Strikers, Schools Get Boost : Labor: Parents on both sides of the Beverly Hills teachers’ strike are increasing their support on the picket line and in the classroom.

As the Beverly Hills teachers’ strike reached the end of its first school week, parents on both sides of the dispute hardened their resolve and stepped up their involvement.

Some opened their homes or arranged catered lunches for teachers on the picket line. Others took to the classrooms to help out “terrific” substitutes.

Lining up with district administrators, a newly formed group of Beverly Hills parents on Friday urged striking teachers to accept the district’s offer and get back to their classrooms.

“We empathize with the difficulties teachers face due to salary limitations caused by inadequate state funding,” Mark Egerman, spokesman for the 60-member Parents for Education, told a news conference at a Beverly Hills office building.

“Given the financial realities of the district, we ask that the teachers return to the classroom under the terms and conditions set forth in the Board of Education’s last offer for the current school year,” added Egerman, a former member of the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education who now heads a private foundation that raises money for the district’s five schools.

Supporting the strike, attorney Nicholas A. Micelli provided legal advice to student activists threatened with disciplinary action by school officials. Micelli will hold a meeting at his home today for parents and teachers.

Real estate investor Robert Schwab, who has kept his three children in school since the strike began Monday, got the two sides to try to talk things out. Although the Wednesday session fell apart shortly after it began, Schwab said he would continue to look for ways to help.

“I’m not looking at the blame, I’m looking at the solution side,” said Schwab.

So was author Melinda Stephens, who said Friday that she had had enough.

While making it clear that she supports teachers in their quest for higher salaries, Stephens said, “The fact that the two sides won’t talk to each other really disturbs me.

“Maybe if rather than taking the position that everything is the Board of Education’s fault, there needs to be some give on their (teachers’) side too,” said Stephens, who has kept her 10th-grade son home from school all week.

All but 16 of the district’s 300 teachers, counselors and librarians have remained out all week, according to district officials. The teachers, who earn between $21,604 and $48,270 annually, are seeking an 18% raise over two years. The district says it can afford only 11%.

Supt. Robert French said Friday that telephone calls to district offices indicate that parents on both sides of the issue are increasingly upset at the impasse. Some, he said, are showing support for the district by helping out in the classrooms.

“We have a tremendous, giving community. They’re interested in their kids,” said French, noting that about 25 parents showed up Wednesday at the high school to help keep order.

“These parents know a lot of the kids, so it was a big help to have them there,” he said.

Emotions about the strike ran high among parents who volunteered in the classrooms this week.

While some parents were out on picket lines and handing out leaflets Friday, others worked a “telephone tree” urging parents to send their children to school so the district will not continue to lose the state funds it gets based on daily attendance.

Laurie Holz said she visited her daughter’s class at El Rodeo School on Thursday and found there was “learning and teaching going on.”

About 43% of the district’s 4,700 students showed up for school Friday, about the same as the day before, district officials said. Attendance was about 55% at the four kindergarten-through-eighth grade schools and approximately 27% at the high school, officials said.

In another development Friday, the president of the Los Angeles teachers’ union, which led its members on a successful nine-day strike last spring, told a rally of Beverly Hills teachers to hang tough.

“I think the district may re-evaluate their position and come back to the table,” said Wayne Johnson of United Teachers-Los Angeles, which gave the Beverly Hills Education Assn. $4,000 for its strike fund. If the strike continues next week, Johnson said, he will ask Los Angeles teachers to donate a day’s pay to their Beverly Hills counterparts.

But Board of Education President Dana Tomarken told another news conference Friday that the district has no more money to offer. Giving the teachers what they are asking for would necessitate $2.5 million in program cuts by March 15, and that would lead to teacher layoffs, she said.