HolyCoast: Capistrano District Will Hire Guards if Teachers Strike
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Friday, April 09, 2010

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.

4 comments:

Nightingale said...

These students have no respect for their education....an education paid for by the taxpayers.

Just an opportunity for these ungrateful brats to ditch class.

Anonymous said...

kids are not going to go to school tomorrow, or all of next week if teachers go on strike. The guards can not stop us at all, because they have no power. We can choose if we even want to go or not, and you can not stop us. Your wasting our time and i could be sleeping if you dumb shits got a life and would just pay them. Us kids at Tesoro, and Capo, and San Juan and Dana are not going to go to school, so you can suck it and get over it especially when you teachers do not know how to teach properly, and you have no life. We will do what we want, we have freedom in the United States. Do not try and tell us to go to school, because you really cant make our decisions. YOur not my mommy and daddy. They also think we should not go to school, just so you can stop your complaining, and save money!!!!!

Rick Moore said...

And there you have it. Anon shows us the value of today's high school education.

Sadly for this idiot the day will come when he will be asked to pay higher taxes to pay for school teachers - assuming there are any jobs left in California for him to get. But then again, based on the quality of his comments, my guess is he'll be part of the 47% that don't earn enough to pay income taxes.

Rick Moore said...

Here's something interesting about the comment from Anonymous. I looked to see what IP address the comment came from. Here it is:

Orange County Department Of Education (216.100.90.25) [Label IP Address]

San Clemente, California, United States,

So, was this a student, or perhaps a teacher pretending to be a student?