WOODLAND HILLS : Parents Angered by Teacher Recalcitrance

The refusal by teachers to participate in evening “open house” activities has angered some parents at a Woodland Hills elementary school who say they can’t leave work to visit their children’s classrooms during the day.

Demoralized by tough budget negotiations that ended in acceptance of a 10% cumulative pay cut, many teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District have refused to put in unpaid overtime at night for the sake of the open house--traditionally an evening when parents visit their children’s classrooms at the end of the year.

Many schools held back-to-school events during the day last fall, and nearly one in four Valley schools that had scheduled open houses by mid-March planned to hold the events during the day. That infuriated some parents at Calvert Street Elementary School.

“I can’t believe they can’t take one day out to meet with us,” said Rich Sperber, father of a Calvert Street fourth-grader. “We just want to see what our kids have been doing all year.”

After meeting with the teachers and parents, Principal Gerald Dodge worked out a compromise plan in which the teachers will open classrooms for parents on Friday afternoon and he and several other administrators will keep them open during the evening.

The union representatives at Calvert Street declined comment. But United Teachers-Los Angeles spokeswoman Catherine Carey said the refusal to participate in evening events just shows how frustrated teachers have become.

“They don’t necessarily like doing this,” Carey said. “But many of them feel they have no other way to respond to what has been a really tough year.”