Teacher Vote Set on Pact in School Strike

Spurred by mounting parental pressure, striking teachers and the Beverly Hills Unified School District reached a tentative settlement Tuesday afternoon, with teachers scheduled to vote on the agreement early today.

Terms for ending the 12-day-old strike, the district’s first, were not to be disclosed until they were presented to teachers this morning, but Judy McIntire, president of the teachers union, said the two-year agreement entailed “movement on both sides” from their earlier positions on salaries and benefits. The agreement included a pledge by parents to contribute $600,000 to sweeten the settlement, according to a parent close to the talks.

Other parents said the one-time contribution by parents this year would be replaced in the second year by funds from a parcel tax--if passed by city voters next June--that would be permanently built into the salary schedule.

School Supt. Robert French said teachers could be back on the job as early as this afternoon, depending on how quickly substitutes can remove their belongings. He said the district is working on a plan to keep the two groups from having to face each other after the highly emotional strike.

“We are recommending the tentative agreement to you,” McIntire told members after the settlement was reached.

Teachers who are members of the union, the Beverly Hills Education Assn., will vote by secret ballot on the tentative agreement at 7 a.m. at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, McIntire said.

Union leaders had wanted the nearly 300 teachers, counselors and librarians who struck the district Oct. 16 to vote on the settlement proposal Tuesday night and go back to work in the morning.

But several teachers said they had made plans to take their children trick or treating, or celebrate a colleague’s birthday, so the vote was postponed.

Earlier Tuesday, teachers made what they hoped would be their final push, picketing Board of Education members’ homes and marching up and down Beverly Drive after a mid-day rally.

“I feel wonderful, relieved and at the same time excited. I welcome the teachers back,” said school board President Dana Tomarken, who embraced McIntire upon word of the tentative settlement.

Latin and French teacher Betty Nichols said, “If this is something the bargaining team recommends, it’s probably the best bargain that can be gotten.”

Students also welcomed the news. Jason Tevelowitz, who headed up student support of the teachers and boycotted classes, said he wanted to go back to school but hoped “teachers don’t rush into anything that’s not satisfying.”

The agreement came amid growing frustration from parents, some of whom were scrambling to hire tutors and search for private schools for their children. Parents took an active role in the resolution of the strike, offering ideas, participating in negotiations and raising money to help pay for the raises the teachers demanded.

“The parents were the key to this,” said Albert Gersten, a parent and a leader of Children First, a community group formed to raise money after the district said it could not afford to meet the union’s initial demand for 18% pay raises over two years. The district said it could afford only 11%. Since the strike began, parents have raised more than $400,000.

“It’s a real big night . . . . We feel we have done our best to bring our teachers back with dignity, and we’re real proud of all the parents who are involved in supplementing the (district’s) offer,” Gersten said.

He said parents’ groups have pledged to make available the $600,000 as quickly as possible and will distribute it to teachers “as soon as it is raised.” In addition, Gersten said, the teachers union, Board of Education and parents will work to get the tax on each parcel of land in the city passed in the spring to bring more money to district coffers.

City voters narrowly rejected a similar tax in March, 1987, when 60% approved it, short of the two-thirds vote required.

Since the effects of declining enrollment and the 1978 initiative cutting property taxes began to be felt in full several years ago, the district has struggled to keep up its renowed academic programs.

This year’s $28.3-million budget, with a reserve fund of $1.3 million, included $4.6 million from the city of Beverly Hills, plus monies from a private foundation formed to raise funds for the district and from sales of sportswear with the famous high school’s logo.

Beverly Hills teachers currently earn between $21,604 and $48,270 a year. Average salary is $42,659, district officials said.

Many teachers in the 4,700-student district said they have been spending their own money for equipment and supplemental materials for years, despite the city’s reputation for affluence.

Parents who can afford to opened their checkbooks, but many are not wealthy, some residents said.

As the strike entered its third week and attendance at the district’s four kindergarten-through-eighth grade schools and the high school averaged around 60%, parents on both sides were increasingly agitated by the impasse.

“To tell you the truth, with all we’ve been doing, the ones who are going to pay the biggest price in this whole thing are the children,” said Eileen Traub, who tutored her first- and fourth-graders to keep up with school work.

College-bound students were especially anxious. One parent was reported to have called Harvard and UCLA to request they waive their deadlines for applicants’ recommendations from teachers, and advanced placement students were scrambling for tutors.

“There is only so much time in the school year, only so much time to make this up,” said one parent.