Reporter’s Notebook : The Strike as Seen by 6th-Graders

In the chaos of the Los Angeles school strike, some replacement teachers have taken to screening Daffy Duck cartoons and others have handed out dominoes.

But Beverly Williams, a teacher’s assistant at the 92nd Street Elementary School, is focusing her sixth-grade class on the strike itself.

Says Williams: “The students had so many questions and feelings and they were really concerned. So I said, ‘Why don’t you write them down in a letter?’ ”

Those missives, addressed to The Times, reveal a wide range of opinions toward the job action.

“I hope the owner decides to pay the teachers enough money so the strike can come to an end,” declared Cecy Argueta.

Lakesha Stewart, to the contrary, groused that teachers “are acting like immature kids.”

Christine Newman said she dislikes the strike because substitute teachers “make me sick.”

Maria Fajardo, on the other hand, harbors mixed emotions about the regular teachers. “I wish they would all come back,” she wrote. “But sometimes they get on my nerves.”

One youngster signed his (or her) one-paragraph letter, “Talking for the teachers.”

While ungrammatical, it was certainly touching.

“I feel so sad because I don’t have a teacher,” the child wrote. “Without teachers their are no education for us the kids. I think they should pay them more money to the teachers to educate us. When I grow up I want to be a astronaut, but without teachers a can’t reach my dreams. My mother wants me to be somebody in Life and I will be! They don’t pay teachers enough and they give us something more important education.”

One sure-fire method for charting the strike’s ebbs and flows is by dialing the prerecorded message on school board President Roberta Weintraub’s home phone.

On Monday, hours after a bitter break-off in negotiations, Weintraub informed her callers that the day would be highly stressful.

The next morning, shortly before she left for Sacramento to meet with state legislators, Weintraub ebulliently declared, “This is Roberta and I feel great.”

After a seemingly successful day in Sacramento, her Wednesday message might have best been characterized as guardedly optimistic.

“It’s Wednesday morning and I don’t know what’s going to happen but it looks a little better than it did yesterday. If you want to talk to me please leave your name.”

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson, for his part, hasn’t changed his phone message in months.

“This is (district Supt.) Dr. Leonard Britton,” the union chief says. “I find it hard to make ends meet on my $141,000 a year so I moonlight here at UT-LA while Wayne is not here taking his messages.”

When Weintraub and four other district officials arrived at Los Angeles Airport on Tuesday morning for their flight to the state capital, the board president took one look at her ticket and hit the roof. At $378 per person round-trip--the standard business fare--the party might as well be flying to Honolulu, not Sacramento, she reasoned.

With minutes to spare until takeoff, Robert Booker, chief financial officer for the district, raced back to the counter with the tickets. Flashing a credit card, Booker managed to switch fares to a special government class rate of $76 round-trip.