Teachers From Orange Step Up Contract Fight

ORANGE — Just days before Orange Unified School District board members prepare to hand out high school diplomas, a contentious contract dispute with the graduates’ teachers is reaching critical mass and heading to the state.

District trustees again huddled with their negotiators in a closed session Tuesday night. A new item on their agenda was a complaint that the teachers union, the Orange Unified Education Assn., filed with the Public Employee Relations Board in Sacramento on Monday.

Union officials were infuriated last week when district negotiators abruptly declared a state of emergency and imposed a contract that raises salaries only for the lower half of the pay scale.

Fearful that as many as 300 of the district’s 1,200 teachers may retire or resign at the end of the month, district officials said they were compelled to raise beginning salaries by $6,000 to $7,000 so Orange Unified would no longer be the lowest-paying district in the county and could retain and attract teachers.

Technically, state law says contract negotiations must go through certain stages, from talks to mediation to fact-finding to arbitration, said Bob Thompson, deputy general counsel for the Public Employee Relations Board. The law says nothing about “emergencies” that would allow school officials to bypass the process. Some districts have tried to argue that “business necessity” constituted an emergency, but never successfully, Thompson added.

An attorney will be assigned to investigate the complaint and report back to the state board within 60 days, Thompson said. After settlement talks and court hearings, the district eventually could be forced to reinstate the original contract and go back to the bargaining table.

Malcolm Seheult, assistant superintendent of personnel and the lead negotiator for the district, said that may not be necessary.

“I’m always an optimist,” he said. “It is conceivable we could hammer something out. We’re trying to get back to the table as quickly as possible.”

Only 400 teachers have so far indicated a firm intention to return to the classroom next fall, Seheult said. The deadline for teachers to turn in letters of intent to return, which are treated as one-year contracts, is June 30.

Before the school board meeting Tuesday night, more than 200 parents, teachers and students held a raucous rally with picket signs and a makeshift coffin representing the death of collective bargaining.

Parent Mary Sammetinger told the trustees she was “greatly ashamed of this board. You are elected officials designated to represent the wishes of your constituents. If a huge number of your constituents are opposed to your actions, don’t you think you should reconsider?”

Students presented the board with a petition signed by about 400 students at Villa Park High School, which read in part: “Due to your recent unjust actions, a mood of anger and of frustration has taken hold of many faculty members at Villa Park High. Because you have forgotten the essential truth of education, teachers and students alike are suffering.”