is about 400. Wednesday morning 322 students went to school, but about a third of them left before the end of classes, according to Herrera. Normally the school has 137 teachers. On Wednesday, it had 10 regular teachers plus 10 substitutes.

Many Union Families

The school has been hit hard by the strike, the principal said, because Carson is a strong union town. Herrera said some parents are calling him and expressing reservations about having their children cross picket lines because they are union families.

“We have a strong blue-collar union community. Many of the people who work on this campus live in this community, including our teachers. Some of our teachers do longshoremen’s work in the evening or in the summer,” Herrera said.

Jason Ghorbani, a 17-year-old senior said, “We went to school for a couple of hours and we just left after nutrition. We support the teachers. I think it is right what they are doing.”

Perhaps the largest demonstration occured at Manual Arts High School. An estimated 2,000 striking teachers who rallied Wednesday morning at Exposition Park later descended on Manual Arts, virtually encircling the school and chanting so loudly that students gathered at upper floor windows to survey the scene.

Less typical were teachers such as Kevin G. Dailey, who was among the handful of regular teachers who crossed the picket line to man a classroom at Audubon Junior High.

“In this community we need to provide for our students,” said Dailey, who is black, referring to the predominantly black area community. “In other communities, they have things the students can go to to fill the time. Our students need us. . . . I need to be here. I don’t want to strike my kids.”

Dailey said he has not encountered resentment from his peers,

Manual Arts Principal Marvin S. Starer said only 550 students showed up at school Wednesday morning. The school’s official enrollment is 2,300 but, even on typical days, about 800 students are absent, Starer said. Of 132 teachers on the staff, 110 were striking, he said.

Also contributing to this article were Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Larry Gordon, John Mitchell, Sheryl Stolberg, Rochelle Wilkerson and Elaine Woo.