Teachers Strike in Orange

Hundreds of teachers in the Orange Unified School District stayed out of the classroom Thursday in a one-day strike, marking an escalation in the union’s long-running contract battle with the school board.

Teachers in the county’s fourth-largest district picketed in front of all 42 campuses, often joined by parents and students.

District officials said 802 of their 1,330 teachers, about 60%, did not work Thursday. Union officials put the figure at 70%. Students also stayed away; more than 11,000 of those enrolled in the district did not attend classes, district spokeswoman Judy Frutig said.

Before classes began at Orange High School, about 300 students picketed alongside their teachers, holding banners and playing rock music.

“We’re walking for the future of the district. . . . We’re also walking for respect,” Orange High teacher Elizabeth Mulkerin said. “The district and the school board don’t respect us.”

Thai Le, a junior who helped organize Orange High students, stood on the sidewalk with teachers outside the school.

“We are the ones who suffer the most,” Thai said. “We are the ones who are losing our teachers.”

Thai also helped organize a student picket line in support of teachers last month. Some students stayed out on the picket lines the whole school day.

Across town at Esplanade Elementary School, striking teachers yelled, “Scabs!” as substitutes drove into the campus parking lot Thursday morning. Parents Maria Barrera and Veronica Serrato, who both have first-graders at Esplanade, joined teachers on the sidewalk outside the school and carried signs.

“We are supporting our teachers,” Barrera said before leaving to buy tamales for the picketers. “The students are the losers because they’re losing their teachers. They don’t want substitute teachers.”

Frutig said the number of teachers who went to work Thursday shows that Orange Unified Educators Assn. is out of step with the rank and file. Union officials, however, said they were pleased by the number of those who stayed out of the classroom.

“It shows that the teachers were united,” said Tim Hill, who helped coordinate the walkout for the California Teachers Assn., the statewide educators union. “It sent a message to the district that they can’t function without the teachers of Orange.”

At an afternoon rally at Hart Park, some teachers who did strike said they were not angry at their colleagues who decided to go to their classrooms. In particular, new teachers and those with emergency credentials had expressed concerns about striking.

“It seems like to me they were a little apprehensive because they are probationary,” said Anne Mogan, a veteran teacher at Fletcher Elementary School who joined the walkout. “People have to do what they have to do.”

Striker Joan Chavez, a Fairhaven Elementary School teacher, said some of her co-workers believed that remaining in school was the more “professional thing to do.”

“It’s a very scary thing for teachers to strike,” Chavez said.

Despite the understanding shown by some, emotions ran high Thursday morning, and both teachers who participated in the walkout and their substitutes reported angry confrontations and acts of intimidation.

Some substitutes said maddened teachers snapped their photographs, vowing to remember who crossed the picket line, and union officials allege that sprinklers at one school were turned on specifically to give the strikers a surprise shower.

School board President Linda Davis invited union negotiators back to the bargaining table, but in a written statement Thursday evening, union President John Rossmann said his group would not resume talks until the district agrees to discuss the current contract. But the union insists the board must rescind the contract, which it unilaterally imposed on the teachers last month, and the board insists it is time to move on to the contract for the upcoming school year. The contract imposed last month gave teachers an 8% pay raise retroactive to 1998.

Teachers argue that the board has no right to impose a contract on them and that the fine print on the 8% raise includes deductions that ultimately make the figure substantially less.

In the midst of the resistance and rancor, some students managed to find normalcy in school Thursday.

Christian Clements, 6, said his kindergarten class at Palmyra Elementary School had a pretty regular day with its substitute.

“I made an ‘L’ for line,” he said. “And we sorted foods and had recess.”