For more than a year, the Rocklin Unified School District and its teachers have been in a standoff over benefits and the size of salary increases in a new contract.
Unhappy teachers have picketed outside schools during back-to-school nights. They've handed out leaflets. Most recently, they've refused to work any more than 30 minutes before the first bell of the day and 30 minutes after the last bell.
On Thursday, a group of Rocklin High School seniors rallied in support of the teachers and to explain – with the assistance of a megaphone – how the latest labor tactic is affecting them.
"That means we don't get our clubs and we can't get help from our teachers after 3:05," 16-year-old Mallory Valenzuela said to students gathered during lunch on the steps of the campus amphitheater.
Valenzuela has organized a group called Students for Advancing Teacher Salaries.
She said teachers' limited hours have prevented faculty advisers from hosting meetings of student groups like the Key Club, History Club and Culinary Club.
"And when it gets to that point," said vice president of the French Club and a co-president of the Culinary Club Sima Bouzid, "that is when you need to take action.
"Basically, we have no clubs whatsoever."
Bouzid, 17, hopes to attend the University of California, Berkeley. She said she can't get after-school help "with physics and stuff like that because teachers only stay until 3:05, and there is only so much help I can get in that short time period."
The Rocklin Teachers Association, which represents about 550 teachers, declared an impasse in November.
A fact-finding hearing is set for Sept. 24, a step that leads to a state mediator trying to help the sides reach an agreement.
Shouting into the megaphone Thursday, Grant Speckert, 17, told underclassmen that it is important to colleges that a student have four years of club membership. That uninterrupted string is being threatened, he said.
Schoolmate Shane Seppinni, 17, told students to get involved by attending a school board meeting Wednesday. He said there would be free food.
"Most teachers are normally on campus long before schools starts and long after it ends," said Mary Dick, Rocklin Teachers Association president. "That is why we have such a great district."
"We are looking forward to the day that we can get this settled," she said.
But the district's salary proposals, she said, would not keep Rocklin teacher salaries competitive with neighboring districts. And without competitive salaries, teachers would seek employment elsewhere, resulting in lower student academic achievement, she said.
Rocklin Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Brown sympathizes with the students.
But he said the district has been hit hard by inadequate state funding and that the administration has attempted to find a solution.
"We have made proposal after proposal, but none have gotten support of the union yet," Brown said.
Call The Bee's Bill Lindelof, (916) 321-1079.
