Accord Ends Teachers Strike in San Diego

Faced with mounting political and community pressure, the teachers union and school board reached an agreement in the predawn hours Thursday to end a bitter five-day strike and start what both sides believe will be a lengthy healing process.

“It feels like Christmas around here,” said Jefferson Elementary School Principal Bonnie Russell. “The parents are happy, the students are happy, and the principal is very, very happy.”

The deal provides teachers with raises totaling 14.7% over about three years. Before the strike, the school board had offered 11% and the teachers union had insisted on 15%.

Teachers will get a 5% raise retroactive to July, another 2% in March, 2% in May 1997 and 5% in February 1998, all totaling 14.7%. As a result, the average teacher’s salary, now $40,500, will increase to $43,375 by March.

To break the stalemate, the school board upped its offer, although both sides had to compromise on how quickly the raises will be phased in. The union would have liked them to take effect sooner, and the school board wanted them to take effect later.

The deal was reached at 4:09 a.m. after a bargaining session that started at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Both sides admitted that the bitterness, including rancor between parents and the school system, will be difficult to surmount.

“No one wants to see a community divided with children caught in the middle,” said school board President Ann Armstrong at a hastily called 5:45 a.m. news conference.

Within hours, the 6,500 teachers returned to their classrooms in the 160-school, 130,000-student district.

“It feels like coming home,” said Clairemont High School social studies teacher Jim Fletcher. “It’s great.”

At elementary schools, students cried and hugged their teachers and held up banners. At middle schools and high schools, students were less expressive but still happy at the return of their teachers.

“I feel secure now,” said Israel Maldonado, a student at Marston Middle School. “It was very confusing with the teachers gone.”

Teachers who struck lost an average of $220 a day. Twenty-five percent of the teachers crossed the picket lines but will still enjoy the raises won by the strike, a fact that could breed animosity.

“This is a time we teachers need as a healing process,” said Bill Crane, president of the San Diego Teachers Assn.

“We have all been hurting these last seven days,” said Supt. Bertha Pendleton. “Some of the wounds are deep.”

In 1977, the teachers staged a four-day strike, although nearly half the teachers refused to participate. The specter of 1977 remains.

“Some of the wounds from 1977 are still open,” said Mary Gilliland, principal at Marston Middle School. “At some of the [schools], it was so bad, teachers had to transfer to other schools,” said Allan Peck, principal at Clairemont High.

“Some friends still haven’t spoken [since 1977],” Russell said. She said she feels lucky that all her teachers at Jefferson struck, so there is no split.

To avoid a repeat of 1977, the school district and teachers union will have specialists try to heal any breach between strikers and nonstrikers.

Student absenteeism reached 35% districtwide on the last day of the strike. At high schools, it was much higher. Nearly two-thirds of Clairemont High students skipped school.

“The subs were just there playing cards with us and watching movies and talk shows on television,” said Clairemont senior David Peltier.

Before the strike, San Diego teachers earned from $24,881 to $48,046, a pay schedule that has not changed since 1992. By comparison, Los Angeles teachers make $29,529 to $54,703, with an average of $44,000.

Under the new pact, the school district will continue to pay the cost of medical insurance for teachers and their families. Teachers will be part of a task force designed to ensure that curriculum decisions are not made solely by district administrators, a major sticking point.

Although the talk Thursday was of reconciliation, it was clear that the teachers union, a chapter of the California Teachers Assn., had proved a more formidable foe than the school board had anticipated.

Teacher solidarity never wavered. Unlike in some labor strikes, the number of workers crossing the picket lines did not increase as the strike continued.

The teacher spokesmen proved forceful and media savvy and stuck to a theme that teachers were willing to return to the bargaining table within 30 minutes. Teachers held daily rallies and wore T-shirts that said, “I Held the Line.”

Pendleton and school district attorney Tina Dyer were in the paradoxical position of telling the public that the schools were running fine with substitutes and then seeking a court injunction to force the teachers back to work by arguing that the district was approaching chaos.

On the second day of the strike, Pendleton announced that there would be no bargaining until the teachers returned to their classrooms, but she backpedaled on that vow the next day.

A poll taken by the San Diego Union-Tribune over the weekend showed that 59% of the public supported the teachers. School board members seemed to realize they were losing the public relations war.

“Frankly, we were the ones getting beaten up,” Armstrong said.

On Tuesday night, angry parents swarmed a school board meeting to demand a settlement.

Wednesday morning, a frustrated Mayor Susan Golding said the differences between the board and union were so small that she saw no reason an agreement could not be reached if both sides were serious.

The contract must be ratified by the teachers, but that is seen as assured because it has the enthusiastic endorsement of their bargaining team.