Program Cuts Spur Wave of L.A. Student Protests

Disturbed by the low morale of their teachers, and fearful of the possible loss of such age-old traditions as band and sports, students across the Los Angeles Unified School District are venting their anger over cuts in education spending through a wave of protests that are disrupting classes and causing concern among district officials.

More than half a dozen demonstrations have taken place during the past week at schools from the San Fernando Valley to South Los Angeles. And although some district officials believe teachers’ anger over budget cuts is having a ripple effect in the classroom, subtly prodding students into action, many of the students involved say it is overcrowded classrooms, demoralized instructors and fears of more reductions that has spurred their newfound militancy.

“This is only the first step,” said Fernando Gonzalez, who helped organize a walkout involving more than 200 students at Belmont High School on Tuesday. “We’re just lighting the first match. The fire’s going to keep burning.”

In the latest protest, a coalition of about 400 parents, teachers and students demonstrated for an hour Wednesday in front of Manual Arts High School in South Los Angeles. Across town in Granada Hills, about 100 students at Kennedy High School also staged a morning walkout, reaching the street before being turned back by police. And about 50 students used a nutrition break to demonstrate against school cutbacks at Virgil Junior High School in Los Angeles.

There have been some problems. Last week, a walkout at Eagle Rock High School turned unruly as some children used the opportunity to storm a milk truck stopped at a traffic light near the campus. Police said some teen-agers involved in the Kennedy High demonstration shoplifted from a neighborhood liquor store.

But overall the protests have been peaceful. Demonstrations have also been held at University High School in West Los Angeles, Porter Junior High in Granada Hills and Grant High School in Van Nuys, and Burbank Junior High School in northeast Los Angeles.

Some students admitted that they used the protests to avoid going to class. But student organizers said such high jinks by a few should not minimize the seriousness of their complaints. Though the methods and turnouts have varied, the message of student organizers is the same: If school conditions do not improve, the district may be seeing only the beginning of what could be a long and turbulent year.

“Right now we have too many students, not enough desks and not enough books on the desks. It’s crazy,” said Liezel Castro, 16, a Belmont senior.

Castro was one of three students at Belmont High who spent the Labor Day weekend planning the final details for the protest Tuesday, which brought students in a march to the steps of City Hall.

The organizers said they spread the word on campus last Friday and passed out flyers Tuesday morning, telling the student body to meet in the senior quad at the end of the morning nutrition break.

Worried that none of the students they saw filing to class would join them, “we started chanting, ‘Walkout! Walkout!’ ” Gonzalez recounted. Within minutes, approximately 200 students had gathered in the senior quad and prepared to leave campus.

The Belmont protest, and others throughout the district, mirror efforts by teachers who have put up billboards and orchestrated public displays of outrage over pending pay cuts that could reduce their salaries by 17.5%. Some teachers have involved their students, encouraging letter-writing campaigns to pressure the governor to preserve funding for public education.

District Supt. Bill Anton said Tuesday the district should not have to make cuts beyond the $400 million already trimmed from this year’s budget. Most of the savings would come from slashing employees’ pay.

No district officials have proposed eliminating extracurricular activities. However, United Teachers-Los Angeles has recommended that as part of a multifaceted plan for surviving the budget crisis and reorganizing the district. Already, some teachers are refusing to supervise after-school programs, feeding students’ fears that those activities could be the next casualty of the fiscal turmoil.

Some district officials believe some teachers are influencing students by their actions in recent days, such as the mock funeral procession for education from Hamilton High School to Los Angeles International Airport that several thousand teachers held on Labor Day.

“What is it they say? Teach by example?” said board member Roberta Weintraub. “And the teachers have given students an example.”

But representatives for United Teachers-Los Angeles say they are not encouraging students to vent their feelings by walking out of class.

“The union is opposed to any of our teachers asking students to walk out of class,” said UTLA vice-president Denise Rockwell Woods. “We’re not opposed to them exercising their rights but we’re opposed to them walking out of class in order to do it.”

Students who have joined in the demonstrations say they are choosing drastic means to address a drastic situation. They not only fear the loss of sports and other programs but they are worried about their teachers, who seem demoralized by chronic supply shortages and the threat of salary cuts.

“They’re tired of this,” Ralph Martinez, a Sylmar High 10th-grader said of his teachers. “I think they’re right too. You can’t buy an education at the store.”

Some students speak as though the cuts have already happened. “We’ve been trying to get band uniforms for years,” said Carmen Garcia, 17, who plays saxophone in the Eagle Rock High School band. “We sold candy, T-shirts, key chains. We finally got them. And now they’re going to cut the band.”

Student leaders from across the San Fernando Valley say they are planning a rally this Saturday that will involve several high schools. Already students from four Valley high schools have pitched in, forming a group organizers call STAT, Students Taking Action Together.

Bryan Weissman, a junior at Monroe High School in North Hills and a key organizer, said the event will demonstrate collective student outrage.

School officials say they understand the students’ concerns, but lament their missing valuable class time to voice them.

“There are two things that concern me,” said Deputy Supt. Sid Thompson. “When you have kids in the street . . . it’s a safety issue. Number two, they don’t need time out of class. After school, during lunch, there’s a lot of ways to show your feelings.”

University High School Principal Jack S. Moscowitz said that while he did not endorse the protests at his school, he respected the sentiment behind them.

“All of this has been planned and organized by the student leadership,” said Moscowitz. “They are very frustrated. They are very pained. They are very concerned.”

Because students missed class by staging Tuesday’s walkout, Moscowitz said he had to mark them truant to remind them of the consequences of their behavior.

Peter Falco, a ninth-grader at Eagle Rock High was also marked truant for participating in last week’s walkout at his school. But he said he didn’t mind.

“I knew I would get a truancy,” the teen-ager recounted. “But I want a good school and I was ready to pay the price.”

Times staff writer Henry Chu contributed to this story.

SCHOOL FUNDING RESTORED: Lawmakers pass new $500-million education measure. A3