Voters to Get the Final Word : In two school districts and a city where the election debate has been hottest, decisions will come at the polls Tuesday. : Bonita Schools : Rancor of Strike, Boycott, Recall Carries Over Into the Campaign

After months of acrimony, during which teachers staged a one-day strike, sympathetic parents took their children out of school for a day and a recall campaign was mounted against a school board member, an equally rancorous campaign has developed for the Bonita school board.

The six challengers say the current board caused the discord by ignoring concerns raised by teachers and parents.

But the two incumbents assert that the campaign to unseat them is an attempt by the Bonita Unified Teachers Assn. to gain control of the board.

In addition to the seats held by the incumbents, a third seat, vacant since board member Harry Jacobs left the area in March, will also be at stake in Tuesday’s election.

During the past two years, the Bonita Unified School District--which serves more than 9,500 students in La Verne and San Dimas--has been beset regularly with disputes among teachers, some parents and the board.

The discontent surfaced during contract negotiations with teachers last spring. Charging the board and the superintendent with intransigence, teachers staged a one-day strike and parents who supported them kept their children out of school for a day.

In the months since, a committee of parents and teachers has forced a recall election for board member Robert Green to be held early next year. Besides opposing Green, members of the recall committee have campaigned against the incumbents.

For much of each of the past two school years, teachers worked without a contract after negotiations broke down, requiring a state-appointed fact-finder to help settle the disputes.

During one impasse, about half of the district’s 385 teachers placed yellow badges on their cars proclaiming “school board victim on board.” Letters charging the teachers with taking part in an inappropriate activity were placed in the files of an unspecified number of teachers.

The teachers association filed a complaint with the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing against then-Supt. James T. Johnson after he wrote a memo to management employees seeking campaign contributions for board members seeking reelection in 1985. Last year, the commission ruled that Johnson had acted improperly. Johnson retired June 30, but said it had nothing to do with the complaint.

‘Clean Sweep’

Although at least one new member will be elected to the board, members of the recall committee and the teachers association say they want a “clean sweep” of a board they claim has isolated itself from its constituents.

“We think people are generally dissatisfied with the board as a whole,” said Steve Godbey, an English teacher at San Dimas High School and a spokesman for the teachers association, which 90% of the teachers have joined.

A major theme in the challengers’ campaigns is that the teachers’ strike and parents’ boycott could have been averted had the board been more receptive to teachers’ demands and parents’ suggestions.

Incumbent candidate Roger Campbell, who has been on the board since 1981, rejected the claim that the board has isolated itself.

“The school board is responsive to the community,” Campbell said. “When there is responsible input, when there is an approach to solve problems with reasonable solutions, the beat goes on and things get done.”

Age Issue

The challengers say the incumbents do not relate to the concerns of younger parents because none of the board members have children of elementary-school age. Neither Campbell, who refused to give his age, nor incumbent candidate Sue Moran, 53, has children still attending school in the district.

“All four of (the board members) are parents of yesterday’s children, meeting yesterday’s needs and carrying some political baggage,” said challenger Jeff Schenkel. “Because of the fact that they’ve been along such a long time, they’ve become entangled in the political process.”

Board President Moran, who has been on the board since 1979, said longevity should not be held against the incumbents. “The issues have been the same for the last 10 to 20 years, and they will remain the same for the next 10 to 20 years,” she said.

Challengers Differ

The field of challengers runs the gamut from Sharon Scott, a parent who founded Active Citizens for Children--the group that organized last year’s student boycott--to Robert Rush, who has criticized the boycott, saying that a dispute with the district was “not the place to involve kids in the political process.”

The group also includes Schenkel, who led a parents’ protest against Plato Products Inc., a Glendora metal-plating firm next to Arma J. Schull School in San Dimas, one of the Bonita district’s 12 schools.

The other non-incumbents all work in education. P. (Biff) Green is vice president of university affairs at the University of La Verne; Arthur Lopez teaches at Foothill Middle School in Azusa; Robert I. Watanabe is principal of Sunkist Elementary School in La Puente.

Surveying the field of challengers, Campbell said: “With few exceptions, they are either part and parcel with the union that is seeking to get control of the school board or sympathizers who have taken a negative and disruptive approach to what they perceive as problems.”

Both Campbell and Moran said the teachers association is using its money and influence to try to put people who support the union’s proposals on the board. The teachers association has endorsed Green and Watanabe and has contributed $500 to each of their campaigns.

Union Explains

Godbey of the teachers association said the union endorsed Green and Watanabe because “they are both professional educators,” adding that his group is not trying to buy leverage on the board.

“We don’t want people who necessarily buy our party line,” Godbey said. “But we want people who are open-minded.”

Green and Watanabe said they made no specific promises to the association in return for its endorsement and financial contributions. However, Moran said the union is “hoping to get something in return, whether they’ve asked for it yet or not.”

The incumbents claim the association is seeking their defeat because they oppose a union proposal calling for a “fair share” system of union dues. Under the system, all teachers would be required to either pay union dues--which totaled $413 last year--or make an equivalent contribution to the charity of their choice.

