Orange Unified’s Latest Spectacle

If posturing were the measure of educational excellence, the Orange Unified School District would lead the pack in public education. In recent years, the district has made a spectacle of itself by elevating fairly straightforward policy decisions to the level of regional crises. In recent days it has been the teachers’ turn, conducting a walkout that left both sides focusing at week’s end mostly on how many teachers participated.

The latest contract dispute, like the other questions that have fractured sympathies on various social issues, ought to be resolvable. When the union and the district find themselves quarreling over the status of an imposed contract instead of on where the parties should go next, it is time to take a deep breath. What everybody in this contract dispute needs to remember is that the education of students suffers. If the district and the union cannot focus properly on the issues to be resolved, they should bring in outside mediators to help resolve the real differences.

The district has made a case that it has done what it can financially. But it also is hindered in its public explanation by a history of agenda-driven politics. The recent spectacle over the Gay-Straight Alliance club is a case in point, and in the past, the district has tried to make political hay over health services for needy students. In the club dispute, the district is openly swimming against the tide of law. The courts have been clear on what districts must do about groups wishing to use school facilities. Instead, the district has allowed the atmosphere to be politicized.

Now in the face of an activist teachers union, the rigidity and lack of negotiating skills on the Board of Education are showing yet again--this time in a case where a raise already has been granted. This is a situation in which both sides need to get off the soapbox and put the education of children first.