Few in Classes on 2nd Day of School Strike : Beverly Hills: Many students rally in support of teachers in their walkout over pay and benefits.

Both sides in the Beverly Hills teachers strike said late Tuesday night that they will resume talks today, although the district and the union disagreed on whether the new round of negotiations might produce a settlement.

Bill Gordon, chief negotiator for the teachers, said that if the district is willing to alter its latest offer, the labor dispute might be settled as early as today.

“When this is settled it’s going to be at the bargaining table, not the picket line,” Gordon said.

But Dana Tomarken, president of the Beverly Hills Board of Education, was less sanguine, saying that the district’s most recent offer to teachers was still “the last, best and final” one.

“I’m pleased that there is some talking going on but I don’t know what will come out of it,” Tomarken said.

Contract negotiations, which had been taking place for several months, broke off last Thursday and nearly all the district’s 300 teachers, nurses and counselors walked out Monday morning. Talks are set to resume at 10 a.m. at district headquarters, with a state mediator in attendance.

The district’s latest offer is for a teacher pay raise of 11% over two years. The teachers’ union, Beverly Hills Education Assn., is demanding 18% over two years, or 10.5% for the current school year.

On Tuesday, attendance plummeted at Beverly Hills schools as the first-ever strike in the district weathered its second day.

Students gathered for a brief morning rally outside Beverly Hills High School, shouting “Scabs go home!” and “We want our teachers!” One student held up a sign that said “Students Can’t Achieve With Bums.”

Beverly Hills police officers were evident at the rally but there were no incidents.

Robert French, superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, estimated that 125 students walked out of class, but students and others observers said the number was closer to 200. Only a small number of students appeared to return to classes.

French said attendance districtwide had dropped from 80% Monday to 53% Tuesday. Only 42% of Beverly Hills High’s normal enrollment of about 2,000 students came to class Tuesday--the lowest attendance rate of the city’s five schools--while 62% of elementary students showed up.

The district has a total of 4,700 students.

At a morning press conference at district headquarters, French said that all classrooms were being staffed by credentialed instructors.

Reports from the high school suggested otherwise, however.

Shawn Pakizegi, 15, said he waited for about 40 minutes outside his classroom Tuesday morning, but no instructor appeared. “That’s why I’m out here today,” he said, surrounded by a group of friends on the sidewalk outside the school.

Rady Rahban, 16, said his substitute teacher brought a VCR and television to class and showed a program called “Basketball Bloopers.”

Doron Barness, 15, who joined teachers on the picket line Tuesday, said many of his classmates decided to go to Disneyland. “I wanted to go, but I decided to support my teachers instead.”

Doron said he conducted a quick survey of about 15 classrooms and saw an average of seven students in each room.

Shortly after the first bell rang at the high school, about a dozen teachers were huddled around a walkie-talkie, held by another striking instructor, that was tuned to the channel used by the school’s administrators and security officers. Voices overheard on the walkie-talkie asked what to do about “kids just milling about on campus” or “occupying themselves on the stairway.” At other times, school personnel were heard reporting the rooms that needed to be unlocked.

When a male voice was heard saying, “We need a teacher (in) room 524,” the strikers cheered.

Of about 200 substitutes hired, about 10 chose not to return Tuesday, and five or six had been deemed unqualified and were not rehired, French said.

Several Beverly Hills High students said their substitutes told them they work in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where teachers waged a nine-day strike in May for higher pay and more authority.

One Beverly Hills High substitute, who would not give her name, said she teaches English at an adult school in the Los Angeles district, but is not a member of the local union. She said she decided to sign up for substitute duty in Beverly Hills purely for financial reasons. A single mother with two children, she said, “I need a way to cover the rent.”

Officials of United Teachers-Los Angeles have said that no union members are among the substitutes.

Beverly Hills is offering substitutes $185 a day--compared to the $137 a day Los Angeles offered in the May walkout.

The teacher also said that school officials asked her to teach a German class even though she is not qualified in the subject.

“The substitutes just don’t cut it,” said Jenny Brandt, an eighth-grader at Beverly Vista Elementary School. She said her substitute teacher gave the class an assignment to write a 250-word essay on “Would we rather be a tree or a wave?”

Another student, seventh-grader Andrew Kline, said his substitute asked students to write about “what our favorite movies were.”

One Beverly Vista parent, however, said he was satisfied that the school was trying hard to maintain normal routines. “From what I’ve heard, they (students) are doing a lot of work,” said Tom Guterres. “Not like at Beverly Hills High.”

At El Rodeo Elementary School, three fifth-graders had set up a lemonade stand across from the campus to supply striking teachers with refreshments.

“We’re not learning anything,” said Jessica Lee, 10, explaining why she was not in school.

Many parents came to pick up their children early Tuesday because they felt they were receiving little more than baby-sitting. One mother, who said she came to campus to observe the conditions, said many children are confused and troubled by the strike. “They want to come to learn,” she said, “but they don’t want to cross their teacher by crossing the (picket) line.”

Panos Nicolaou, a film and television producer who has two children in Beverly Hills schools, said he canceled a meeting at Warner Bros. studios in order to walk the picket line with the high school teachers.

“I’m very concerned with what’s going on,” Nicolaou said. “It’s not just a question of teachers wanting more money. It’s a question of priorities. Education should be No. 1.”