Educators Cut Out Extras in Protest

Until last month, Richard Glick’s library study sessions were considered somewhat of a tradition in his Advanced Placement calculus class.

Glick has been teaching the advanced math class at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo for seven years. He starts the supplemental four-hour evening tutoring sessions each September, offering them every three weeks or so in the fall, then two or three times a week in the spring to help prepare the kids for the AP test. Those who pass receive college credit for the class.

And a few days before AP testing begins, he usually treats the kids who attend, sometimes as many as 65, to pizza, an out-of-pocket expense he hasn’t minded--until now.

Last month, Glick’s teachers union and the Capistrano Unified School District reached an impasse in contract negotiations, in which the district’s latest offer is a 1.2% increase in salaries and health benefits combined. In protest, many of the union’s 2,300 teachers abandoned all extracurricular activities. Glick reluctantly gave up his study sessions. Other teachers did the same. And that forced the district to hire APEX Learning, an Internet service, to provide tutoring for as many of its 3,538 AP students who want it, which could cost the financially strapped district $30,000. AP testing ends today.

“We’re putting our students first,” said David Smollar, spokesman for Capistrano Unified. “What would the union prefer we do--let the students suffer?”

The teachers, however, view it as a slap in the face.

Many teachers say they work up to 15 hours more than the 40 hours a week their contract requires--drafting exams, grading papers, meeting with parents, chaperoning school events, coaching, tutoring.

“By paying for something the teachers have been doing for free for years ... the district has demonstrated that teacher volunteer labor is really what keeps the district going,” said Jim Corbett, who teaches AP history at Capistrano Valley High School.

Teacher contract negotiations have also stalled in the Irvine and Saddleback Valley unified school districts, and faculty in those districts have taken up the same “work-to-contract” protest.

The breakdown comes at a time when all three districts are facing budget shortfalls--the result of a weak economy and a $23.6-billion gap in the state budget.

“It does make it hard for teachers to continue fighting in the face of program cuts,” said Anne Caenn, Irvine Teachers Assn. president. “But 25 out of 28 districts in the county have managed to settle their contract disputes.... It just makes me wonder why our district can’t do the same thing.”

Irvine Unified officials say they’re limited in what they can offer.

“For teachers to say that they’re not valued and that the district is rolling in dough is nonsense,” Smollar said. “The priority is to provide for the students, so if the district has to scramble to find the money to help students prepare for exams because the teachers are refusing to do it, then that’s what we’re going to do.”