Centinela Valley Teachers Picket Over Plan to Reduce Benefits

About 200 Centinela Valley Union High School District teachers picketed Tuesday outside district headquarters in Lawndale, protesting plans to reduce medical benefits and cut the pay of some hourly employees.

Carrying signs reading “Cut Frills So We Can Pay Our Bills” and “Be Moral Not Political--Save Our Health Plan,” the teachers from Hawthorne, Leuzinger and Lloyde high schools and Centinela Valley Adult School said a proposal to cap their medical benefits is simply asking too much. Some of the protesters said district teachers already receive some of the lowest salaries in Los Angeles County.

The school board’s proposal is to cap annual benefit premiums for employees and retirees at $3,900 for teachers and $3,654 for classified employees. The board also wants to reduce salaries of the adult education teachers--they are hourly employees--by 20%.

Debby Benesch, a Centinela Valley Adult School teacher in Lennox, said the proposed pay cut would reduce her salary by $12,000 a year.

“On top of that,” she added, are the reductions in medical benefits.

“There are 240 teachers in the district and most are out here,” said Lauren Sanders, executive director for South Bay United Teachers. “We want to let the board know that more than just leadership of teachers are concerned about this--rank and file are concerned.”

The teachers have been working without a contract since June, 1991, Sanders said. Negotiations are continuing.

Joseph Carrillo, district superintendent, blamed the proposed cuts on lower enrollment, an increase in expenditures, and increasing benefit premiums.

“We’re currently on firm ground,” Carrillo said, “but if we’re not cautious, we’ll be on sandy ground losing footing. We’re trying to be kind and gentle, but it’s difficult because this is emotional.”

But Walker Williams, a social studies teacher at Lloyde Continuation High School for 13 years, said the money is being mismanaged.

“There are problems with priorities in spending in this district. Money is going to toys for bureaucrats like consultants, computers and car phones,” Williams said.

Tuesday’s protest was the largest since 1989 when teachers took their signs to the streets on the same cause. In that case, an agreement was reached and medical benefits were not cut.

“Some of us used the same signs we used then--and they still applied,” one picketer said.

About 5,000 Lawndale School District students from kindergarten through the eighth grade will go to the polls next Tuesday to cast their vote for President.

They registered to vote last month, received sample ballots and will cast their vote in private booths next week in a simulated election program designed to make them more comfortable with the electoral process. The program is the brainchild of Dixie Sack, eighth-grade teacher at Will Rogers Intermediate School.

“Over the years, the 18- to 21-year-old vote has been so low,” Sack said, “that if we start to educate kids at 5 and 6 years old, by the time they can vote they will. Sometimes people don’t vote because of the fear of not knowing what needs to be done. So we’ll show them.”

The election will be decided by electoral, not popular, vote, Sack said. “They’ll be voting like the general public.”

Each class was assigned a state. Regardless of class size, after the students vote, they will receive the proper electoral votes for their state.

Sack sent teachers a list of each candidate’s position on the issues, and students in all classes have spent the past month discussing the deficit, abortion, family leave, child care, health insurance, military, education, taxes, capital punishment and gay rights.

“The kindergarten students will probably reflect the views of their parents,” Sack said.

Seven schools in the district are involved in the effort and will set up polling places on each campus.

Some students are so enthusiastic they are wearing buttons for the candidate of their choice, Sack said.

After they vote Tuesday, each child will receive a sticker with a picture of Uncle Sam saying, “I’ve voted. Have you?”

Items for the weekly Class Notes column can be mailed to The Times South Bay office, 23133 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 200, Torrance 90505, or faxed to (310) 373-5753 to the attention of staff reporter Lorna Fernandes.