HUNTINGTON BEACH : Ocean View District Teachers OK Strike

Teachers in the Ocean View School District have authorized a districtwide strike in their wage dispute with district officials.

The strike authorization empowers the board of directors of the Ocean View Teachers Assn. to call a strike without taking a full vote of the membership.

Teachers Assn. President Carol Halbach said Tuesday that no strike date has been set, but she warned that a walkout could come at any time.

Unless a settlement is reached by Friday, a state mediator is scheduled to enter the negotiations to help resolve the 10-week-old labor dispute. The mediator would help prepare a fact-finding report on issues and complaints in the dispute.

The Teachers Assn. is demanding, among other things, that the district restore full health benefits for all employees and give teachers more direct involvement in deciding how state lottery money will be spent.

In the wake of the strike-authorization vote on Tuesday, school district officials are preparing for a possible walkout.

Officials last week began advertising in local newspapers for substitute teachers in the event of a strike, said Gayle Wayne, an administrative assistant. She said the district has received dozens of responses, adding, “We’re planning for the worst, but hoping for the best.”

A strike called before the fact-finding report is complete would be illegal under state law, officials said. Halbach said she hopes to avoid declaring a strike before the report is finished, because such walkouts, while common, are “typically viewed negatively by the public.”

Halbach said the teachers on Tuesday supported a strike after receiving the district’s latest contract offer, which she contends falls well short of the teacher union’s proposal. She said the district proposal did not address the issue of a pay increase, class size or paid time to prepare lesson plans.

“You don’t want to go to an illegal strike if you can help it, but on the other hand, people are angry enough that they did this (authorized a walkout),” she said.

Among the 396 teachers in the 8,400-student district, 300 are Teachers Assn. members. About 250 attended the strike-authorization meeting, Halbach said.