Godbey said the proposal is intended to ensure that all teachers pay equally for the benefits of union representation. However, the incumbents have said the proposal is a step toward a “closed shop,” in which union membership would be mandatory for all teachers.

Considered Unfair

Moran said the board opposed the union’s proposal because members considered a closed shop unfair to teachers.

“We did not want to give up the right of the average teacher to join the union or not join the union if they choose,” she said. “All the union wants is to have payment from people.”

Godbey said the issue is a red herring being raised by the incumbents to conceal the real issue of the campaign, which he said is the public’s disenchantment with the board.

Among other issues figuring prominently in the campaign are:

The hiring of a permanent superintendent to replace Mitchell Gilbert, who has been acting superintendent since Johnson retired. Challengers say it is important that new board members choose the new superintendent to avoid the potential for cronyism in the selection process because of the board’s loyalty to former Supt. Johnson.

The restructuring of school board meetings to enable the public to address the board earlier. “Oral communications” are now the last item on the agenda, meaning that those who wish to speak on an issue not on the agenda must often wait until 10:30 or 11 p.m.

A five-year delay in opening a new elementary school in northern La Verne. The district is negotiating with La Verne city officials about having the city use developers’ fees to pay for construction of the school. Incumbents said the board is working to ensure that the school can be built without the district incurring the school’s $5-million cost. Challengers have said the school could have been built sooner if the district had better relationships with the cities of San Dimas and La Verne.

Individual challengers also have their own specific issues, but all include some criticism of the current board’s “unresponsiveness” and a call for a change in the district’s leadership.

Among the key points emphasized by challenger Biff Green, 41, who has two daughters attending elementary school in the district, is that he is not related to Robert Green, the school board member facing a recall vote.

‘Some Confusion’

“I think there might be some confusion,” Green said. “As far as I’m concerned, they cannot mention recall again until after Nov. 3, and that would make things easier for me.”

Green said he is opposed to any type of closed-shop union arrangement, but said the “fair share” proposal by the teachers association “has nothing to do with requiring (teachers) to join a union.”

Green said that one of his top priorities would be to seek government grants and other alternative means of increasing the district’s revenue.

Lopez, 36, said he favors neither a closed shop nor a type of “modified” union agreements in which all teachers are required to pay in some manner for representation by the teachers association. His daughter attends school in Azusa, where Lopez and his wife teach.

Lopez said the top priority for a new superintendent is “competent financial management skills,” adding that he has studied the possibility of recruiting a superintendent with experience in the private sector.

Although he does not necessarily consider himself pro-union, Lopez said the strike by teachers in the Bonita district was warranted.

“What happened last spring was entirely justified by the fact that there was vacuum created where there was no communication between the administration and the teachers.”

Rush, 57, director of animal regulation for the City of Los Angeles, has two children attending Bonita High School and another who graduated there. Rush said his work as a department head for a major city has given him experience in budgeting and employee relations.

Rush said he opposes any union agreement that would lead to a closed shop. However, he said teachers in the district should be better paid, and he criticized the current board for its poor relations with its constituents.

Rush said he would like to see more citizen committees formed to advise the board on district policies. Among the district’s failings, Rush cited the absence of a strong honors program in the high schools, the lack of a regional occupational program to give students job training and insufficient funding for athletic programs.

Helped Lead Boycott

Scott, 34, a mother of two whose oldest child attends school in the district, has been sharply criticized by Campbell for her part in organizing last year’s student boycott. Scott said the boycott was the parents’ only alternative after the board did not take action to resolve the dispute that led to the teachers’ strike.

“We felt the boycott was an investment of our children’s time--one day out of school in exchange for getting the district to focus on these issues,” Scott said.

If elected, Scott said, she will call for a management review of the district by the office of state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig. She added that the school board exhibits “a general feeling of wanting to be autonomous and dealing from a position of power instead of a position of service.”

Watanabe, 39, is the father of three children, two of whom attend school in the district. Last year’s teachers’ strike could have been averted, Watanabe said, had the district used an approach to negotiating in which labor and management meet in a room and post papers listing their grievances on the walls.

‘Cleared the Air’

“They couldn’t start negotiating until they had cleared the air of all their gripes about each other, and they couldn’t leave until they had reached an agreement and shook hands,” Watanabe said.

As a school principal, Watanabe said, he is used to negotiating with teachers associations and does not hold a pro-union bias.

“I’m an administrator. I’ve been on the other side of the table, negotiating with teachers,” Watanabe said, adding that he does not feel compromised by the teachers association’s endorsement. “All they want is a candidate who understands the school system and who they can trust.”

Schenkel, 39, a San Dimas public relations consultant whose two children attend school in the district, said he has long opposed the actions of the current board.

“I think quite frankly that all the challengers are saying the same thing, except that I’ve been saying it longer,” said Schenkel. He summed up their position as “Let’s wipe the slate clean.”

“My goal in running for the school board in no means has anything to do with giving away the store,” Schenkel said. “I don’t think the teacher issue or the (closed shop) issue should be as big of an issue as the incumbents have made it.