District teachers picket at open house

CORONA DEL MAR — The Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s teachers sounded another charge Thursday in their campaign for higher salaries, picketing outside Corona del Mar High School in their second public protest in two weeks.

The teachers, most clad in black, waved signs by the curb as the school held its annual open house inside for parents.

The event drew fewer protesters than last week’s demonstration at the school board meeting, where hundreds of teachers gathered, but it still kept the teachers’ cause public while negotiations dragged on behind closed doors.

Mary Christensen, a history teacher at Corona del Mar High, said her colleagues hoped to net a wider audience by demonstrating at a popular community event.

Some of the teachers’ signs displayed the district’s phone number and invited drivers to call and voice support.

“It’s just to tell the parents, ‘Get behind us and ride the district,’ ” she said.

According to a report released by the district and union in January, Newport-Mesa pays the lowest average annual teacher salary of any unified district in Orange County. The report pinpointed the average Newport-Mesa salary at $64,292 — more than $14,000 behind the highest-paying district in the county, Laguna Beach Unified.

Newport-Mesa teachers already received a 2% raise in their contract for this year, but when the district offered an additional 1%, the union held out for more.

The district has offered teachers a more substantial raise over the next few years, with 7.5% in 2007-08, 5.5% in 2008-09 and 4% in 2009-10. Increases in benefits would provide additional money as well.

Union President Jim Rogers, however, said his group wanted an immediate boost higher than the 1% offered, since other districts might give their teachers higher raises in the coming years.

The union’s goal is to bring its salaries between the mean and the 75th percentile for the county, and Rogers said he didn’t want Newport-Mesa to fall behind if the district offered too small an increase.

“Not all districts settle at the same time, so it’s constantly going to be a moving target,” he said. “But we feel it’s better that we structure an agreement that’s upfront, rather than finding that we’ve fallen to the bottom again and pushing for another big raise.”