STRIKE: Taking a Toll In ABC District : Hard Lessons : Teachers’ Strike Is Taking a Toll In ABC School District

Teachers on the picket line suffer from sore feet and shrinking bank accounts. Teachers in the classroom feel under attack from their friends. Parents worry that their children are not learning. Students complain about watching movies in class.

Nearly a week after teachers went on strike in the ABC Unified School District, many say it has been the hardest week of their lives, and whatever the outcome, they will never see their school district the same way.

“It’s left a scar on many here already,” said teacher Rod Ziolkowski.

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It is 5:45 p.m. at Cerritos High School, and Ziolkowski has been in his classroom for nearly 12 hours.

Long before the 7:40 a.m. bell rang, the lanky 37-year-old science instructor that students call “Mr. Z” drove from his home in Long Beach. He dropped his minivan at a friend’s house, walked to school and slipped into his classroom before the first striker arrived.

It’s not that he’s ashamed to face picketers, Ziolkowski says, it’s just that strikes in his past have left him with bad memories.

Now he is in the midst of another one.

Nearly half of the district’s 973 teachers began walking the picket line Friday after contract negotiations broke down between the union and the administration.

At issue is a labor contract the school board imposed on teachers last week. But the dispute has left an emotional fissure as well. All week, nervous security guards have been stationed outside schools.

Nails have been thrown into parking lots. Shouts and ugly words have been exchanged between strikers and substitutes.

For some, like Ziolkowski, it is not a good fight.

He remembers a teachers’ strike during his senior year in high school in Racine, Wis., as “bitter and brutal.” That is why he never considered joining the picket line. He believes it will harm students.

“I remember clearly seeing teachers outside. They were yelling at somebody. I saw them in a way I had never seen them before: unprofessional in a selfish way,” Ziolkowski said. “It cast a pall on that year for us.”

Even though he won’t strike, he wears a yellow ribbon to support the picketers.

“There are people I’m sure hate me for being here,” he said glumly, his long legs draped over a student’s chair that is too small for his frame.

“This strike brings out the worst in people. But there are also people who’ve risen above the fray. My part of the bargain is, if students come to my class, they will learn. They chose to learn. And I chose to teach.”

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At Whitney High School, Dave Bohannon walks the picket line from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

After 22 years in the district, including 12 years as a history teacher at Whitney, he wonders whether he will have a job at the end of the strike.

“It’s not the energizing day I would prefer to have with students. But I won’t go in and teach until the district decides to respect me and my colleagues,” said Bohannon, 46.

Every morning when he dons a pair of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt bearing the logo of the ABC Federation of Teachers, he wonders when the strike will end.

The hours are getting longer. Strikers take turns sitting in the scant shade. Sometimes, parents drop by with cold drinks, muffins and coffee.

Often, across the fence and the line of security guards, a student hails him as “Mr. Bo.”

Bohannon is a member of the union’s bargaining team, and he has slept fitfully, hoping he will get a call summoning him back to the bargaining table.

“I’ve been waking up at 3:30 or 4 (a.m.) and not been able to get back to sleep. You have the livelihood of so many people depending on you.”

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Jennifer Hong, a 17-year-old editor of the Cerritos High newspaper, is caught in the middle.

Loyal to her striking teachers, Jennifer also supports those who continue teaching. She has tried to remain at school every day, but feels tempted to stay home.

On the first day of the strike, Jennifer arrived at school in the middle of a clash.

“A lot of teachers who weren’t on strike were coming on the parking lot, and the teachers were yelling ‘Scab!’ ” she said. “It was a shocker for me to witness teachers I worked so closely with yell names to each other.”

And then there are the substitutes in five of her six classes, some of whom are ill-equipped to teach, she said.

“I don’t think it’s the sub’s fault, but I don’t think they’re being taken seriously,” she said. “A lot of the kids say, ‘Well, he’s just a sub. Just forget what he said. When our teacher comes back, we’re going to relearn it anyway.’ ”

These days, with so many teachers absent, Hong and other students are wondering how they will be able to complete their college applications. She worries about deadlines for teachers’ recommendations.

“Everybody’s nervous,” she said. “We want this to be over like everybody else.”

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Elizabeth O’Dell came to the district offices on Norwalk Boulevard to complain that her grandson was not learning in class, only to discover hundreds of students protesting on the sidewalk.

Many of the students picketing the office are sporting yellow ribbons. So does O’Dell.

The bit of yellow pinned to the pocket of her cotton blouse proclaims that she supports teachers. She brings coffee each day to striking union members. But the strike really isn’t on her mind.

What is on her mind is the education of her grandson, Charles. For days, ever since the strike started, he has been complaining about the substitutes at Artesia High School.

“I want my grandchildren to get an education. I came here today to see about getting these subs to teach instead of baby-sitting,” she said.

The 61-year-old Hawaiian Gardens resident said she dropped out of school at 16. So she has made sure that her family knows education is important.

O’Dell volunteers at Hawaiian Elementary School. She has lived in the ABC school district since 1970, and four children and six grandchildren have attended district schools.

She said teachers and administrators should go back to the bargaining table. “These kids out here need to be in school.”

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It is only 8:30 a.m. and Killingsworth Junior High School Principal Stella L. Marquez has already quelled two rebellions.

A substitute teacher in the Hawaiian Gardens school placed a frantic call to the office asking Marquez to settle an unruly class of eighth-graders. Then a few minutes later, another group of students abandoned classrooms and gathered in the quad. They have many questions, some of them hostile: When are teachers coming back? If students walk out, what’s going to happen? Is the strike going to stop us from having a Halloween Dance?

Quietly but firmly, Marquez urges students to stay in classrooms and learn.

“What’s going on out there is reality,” she tells students. “But it’s your responsibility to be in school.”

She has no answers for students who ask whether the strike is right. But as far as the Halloween Dance on Friday is concerned, it’s still on.

“I’m going to be a witch,” she whispers.

For Marquez, it’s just another day keeping the schools running during the strike. That means 14-hour days, surveying the school grounds constantly, walkie-talkie in hand. It also means frequent stints as trouble-shooter and morale-booster to her remaining staff.

Eleven years as a principal have taught her to be prepared.

Marquez didn’t want a security guard on campus until custodians found nails in the parking lot.

Some days, emotions run high. Students cry. Staff members are nervous.

But Marquez doesn’t have time to brood. She was already walking across the quad to handle another problem.

“We’re going to come back and work together for the students,” she promised. “My purpose here is to manage a school.”