Parents Aim to Pressure Board on Teacher Contract : Education: Ocean View School District trustees are being blamed for stalled negotiations, and four of the five are up for reelection later this year.

Parents of children attending schools in the Ocean View School District are fed up with and fired up about the contract dispute between the district and its teachers’ union--and that could spell trouble for the school board.

Stalled contract talks between the district and the Ocean View Teachers Assn. have spurred activism among parents who say that their children are being ignored while the district and the union battle it out. In turn, this activism has opened the floodgates for the wrath of parents frustrated by budget cuts and declining services.

“A lot of these things are really affecting children, and parents are saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something about it,’ ” said Sally Alvino, a parent on the advisory board of Marine View Elementary School. The first step, she added, will be taken tonight, when parents are expected to air their concerns at a public meeting of the Ocean View school board.

Four of the five members of the board are up for reelection, and although the election is nine months away, signs are surfacing that parents will express their displeasure in the voting booth.

“A lot of people have been on the school board for a long time, and the parents are feeling frustrated,” said Marsha Sipkovich, who has three children in Ocean View district schools.

Although teachers have recently enacted work slowdowns, such as refusing to participate in extracurricular activities without pay, parents continue to back them, arguing that such actions wouldn’t be necessary if the teachers were adequately compensated.

“Ocean View teachers are not paid comparably to other districts--that’s been documented,” Sipkovich said. “I think parents want their teachers to be paid well so that morale will increase and that can translate into the classroom.”

Contract negotiations are deadlocked over salaries, health benefits, the use of state lottery funds earmarked for education and allocation of funds from the Proposition 98 school-funding initiative approved in 1988.

The district has proposed cutting its share of the total contribution to the union’s health-maintenance organization, and is offering teachers a 5.5% average pay hike. The union is seeking full health benefits and a 9.3% average raise. Talks are scheduled to continue Thursday.

Parents say the contract dispute is just the latest in a series of problems afflicting the district in the last decade.

“I think (the contract dispute) was the capper,” Sipkovich said.

Alvino said parent activism began rising after teachers in the district said that they would not donate time to supervise extracurricular activities until the contract is settled.

Sports, except for intramural contests during regularly scheduled class time, came to a halt when physical education teachers declined to coach after-school games. Science fairs in six schools are in jeopardy because science teachers have refused to help pupils outside of class.

But, Alvino said, “the overall problem is one of priorities.”

Alvino and Sipkovich both cited the lack of elective courses for junior high school students in the district, noting that few schools offer classes in music or fine arts, or in computers, typing or other vocational skills.

District officials and trustees acknowledge that the contract dispute has shifted some of the district’s focus from education.

“I think our children are being denied programs at this point in time, and I deeply regret that,” said Carolyn Hunt, one of the four school board members up for reelection in November.

Monte McMurray, superintendent of the Ocean View School District, said that while the district would like to increase specialized programs such as computer training and music courses, financial problems have forced it to divert funds to more essential needs.

“I can understand the parents’ concerns,” McMurray said. “But it’s a very delicate balance that the board of trustees has to make between employee demands and programs for students.”