School Resumes Amid Hugs, Hard Words and A Few Authentic Notes

The first class held for some schoolchildren Friday was creative writing.

Some of the 1,500 Sepulveda Junior High School pupils who stayed home during the nine-day teacher strike were surprised to learn they needed notes from their parents to be readmitted to school early Friday morning.

Many of those who did not have written excuses in their pockets when they joined long lines in front of 18 attendance clerks managed to produce reasonable facsimiles by the time they reached the head of the queue.

“I didn’t have a note when I got here. But I’ve got one now,” grinned ninth-grader Adam Bloom, 14. His excuse, scrawled on notebook paper, read: “. . . We didn’t want him to get hurt during the conflicts involving the strike.”

Eighth-grader Kelly Brooks had a friend write a note for her as she waited in line. “I figured since there was a strike they knew why we were absent,” said Brooks, 14.

Josh Wisotsky, 13, who is a seventh-grader, insisted his excuse was real. “Joshua was absent because of personal business,” read his note.

When pressed by his friends, Wisotsky quipped: “I wanted it to be so broad that I could change its date and use it another time.”

Fourteen-year-old Peter Hart said his excuse was real too. “Please excuse Peter’s absence due to my regard for his safety and in support of the teachers,” stated the note signed by his mother.

To the relief of many, officials decided not to check the authenticity of the 583 notes handed in, said Cleone Jay, an assistant principal in charge of attendance at the Sepulveda campus.

Not far from the students’ lines, about 50 Sepulveda teachers lined up at the school’s front gate to march onto the campus together when the 7:30 a.m. bell rang.

Singing “Solidarity Forever,” they piled into the main office to sign in and collect nine days worth of mail from their mailboxes.

Returning teachers received hugs, cookies and coffee from school staff members. But they glowered at colleagues who had refused to strike with them.

Those who failed to support the walkout will likely be snubbed, said Ron Bradshaw, an eighth-grade history teacher. “I guess they’ll feel like outsiders. A lot of us will shine them on after this.”

Similar scenes--and similar sentiments--were evident at other San Fernando Valley schools.

Students applauded when about 45 teachers marched back to El Camino Real High School singing the same song. Returning strikers made the same prediction about the 20 El Camino teachers who stayed during the strike.

“We’re angry,” said math teacher Arthur Kohn, who is the United Teachers-Los Angeles union representative at the Woodland Hills campus. “It won’t be normal for awhile. I think it was very shortsighted of the young teachers who didn’t support us.”

At Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood, returning teachers said they were as mad at school administrators as they were at strikebreakers.

They complained that Principal Sandra L. McGuern threatened disciplinary action against pupils who talked to strikers during the walkout, inspected a teacher’s car after suggesting he was stealing books, refused to let picketing teachers use school restrooms and banned parents who supported the strike from coming on campus to check on their children’s classrooms.

“When a sub hit a picketing teacher with a car and the teacher ended up on the hood, our principal called school police and reported that the teacher had jumped on the hood, even though she knows that teacher has an artificial hip and couldn’t have jumped on a hood if she tried,” said special education teacher Ros Markman, Saticoy’s union representative.

McGuern disputed the accusations, explaining that she only followed district guidelines in dealing with the strikers and controlling students during the walkout. She said she checked on the teacher taking books only after someone reported to her that “kids were having to carry heavy things” for him to his car.

As for the picket-line incident involving a fourth-grade teacher who has taught for 35 years: “I called school police because she was reported by many staff people who said she was standing in front of cars,” McGuern said.

Striking second-grade teacher Marsha Schneider, who has taught 28 years at Saticoy and was welcomed back with children’s hugs, admitted that the strike--and its aftereffects--will be hard on everyone.

“But if everyone walks the extra mile, we’ll make it,” she said.

RELATED STORY: Part I, Page 1.