In Orange, ‘Unified’ Is a Misnomer

When a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Orange Unified School District must allow a gay-straight support group to meet on a high school campus, there was little surprise that the dispute had literally turned into a federal case.

The controversy is the latest in a long string of emotional battles at the district. But on this much, the divided sides of the school system agree: They’re frustrated.

Teachers are frustrated by a contract stalemate. The school board is frustrated by union bargaining tactics. Contentious debates over student counseling and bilingual education have torn the district into ideological camps. And some parents and students find bitterness spilling into the classroom and overshadowing the district’s academic successes.

“We’re always on the news,” sighed Ashley Klein, a 16-year-old junior at the district’s Canyon High School. “I don’t think it’s a good thing. The reason we’re on the news is not because we scored the highest [on standardized tests]. It has nothing to do with education. It’s always for some other reason.”

The latest news to bring the television cameras to Orange schools was a federal judge’s ruling Friday on an issue that has eaten at the district for months.

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter ordered Orange Unified to allow a gay-straight support club to meet at El Modena High School, and he cautioned district officials from acting as an Orwellian “thought police” regulating controversial student speech.

Trustees in December unanimously barred the club from campus, saying they feared it could be run by outside groups and could hamper the district’s ability to control its sex education curriculum.

Many say the publicity and tumult are exhausting and counterproductive. But it has been this way for years in the 31,000-student school district, which sprawls across Orange, Villa Park and parts of Anaheim Hills, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

It started in the early 1990s, when a conservative school board swept to power and later solidified its strength. Since then, Orange trustees have fought to boot “social welfare” out of the schools and have rejected school-to-work funds as being tainted by the federal government. Orange beat the state by a year in dismantling bilingual education, a move that angered some Latino parents, yet was widely supported by local voters. And a bitter contract dispute over promised retirement benefits has been dragging on for years.

How bad is it? California Teachers Assn. President Wayne Johnson, who is no stranger to tough contract negotiations, is blunt in his assessment of the feeling, at least among teachers.

“I don’t know of any other district in the state--and there are 990--where the level of anger and antagonism is anywhere near that of Orange Unified,” Johnson said. “It’s a very, very unique school district in terms of the level of anger and frustration, the length of the fight and the depth of the issue differences.”

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While teachers and some parent and student groups have opposed many of the board’s measures, a large number of parents approve, trustee Martin Jacobson said. “If we’re far right of the community, why do we keep getting elected?” he asked.

At the negotiating table, the central point of the labor dispute is the district’s wish to rescind a lifetime retirement plan promised years ago to teachers, who say they have forgone much-needed raises for years in exchange for retirement security. The district agrees that raises are overdue, but officials say they can’t fund them and keep benefits without bankrupting the district. Both sides accuse the other of bargaining in bad faith.

Retired teachers and classified employees have filed $75-million and $35-million class-action lawsuits, respectively, against the district, contending that it reneged on promised free lifetime medical coverage.

Union leadership and the board are further separated by an ideological split--some teachers object to the board’s conservatism, while administrators are inclined to describe the union leaders as radicals or rogues.

To union president John Rossmann, the school board is out of step with the district’s changing population, where fully half the students are not white and a quarter are not yet fluent in English. At-large elections allow board members to be chosen by a relatively small group of devoted backers, he said.

The central question, he said, is ideology.

“It’s an ideology that’s fighting an irresistible and unstoppable tide of changing demographics,” Rossmann said. “They’re lashing out like it’s Custer’s last stand.”

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Among the board’s actions that drew controversy: In 1995, the board flirted with the possibility of forming a multiple school charter system, to free campuses of state regulations on teacher credentialing, curriculum and fiscal management. It backed off when the teachers union protested, suspecting a political or religious motive.

A year later, the board temporarily swore off federal funds and barred five schools from applying for federal funds that helped link schools and businesses to expose students to possible careers.

In 1997, the board canceled a state-funded program that offered psychological counseling in its schools, saying that schools should be reserved for academics rather than trying to cure societal ills.

Meanwhile, board member Jacobson describes a “union out of control” that resents a board it cannot push around. He has previously accused gay and liberal activists of trying to take over Orange. To him, the lawsuits filed against the district are part of that agenda.

“How many lawsuits have we initiated?” he asked. “We have people attacking us only because of our reputation as a conservative school district. You pick on the biggest bully. If he falls, [then] everyone else will.”

School board president Linda Davis said her district has improved English and mathematics instruction despite the standoff. She contends most of the community is pleased with the results in the classroom.

“I hear everything you hear,” she said. “But some of these complaints aren’t warranted. If we could stop whatever tensions are out there, believe me, we would have.”

Spanish teacher Kay Casserly has worked for the district since 1976. She objects to the board’s tactics and ideology. She’s also tired of seeing veteran teachers leave in droves for other jobs. (According to union calculations, about 350 teachers with a decade or more of experience have left in the last three years. About two-thirds have gone to other districts. District officials could not be reached Friday for comment.)

“Everyone’s exhausted,” she said. “We hate to see a district we’ve loved and worked for so long be destroyed. . . . In the classroom, it wears us out and probably makes us less patient than we should be.”

Financial planner Gerry Klein, Ashley’s father, faults the union. He thinks teachers want to foist their liberal beliefs on a community that isn’t buying.

“You have a school board that is conservative, and got in [office] on a conservative platform, and you have a radical union that ran [candidates] against these people,” Klein said. “The culture wars writ small--that’s what’s going on in Orange Unified School District.”