Peace May Be at Hand for Orange Unified

Terri Sargeant didn’t appreciate it a few months ago when I labeled her, even obliquely, a coward.

Her e-mailed reply was civil and direct: “I am many things--a wife, a mom, a worker, a friend, an elected official. But I am not a coward.”

For Sargeant and her mates on the Orange School District’s board of trustees, it has been one of those years. The brickbats--some mild, some not so mild--have come from many directions.

My “cowardly” reference came after the board refused to sanction a Gay-Straight Alliance club at El Modena High School. The board got sued, but that was a mere tuneup for the continuing battle over a new contract for the district’s 1,500 teachers.

Board members, individually or collectively, have been called homophobic, racist, anti-teacher, anti-student, religious hypocrites, immoral, amoral, dictatorial, deceptive and flat-out untruthful.

Other than that, the year has gone swimmingly.

At her request, I met Sargeant for coffee one morning last week. She wanted to defend her honor and counter some of the board’s bad press.

I braced for an offensive. Or, at least, some whining.

Neither ever came.

As this tumultuous school year nears the home stretch, Sargeant wants, as she euphemistically calls it, “peace in the valley.”

Instead of issuing ultimatums to the teachers, who have announced plans for a two-day strike this month, Sargeant offers reconciliation. The stalled negotiations are scheduled to resume Monday, and Sargeant wants a settlement and suggests the board has wiggle room on some issues.

“I still think it’s doable,” she says. “I’m the eternal optimist. I think we can do this on Monday.”

I ask which is more important for Monday’s negotiating session, the terms or the tone.

“I hope it goes hand in hand,” she says. The board and teachers union have genuine nuts-and-bolts differences on contractual terms, she says, but also notes that the rancor must subside.

“I’m not relishing this fight,” she says, referring to the last few months. “It’s been a draining, emotional time.”

She makes a point not to lay the stalemate at the union’s door, although it’s an open secret school district officials cringe when certain union leaders’ names are mentioned.

The Board Grows Weary

I ask her if the board must set a new tone.

“That’s an interesting question, because I don’t know one board member who wants this [contract fight] to continue,” she says. “We are weary of this.”

Has the acrimony prevented a settlement? “Both sides have responsibilities,” she says, carefully, “and both have taken some missteps along the way.”

When asked why she isn’t unloading on the union, she says, “That would be too easy, to throw everything back on them and not assume the responsibility the district has. It takes two to tango and two to negotiate. We have to own up to our end of it, and I as a board member have a responsibility. To throw it back on the union doesn’t lead to a solution.”

Sargeant, a county land-use planner, has five children ranging in age from 8 to 20. They’ve been in Orange schools for the last 15 years. Now 46, she ran for the board two years ago almost as an extension of other community activist roles she’s had, including PTA and Little League.

None of it prepared her for this year.

She shows me an unsigned flier detailing the teachers’ “moral obligation to strike.” It says, in part: “[The actions of the board] have harmed and each day continue to harm thousands of innocent children in this district by imposing on them conditions that can alter the course of the rest of their lives and condemn them to lives of disappointment, despair, crime and even death.”

Friends phoned her 10 days ago to tell her they’re entertaining thoughts of a recall. Teachers tell her the dispute makes them want to cry, and she says she feels like joining them. She says at least one teacher has invoked school board business with her children at school. And when masked and hooded protesters showed up at a recent board meeting, Sargeant says she felt twinges of concern for her safety.

“I came [as a board member] into a district with some history and I had to expect that everything was not going to be a bed of roses,” she says. “But the personal nature of the attacks caught me off guard.”

Come Monday morning, Sargeant says, hope begins anew.

“We can’t go on like this,” she says. “Everyone wants a resolution.”

That sounds like the proverbial olive branch.

Question to the union’s team: Anyone up for a tango?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons at (714) 966-7821 or dana.parsons@latimes.com