Schools’ Parent Nights Fall Victim to Union Pressure : Education: Fewer are able to attend as L.A. teachers’ action forces shifting of many of the meetings to daytime.

Back-to-school night, a time-honored tradition for parents to meet teachers and check the educational progress of their children, has become one of the first casualties in the escalating war between the teachers union and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

As a consequence of the union’s “work-to-rule” campaign, which exhorts members to do no more than they are paid for, schools across the district are bumping their back-to-school nights into the daytime, potentially shutting out the participation of thousands of working parents.

“In order to get their attention, unfortunately, we have to do some negative activities,” Catherine Carey, spokeswoman for United Teachers-Los Angeles, said Thursday. “Teachers don’t like it, but they’ll do it, because they’re desperate.”

The job action is a key element of a high-profile drive by the union to draw attention to the plight of its members, who face a possible 17.5% pay cut--which includes the 3% taken from their salaries last year--as part of an across-the-board salary reduction proposal for the district’s 58,000 employees. In its worst fiscal crisis in history, the school system--the nation’s second largest--has had to gouge $400 million out of its budget, mostly by digging into paychecks.

But the union’s plan to force the rescheduling of back-to-school night has ignited the ire of many parents and led administrators to forecast poor turnouts for an event that usually stirs excitement and interest.

“The biggest things at school are back-to-school night and open house,” said parent Cheryl Lunkusky of Chatsworth. “If you don’t make it convenient for (parents) to come, you’re going to lose a lot of them.”

At Portola Middle School in Tarzana, Principal Richard Cord said more than 1,000 parents typically attend back-to-school night. “I would be surprised if we get that many,” he said. The campus switched its annual event to the morning--from 8 a.m. to noon--by using one of the discretionary student holidays allotted to each school.

District and union officials could not say how many of the district’s 625 campuses have opted for a scheduling change, because the decision rests with each school’s faculty and administration. But some say the trend is toward pushing back-to-school night to the afternoon--if not earlier--as schools settle their dates. Some schools may invite parents to come during teachers’ preparation periods.

“I can’t name one (school) that’s having an evening one,” said Jilanne Fager, who heads Coldwater Canyon School. “It’s pretty prevalent.”

“We have been getting phone calls from parents complaining vociferously that they cannot attend, and my suggestion to them was that they make it very clear at the school,” said Sara A. Coughlin, an assistant superintendent.

The refusal by teachers to meet with parents in the evening is one tactic in an aggressive campaign that the union hopes will mobilize public opinion. Unveiled last month, the strategy encourages instructors to decline requests to sponsor extracurricular activities and other events extending past school hours.

Fear that such cherished institutions as band and athletics will fall victim to the crisis has prompted hundreds of students in recent days to stage walkouts and campus protests. But teachers insist that schools cannot go about business as usual under such severe financial constraints.

Even after-school parent-teacher consultations--a staple of campus life--have suffered from the union’s campaign. Martina Martinez, parent of a pupil at Miramonte Elementary School in South Los Angeles, is concerned that such actions will hinder relationships between parents and their instructors. “It’s going to hurt the parents who are working a lot. . . . Now as soon as the bell rings, the teacher’s gone.”

However, Enid Mintz, a teacher at Germain Street School, said rescheduling traditional events would highlight teacher discontent.

“Most of the teachers I’ve spoken to . . . feel they need to show that things are different,” she said. “If they do everything the same old way, they’re not showing that life has changed. Teachers need to make a stand.”

Teachers, parents and the principal convened an emergency meeting of Germain’s decision-making council Thursday to address back-to-school night scheduling. Although a vote was postponed until next week after teachers and parents split over the issue, Steven Noel, a former Germain parent who serves on the council, said a “back-to-school day” would be self-defeating.

“If 60% to 70% of the parents can’t attend it, then what will be the effectiveness?” he asked. “I hate to see the children being used in this case as a scapegoat. . . . The parents are going to be really angry that they can’t attend.”

Some multitrack schools, where students attend throughout the year on staggered schedules, have already held their back-to-school days, most of them last month. Administrators say attendance did not suffer but could not predict the turnout at upcoming back-to-school days for parents whose youngsters have just returned to school.

“Most of my parents work on an hourly basis, and they can’t take an hour off. Some folks are at the mercy of the employer,” said Principal Miriam Rumjahn of Hillside School, near Lincoln Heights. Rumjahn plans to call for a shortened school day next Tuesday so teachers can meet parents of newly returned students after school.

A Hillside mother whose children returned to school earlier in the year said the school’s first back-to-school day in August was also inconvenient.

“Between 3 and 4 o’clock the children are coming home from school, you’re coming back from work. You’re going to have to miss one thing or the other,” said Luz Aguilar, who has two children at Hillside. “The kids get very upset if you don’t go. I’d rather see it in the evening when everything’s settled, dinner’s over, and the kids are in.”

Rescheduling back-to-school night may also cause headaches for parents whose children ride buses to campuses outside their neighborhood. In the past, the district has routinely provided buses for such parents to attend the event in the evening, but juggling bus and work schedules for a daytime conference may prove daunting, administrators say.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime next week I have to send out a letter with a tear-off at the bottom saying, ‘To the parents of a bused-in kid: Do you plan on coming, and what’s the most convenient bus stop for you?’ ” said Cord, the principal at Portola.

Board of Education President Leticia Quezada said she worries that inconveniently scheduled back-to-school days will diminish the parent involvement many schools have labored to improve.

“Parents are losing out, and students are losing out,” she said. “Obviously if it’s beyond the school day, we can’t force (teachers) to be there. . . . We need to encourage parent participation and parent involvement and encourage parent monitoring of their children’s education. These kinds of events, in my book, should be scheduled at the convenience of the parents.”

Times staff writer Charisse Jones contributed to this story.