MISSION VIEJO : Teachers Urge Board to Settle Pay Dispute

An overflow crowd of more than 400 teachers jammed this week’s meeting of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District Board of Education to ask trustees to settle a pay dispute that has left them without a contract since last June.

“This is the first time that we have confronted them in public,” said Bonnie Chadd, president of the Saddleback Valley Educators Assn., which represents the teachers. “We feel that we’ve been patient.”

Last year, teachers were given a 6% pay increase and a one-time 2% salary bonus. This year, they are asking for a 3% pay hike, Chadd said.

In contract negotiations, the district has offered a one-time, 1% salary bonus that would amount to $400 for a teacher earning $40,000 a year, said David E. Baker, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources. The district has not offered a pay increase.

“We feel we might have a little money to give them this year in a bonus situation,” Baker said. “We don’t feel it’s prudent to put money on the salary schedule only to have to take it back.”

Baker said the district is experiencing financial difficulties and could go bankrupt by offering an annual raise to teachers this year.

“We have no new money coming in, and we are deficit-spending,” Baker said. “Our board will not jeopardize the financial status of the school district by making unwise decisions.”

Chadd, who has been president of the teachers’ association for four years, said it is the first time in recent memory that teachers and the district have failed to come to terms on a contract.

“This district has an obsession with a worst-case scenario,” Chadd said. “We realize the board has been faced with difficult financial decisions, but we too have impossible decisions to make. We’re asking them to invest in us.”

Several teachers addressed the board with personal pleas and were cheered by their colleagues, many of whom stood outside the building in a light rain on Tuesday.

“Teachers are looking elsewhere because wages are unbelievable,” said Rainer Wulf, a teacher and varsity basketball coach at Trabuco Hills High School.

“Morale is very low,” Wulf told the board. “Job searching has become very attractive. We’re being asked to do more and more, and we’re getting less and less.”

Teacher Steve McCormick said angrily: “I’m still a damned good teacher, but I’m not going to do anything for free any more. When it’s 3 o’clock, I’m going home. I’m not going to take care of other people’s children when (the district) isn’t taking care of mine.”

Board President Raghu Mathur tried to reassure the teachers that the district is doing the best it can under trying financial circumstances.

“We value teachers greatly and we really do care,” Mathur said. “We’ve worked together in the most difficult times in the past. We’d love to see a settlement come out as soon as possible. We believe in win-win situations, and we’ve participated in negotiations with that philosophy.”