Capistrano District Will Hire Guards if Teachers Strike

Things are heating up in the Capistrano Valley Unified School District:

The Capistrano Unified School District is planning to hire private security guards for all of its campuses if teachers in the district go on strike in the coming weeks.

The school district – Orange County's second largest, with 56 campuses – last month placed open purchase orders totaling $100,000 with two private security firms for an estimated 250 guards.

Capistrano Unified teachers and their supporters protest unilaterally imposed 10.1 percent pay cuts outside a school board meeting last month. About 300 more demonstrators were inside the board room, but those who couldn't fit watched from outside. Capistrano teachers could vote to authorize a strike as early as next week.

In the event of a teacher strike, Capistrano Unified would employ only unarmed guards, not any armed guards, district spokeswoman Julie Hatchel said. Because of incorrect information provided to the Register, this information was incorrect when the article was initially published online.

Copies of the purchase orders have been circulating via e-mail in the Capistrano community, rankling parents, students and teachers already on edge over the possible strike. Capistrano officials, however, have stressed that the district has not spent any money yet, that the guards would be unarmed, and that the guards would be deployed on an as-needed basis.

"We all heartily hope we do not need them," school board President Anna Bryson said. "But we cannot be caught unprepared. We owe our students a calm and functioning campus."

The security guards are part of a comprehensive plan being developed by Capistrano district officials in anticipation of a possible strike by teachers. For the past several weeks, the district also has been hiring substitute teachers and developing generic lesson plans.

"The fact that they are paying for the security guards makes me so mad because that money could be going toward something else," said Kathryn Gullickson, 18, a senior at Dana Point's Dana Hills High School, where students have already staged a protest and walkout over the teacher pay issue. "We're not in danger. The whole idea of them protecting us from the picketing teachers is far-fetched and ridiculous."

It's interesting that the comment in that last paragraph came from a Dana Hills student. I've been hearing a lot of stories from staff members down there that they've been having problems with groups of activist kids that have decided to cause problems with class walkouts and the like in "support of the teachers". According to one report I got the teachers just sat there and did nothing while kids were leaving their classrooms and trying to rally others to join them. There were even text messages going to students with threats of riots at various school events. One girl reported to school staff that she got 30 such messages.

If there are going to be problems Dana Hills is where they're going to have them. They seem to have lost control down there.