Students Widen Protests, Take Teachers' Side

By RICH CONNELL and KENNETH J. GARCIA

Jan. 27, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

As demonstrations tied to a labor dispute spread across at least half a dozen more Los Angeles campuses Thursday, students made it clear that they support teachers’ pay demands but are not buying assurances that they will be unharmed if teachers fail to file midyear grades with the district next week.

More than 1,000 students participated in peaceful protests at Birmingham and Grant high schools in the San Fernando Valley. Hundreds walked out at Dorsey High School in Southwest Los Angeles, while smaller numbers demonstrated at Jefferson High and Horace Mann Junior High in South Los Angeles.

Administration Targeted

More than 200 students from several schools also converged on the downtown administrative and political nerve center of the nation’s second-largest school district, and there was widespread talk among students of additional demonstrations planned for today.

The protesters still are a small percentage of the total district enrollment of nearly 600,000 students, but those involved are becoming increasingly savvy about their power to use the news media and hit the school system in the pocketbook.

Thursday’s demonstrations were the first in which students said they had avoided or would purposely avoid the homeroom period at the start of the day so the district would lose money. State aid is based on student attendance in homeroom classes, and the school system loses $15 a day for each student not present.

“The teachers have what we want,” said protester Alicia Barton, a college-bound senior at Washington High School, referring to midyear grades the teachers are threatening to withhold from the district. “The school board has what the teachers want (money). And we have what the school board needs (student attendance at homeroom).”

At a multiple-school demonstration at the district’s downtown headquarters, one group of students arrived chanting, “No grades. No homeroom. No money.”

School district officials said they had no estimate of financial losses, if any, on Thursday. But they and teachers’ union officials attempted to discourage the tactic, saying it would simply aggravate the contract fight by reducing funds available for reaching a settlement with teachers.

The protest at the district headquarters was peaceful, although school district police for a time blocked students’ efforts to enter the main administrative building. The protesters eventually were allowed to file quietly into the board’s meeting room, while their representatives went into a lengthy meeting with school board members and Supt. Leonard Britton to discuss the issues. The discussion, which resulted in no agreements, was broadcast into the board room and to students outside over a public address system.

If nothing else, by taking matters into their own hands in the course of the last week, the students have succeeded in focusing more public attention on the labor dispute than all of the previous public relations efforts of the district or its teachers. Thus far, however, the protests do not appear to be doing much to resolve the underlying problem.

Negotiations Unaffected

Spokesmen for both sides of the labor dispute insist that they want the walkouts to end and say the protests have not yet affected the closed-door negotiations that have been taking place intermittently for months. The teachers are seeking a one-year agreement with a 12% pay increase. The district is offering 5.6% the first year and a total of 17% over three years.

Teachers, as part of a boycott of certain duties, still plan to withhold fall semester grades from the district, although students will be able to obtain them directly from teachers. That issue, which sparked the first protests, is controversial because many students and district officials express concern that college-bound students will be placed at a disadvantage if official transcripts are delayed.

Teachers insist that students will not be harmed and that they will ensure that grades, which will be issued on unofficial, union-prepared report cards, will be forwarded to college admissions officials.

There has been no shortage of misunderstandings, misinformation and manipulation in the week-old rash of protests. The district, the teachers and different groups of students have interpreted events differently.

District officials play up the grade withholding, saying teachers are placing the students unnecessarily at risk.

Teachers play up the supportive comments of the students, insisting all the while that they are not encouraging the protests.

Students also are becoming media-wise and are dabbling in the art of putting their own interpretation, or “spin,” on the unfolding events. At Birmingham High in Van Nuys, where several hundred students walked out Thursday morning, about 15 students wore name badges that said “Ask Me.” Students said the badges were intended to alert the news media as to who could give the proper explanation for the demonstration.

“A lot of students here are confused about the issue,” said Kevin Rex, a senior. “We’re sick of being used as pawns between the teachers and the board.”

At the district headquarters demonstration, one group of protesters was coached by pro-teacher students on how to respond to reporters’ questions.

“Keep your answers short,” one student advised.

Rose Auerbach, a Marshall High School junior who did some of the coaching, said it was needed because “a lot of kids know why they are here, but they don’t know how to express it.”

Board Targeted by Students

“Our conflict is with the board, not the teachers,” said Chuen-Yen-Lau, another Marshall High student.

Some of the miscommunication has been comical.

“What we need is teachers to get a raise!” someone called out Thursday as Los Angeles school board President Roberta Weintraub met with students at the district’s downtown headquarters.

“Yes,” Weintraub said understandingly. “I know you need your grades.”

“No!” shouted the students. “Teachers need a raise!”

Several students bound for out-of-state colleges said Thursday that they needed their official transcripts in the next few weeks. LeRoy Gorman, a Dorsey High senior seeking admission to the University of Denver, said he was told by university officials that he needed official midyear transcripts by March.

“They said what’s going on in California is ‘not our problem. . . . We need the transcripts,’ ” he said.

Like Gorman, Kemo Lee, student body president at Dorsey and an organizer of the protest there, said the students support the teachers, “but we feel we are being used as a bargaining tool.”

One Main Problem

Betty Gomez, one of about 40 students who walked out of classes at Jefferson, said: “The reason is simple. If we don’t get our grades, we can’t go to college. . . . It’s our future at stake, not theirs. Just because we’re students, they’re not taking us seriously. But they should.”

Many students, echoing arguments that have been used by the teachers, have been highly critical of top-paid district officials. For example, several students Thursday criticized the district for paying Supt. Britton’s bodyguard-driver more than $90,000 last year in salary and overtime.

Britton said this week he was taking steps to reduce the amount of overtime his driver works.

Many said teachers deserve more money and cited the $23,000 starting teacher salary in the district.

“A bus driver makes more than they do,” said Payton Johnson, a Dorsey senior who organized the protest there and said he hopes to be a teacher.

However, many students participating in the protests do not seem to have an understanding of what is actually happening in negotiations.

One 15-year-old student at Horace Mann appeared to have little idea what issues were on the bargaining table. When told that the district had made a pay offer to the teachers, she replied, “They did?”

Many parents are being indirectly drawn into the dispute as their children skip classes and organize protests.

“They really took me by surprise,” said Charles Sims, a parent of another student suspended at Horace Mann. “I don’t think the problem (withholding grades) is that great (at the junior high) . . . I’m gonna have to do some research.”

Phyllis Baltin, a parent of a student at Birmingham, said: “The teachers deserve a raise, but the students shouldn’t be used as pawns.

“But I’m very proud of the way they demonstrated today. They were peaceful and orderly, and they handled themselves very well.”

Staff writer Sam Enriquez contributed to this story.