Teachers’ Picket Lines Greet Returning Students in Moorpark : Education: The labor action prior to class protests lack of a contract. Elsewhere, a Simi school’s blue-and-white uniforms are a first for county.

Reading, writing and arithmetic took a back seat to uniforms, bus fees and picketing as school got under way for thousands of students in Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks on Thursday.

Students at Garden Grove School in Simi Valley made local public school history as hundreds of children showed up for class in uniforms--stiff white shirts and spanking-new navy-blue slacks and skirts.

Meanwhile, cars and mini-vans jammed streets near Simi Valley schools as parents protested new school bus fees by driving their children to class.

And in Moorpark dozens of teachers marched in front of six of the district’s nine schools, protesting their second year without a contract and their fourth year without a raise.

Despite the first-day frenzy, Garden Grove School Principal Elroy Peterson remained cheerful and calm as he strolled through the campus greeting parents and pupils early Thursday.

“Everyone looks so good,” he said, pointing out students in the new blue-and-white uniforms. “It’s going to be a good year.”

Parent Rosie Calix agreed. She beamed with pride as her uniform-clad son Peter, 9, strode through the Garden Grove gates for his first day of fourth grade.

“He looks so handsome,” she said with a sigh. Her sister Roxanne Bradley came along to make sure Peter looked perfect on his first day.

“I pitched in for the uniform,” she said. “We really wanted him to have it.”

Not all parents were so thrilled with the decision by Garden Grove to become the first and only Ventura County school to take advantage of a new state law allowing uniforms in public schools.

Nancy Smith said she and her husband could not afford to buy uniforms for their four school-age children, so they decided to follow the school’s strict dress code instead--an option provided by the district under the voluntary uniform policy.

“Uniforms are just another expense,” Smith said. “I think it’s really unnecessary.”

Parents who do not want their children to wear uniforms can choose instead to clothe them in compliance with the dress code: no oversized pants, hats, acid-washed or tie-dyed clothing, bike shorts or combat boots. And no shirts with writing or pictures--except those depicting the Garden Grove tiger, the school’s mascot.

Smith’s oldest son, 10-year-old Mike, was unhappy with the plain green T-shirt and blue slacks he was forced to wear on his first day of fifth grade.

“I hate it,” he said as he raced up the school steps. “I want to wear my gecko shirt.”

“His favorite shirt has lizards all over it,” his mother explained as Mike disappeared into a mass of kids. “He can’t wear it to school because that kind of shirt isn’t allowed.”

Parent Tom Mauzis, who took time out from videotaping his 6- and 10-year-old daughters as they skipped to class, voiced his vehement opposition to the uniform policy.

“It is a Band-Aid for a safety problem, and it isn’t going to solve anything,” he said. Mauzis said he thinks administrators rushed into the uniform policy after a Valley View Junior High School student stabbed a classmate to death on the campus last school year.

“Uniforms are not the solution to the safety problem,” Mauzis said. “The problems start at home and people need to realize that and deal with it.”

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Meanwhile, the Simi Valley school board’s decision to go ahead for now with its plan to charge a fee for bus service led to traffic jams and nearly empty buses. The district will hold two hearings to consider alternatives such as lowering the fees or offering one-way passes.

Eleven-year-old Sara Schache was the lone rider on a large yellow district bus that pulled into the Garden Grove parking lot just before classes began.

“It was really quiet,” she said. “That was kind of strange.”

In charging the fee, board members had hoped to sell 925 passes and raise $190,000 for the cash-starved district. But parents reacted angrily, accusing the district of mismanaging its funds. Only about 300 students districtwide had been expected to ride the bus Thursday.

“I refuse to pay,” said Leia Browner, whose daughter Carrie is an eighth-grader at Sequoia Junior High School. “The schools got into this mess, and they have to figure out how to get out of it instead of passing the cost on to the parents.”

In Moorpark, many students received a first-day primer on protests as their teachers greeted them carrying picket signs to draw attention to the fact that they have worked without a contract for two years and without a raise for four. About 150 of the district’s more than 200 teachers participated in Thursday’s picket, union officials said.

Teachers, who told parents and students that they were simply protesting and were not actually on strike, resumed their regular teaching duties when the school bell rang.

Union officials said the pickets were meant to let parents and students know about teachers’ frustrations with the district, and in turn put pressure on the district to draw up a contract.

Sean Baxter, 5, with a new backpack slung over his shoulders, a white baseball cap scrunched onto his head and sleep still in his eyes trudged onto the campus of Mountain Meadows Elementary for his first day of school.

His father, Scott Baxter, came along to record the moment with the family camera and to give his son some courage against the first-day-of-school jitters. Hand-in-hand they walked past teachers on the picket line.

“Dad, can I have the camera, please?” Sean asked in a raspy voice. “I want to take a picture of the teachers.”

While his son gripped the small camera with both hands and aimed at the passing line of picketers, the elder Baxter said strikes and pickets are all part of the school experience.

“Hey, I grew up in L.A. Unified,” he said. “I’m used to this.”

Baxter was sympathetic to the teachers’ demands.

“They should be paid more,” he said. “Teachers have to put up with a lot of stuff that I don’t have to deal with in my job. They should be paid more for handling those pressures.”

Kindergarten teacher Laurie Varney, 29, protest sign in hand, said that during her seven years of teaching in Moorpark the relationship between the union and the district has become worse. She said she was upset that for the second year in a row the district has allowed teachers to start school without a contract.

“They won’t even sit down to negotiate with us,” she said. “They even set a date for the beginning of school without meeting with us. For whatever reason, the relationship is bad.”

Teachers were in their classrooms before the bell rang to assume their regular school duties. Despite the protest, Mountain Meadows Principal Gayle Hughes said classes started on time and without any complaints from parents.

Union President Richard Gillis said the intent of the picket was to let parents know what was going on.

“We’re fed up and we wanted to let people know it,” he said. “This is our second year without a contract. We haven’t had a raise in four years, and the district is not negotiating in good faith.”

On Wednesday the union filed an unfair labor practice lawsuit against the Moorpark Unified School District. The union is asking to sit down with the district by the end of the month to resume negotiations. They are asking for a 4% raise, but the district is facing a projected $800,000 deficit in its budget of about $24 million, making any pay increase difficult.

Gillis said he is skeptical about the district’s figures.

“I can’t comment on those numbers until we are allowed to go over the budget on our own,” he said.

Catania is a Times staff writer and Hadly is a Times correspondent.