SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : District, Teachers Union on Same Side

Parents who attended back-to-school night last year were more likely to find angry teachers carrying picket signs than information about the coming school year.

But this year, both sides are ushering in what they hope is a new era of cooperation, with a joint project by the teachers’ union and school district administrators.

The district and the Capistrano Unified Education Assn. split the cost of printing more than 15,000 copies of “Parent Power,” a pamphlet written under the auspices of the National Education Assn., which represents teachers’ unions on the national level.

Over the next two weeks, the six-page publication will be distributed at back-to-school nights throughout the district, at sites including Dana Hills High School, where teachers staged a large demonstration last fall.

The leaflet contains reading, writing and math activities for parents to do at home with elementary children and topics to discuss with older students. The booklet also includes a school calendar, phone numbers for each school in the district and the number for union headquarters in Laguna Hills.

“It may be the first time the teachers’ association and the district have ever worked together on such a project,” said union president Ric Stephenson, whose signature appears alongside that of Supt. Jerome Thornsley on the pamphlet’s cover letter.