The Orange County Register

Karen Dahlquist last held a picket sign during labor negotiations. Her target at the time: the board of trustees at Saddleback Valley Unified.

Tuesday, the Valencia Elementary teacher stood side by side with some of those same trustees, decked out in orange to wave signs at passing cars. "When it gets to something really important, we're all in this together," she said.

More than 1,000 people rallied Tuesday afternoon in simultaneous demonstrations across the county, packing street corners and football fields to support Proposition 98 - and show a rare occasion of consensus for all of public education's players.

Labor leaders stood with school board members. School administrators, teachers and students - all of them affected by budget cuts in recent years - shared a cause.

"We hope the governor gets a little nervous - 'Gosh, right down there in Republican Orange County they're demonstrating against me,'" said Shereen Walter, a parent at Peterson Elementary in Huntington Beach.

At Capistrano Valley High in Mission Viejo, about 400 people gathered to jeer the governor's proposals and cheer for full funding.

In Anaheim Hills, about 60 folks saw Orange Unified Superintendent Robert French pretend to phone Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "You say you're not good in math? You're good at body building?"

In Anaheim, nearly 100 protesters in orange T-shirts lined Euclid Street in front of Anaheim Plaza, toting signs that said "Don't terminate Prop. 98."

Police estimated 30 demonstrators in Tustin, a few hundred in Fullerton.

Each rally was organized by local labor leaders, administrators and parents, and spurred by the Orange County Education Coalition. That group – with an inner circle of about a dozen union leaders, school board members, administrators and PTA leaders – had been dormant for two years. It was revived to mobilize support for Prop. 98, a funding guarantee for public schools.

"To be quite honest, the single best organizer the Orange County education community has ever had is Gov. Schwarzenegger," said Alan Aldrich, senior labor-relations representative with the California School Employees Association and a founding member of the coalition.

Jerry Andes, a father of two Saddleback Valley Unified elementary students, said he was uncomfortable with some of the coalition's work.

"I think it's OK to disagree with Arnold or any elected official, but ... what they've done is propagandize," he said. "I don't necessarily think that our schools are underfunded."

High school junior Amber Gonzales, at a Laguna Hills rally, thinks they are: "I know, because there's like 40 kids in a classroom," she said.