Education communities across the state have watched closely as teachers in Orange County's second-largest school district walked picket lines for two days last week.
But while other cash-strapped districts are dealing with the same stalled negotiations with their teachers unions, experts say the strike in the Capistrano Unified School District was largely the product of years of aggressive politicking unmatched by most districts.
Teachers walk the picket line Thursday at the entrance to Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo on the first day of a teacher strike that has crippled student programs and services across the 52,000-student Capistrano Unified School District.
FILE PHOTO: MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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About 100 school districts across the state, including three in Orange County, are at impasse with their teachers unions – unable to hash out an employment contract, and with the state assigning mediators to each. That's four times the average of districts at impasse each year, according to the Sacramento-based school-finance consulting firm School Services of California.
Even so, Capistrano Unified has accelerated past all those other districts, becoming the first district in California this year to be confronted with a teacher strike. The Oakland Unified School District may follow suit; its teachers union is planning a one-day strike Thursday.
"It's part of a larger populist uprising that seems to be occurring in certain parts of the country," said political scientist Fred Smoller, who studies local government and school boards at Irvine's Brandman University, part of the Chapman University system. "It's not just about the 10 percent pay cut (in Capistrano Unified). It's about things not being perceived as fair. And when the system is not perceived as fair, that's different than people being asked to make a joint sacrifice."
Capistrano Unified's school board last month unilaterally imposed a 10.1 percent pay cut on the district's 2,200 teachers after nearly a year of unsuccessful negotiations.
Teachers decried the imposition, and after about three weeks of intense rancor and unsuccessful attempts to sit down with the district to talk through the imposed cut, union leaders decided to begin striking Thursday.
The end result of California's first teachers strike this year could significantly sway negotiations between unions and districts statewide or even lead the way to more strikes, experts say.
"A lot of interested parties are going to have to look at Capistrano," said Ron Bennett, president of School Services of California. "If it is perceived the strike was beneficial to one side or other, that might be a