Strike Leaves Ill Will in San Diego

Despite an impassioned plea from Mayor Susan Golding, the school board and teachers union failed Wednesday to reach an accord to end a five-day teachers strike that at some schools has virtually halted the educational process.

“The matter has gone beyond the schools, it is impacting the entire community,” Golding said. “The longer the strike continues, the more difficult it will be to get past the ill will and bad feelings.”

The mayor had spent all day Tuesday meeting with school board and union representatives. That night, angry parents stormed a board meeting demanding a settlement.

But Golding’s 5 p.m. deadline passed Wednesday without the board and union reaching a compromise for the 6,500 teachers at 160 schools to return to their classrooms. Attendance has been dropping, but the teachers’ determination to “hold the line” appears firm.

With the help of a state mediator, the two sides began negotiating at 10 a.m. But by late evening, there still was no word whether progress was being made toward a settlement.

Today, the school board will again try to persuade the Public Employment Relations Board, a state agency, to seek a court injunction forcing San Diego teachers to end their first strike since 1977. The school board tried that gambit last week and failed when the state board said the situation was not yet bad enough to warrant such a step.

District officials have said they have been able to find substitutes for about half of the striking teachers. At many high schools, where absenteeism is the highest, students roam campuses aimlessly or watch movies.

On Tuesday, the school board, without the state agency’s help, tried to persuade a Superior Court judge to issue an injunction but failed. “How far does the house have to burn down before the fire department comes?” asked a disappointed Tina Dyer, the school board’s lawyer.

The teachers want a 15% raise over three years while the district had offered 11%. There are also issues of curriculum control and teacher disciplinary procedures.

After five days of negotiations the board upped its offer to 14% but spread the raises over more years, making the package worth less in the short run. Teachers shouted down the offer at a noon gathering Tuesday and returned to the picket lines.

The school board has been scrambling to find enough substitute teachers and other qualified adults to fill the classrooms.

The board has admitted that two topless dancers have been hired as substitute teachers. One, Cynthia Kemmsies, has bachelor and master’s degrees and has been dancing at an establishment called Dreamgirls. “Being an entertainer is entirely separate from what I do in the classroom,” she said.

Kemmsies said she never told her students about her off-hours job. Dyer said that since topless dancing is not illegal, there is nothing to bar the hiring of topless dancers as substitutes as long as they act appropriately in the classrooms.

In another hiring incident, a mature-looking 17-year-old senior showed up in a suit and tie at his high school and announced he was a substitute teacher. He was given charge of a class for four hours before the principal put an end to the high jinks, as well as dispensing a three-day suspension.

Bill Schuller, who is interested in computers, machinery and robotics and wants to attend Carnegie-Mellon University, said he applied for a substitute’s job at Kearny High School to show what chaos the strike has wrought.

“I still can’t believe I did it,” he said. “It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done. I tried to get one class to write an essay, but they wouldn’t.”

Principal Mike Lorch said Wednesday that he admired Schuller’s “moxie and inventiveness,” but wished that he could have found a less stressful time to display it.

About a quarter of the district’s teachers have crossed the picket line. Student absenteeism was 35% Wednesday, about five times the norm.