For and Against--Mostly for--Orange Teachers

* Re “Teachers Strike in Orange,” April 28:

The teachers in Orange, both those who took a stand and conducted the one-day strike and those who did not, deserve to be paid salaries that will allow them to remain residents of, and homeowners in, Orange County.

They deserve to be able to afford to raise children and pay for their college educations. Teachers deserve to have annual incomes that are commensurate with those of other professionals who have pursued higher degrees and certifications.

Inexplicably, teachers would be better paid at baby-sitters’ wages. Charging only $2 per hour for each of 20 students for 180 days at seven hours per day would make a minimum of $50,400. That’s without pay for making lesson plans, grading papers, helping with homework, facilitating club meetings, chaperoning, attending school functions and supporting athletic and academic teams.

I work in Orange as a staffing manager. I put people to work every day who do not have degrees, are not given the responsibility to educate children, are not required to put in hours on the weekend or after work--people who make $27,000 to $48,000 as clerical and warehouse workers.

These people have not invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into their educations; most have no schooling after high school. They are people who are qualified to do their jobs and who are paid competitive salaries for the work they do.

Remarkably, teachers, who have made investments in their educations, are being paid the same as workers who are not professionals and do not have degrees. Where is the logic in that?

SARA EPLEY

Huntington Beach

* Dana Parsons’ April 28 column disparages teachers by supporting the view that they don’t care about kids because they struck.

For five years, our teachers taught in spite of being paid salaries that were virtually frozen and are today 30% lower than in neighboring districts. Yet throughout those five years, our underpaid, maligned teachers taught kids so well each day.

For five years, our teachers taught in spite of literally suffering from health care that has been labeled “assisted suicide.” Yet throughout those five years our underpaid, ill-treated teachers have brought multiple educational honors to the district, including an unheard-of four Distinguished School Awards this year alone.

After all that, does a one-day strike for equal treatment say we don’t care about kids? Where’s Parsons’ perspective?

JOHN F. ROSSMANN

President, Orange Unified

Education Assn.

* The teachers are exasperated by years of the district’s stalling and confrontational tactics. They did not want to strike.

The Orange Unified School District attempts to take back health benefits which have been vested by a lifetime of work, and offers paltry increases in pay, while increasing days worked and employee costs of benefits.

Senior Orange Unified teachers are the lowest paid in the county. It is strange that despite a national teacher shortage the Orange Unified trustees believe it is their mission to keep teachers downtrodden.

Is it the trustees’ narrow-minded view of unions or the trustees’ “extensive” experience of education issues which is the problem?

PETER TAYLOR

Lake Forest

* There is nothing more important than health and education. Ironically, in both categories we lag behind most industrialized countries of the world.

Millions of Californians do not have health insurance and millions of students are taught by underpaid teachers. At a time of unprecedented economic prosperity, there are no valid excuses to continue to pay inadequate salaries to professionals with a college education.

If we want to improve educational institutions, we better start paying decent salaries.

NESTOR FANTINI

Northridge

* The union wants the teachers to keep their generous medical benefits and receive pay parity. This is impossible and unfair.

The district’s teachers are the second-highest-paid in the state if you count salary and benefits. The district is right.

WILLIAM BULMAN

Anaheim

* When you consider what the Orange Unified board has spent on lawyers to fight the teachers, propaganda to confuse and deceive the community, substitutes being paid better than district teachers and private security for the war zone they have created, the idea that they are on the verge of bankruptcy simply doesn’t make sense.

If you add all these costs into the district offer to the teachers, there probably could have been an agreement last May.

There is also an expanding bureaucracy at the Orange Unified office headed by officials that are among the top-paid in the county, not dead last like the teachers.

The Orange Unified board is too concerned with winning the war they have created to be working toward quality education in our community.

CHRISTOPHER KOONTZ

Orange