Military parents who don't have extended families to rely upon were particularly hit by the sudden need for child care.

Raymond Sanborn, president of the private Kama'aina Kids day-care company, said some of the biggest enrollments came from sites near military bases.

The simultaneous strike by 13,000 public school teachers and 3,100 UH faculty affects 226,000 students.

At the gate of Pearl City Preschool ­ a Kama'aina Kids strike care site ­ Waimalu Elementary School fourth-grader Payton Otani bounded down the steps ahead of his mother.

"Say hello to freedom!" he exclaimed, evoking laughter from the care workers.

Some parents who dropped their children off at the site said they had made child-care arrangements early in the week.

"I think we already had enough warning," said Honolulu resident Margie Murray after she dropped off her 7-year-old daughter. "I just hope it doesn't last long."

No surprise

Pearl City resident Julie Herring, who brought her second-grade daughter Celene, said the strike created some inconvenience, but she supports the teachers.

"I feel worse for the people who don't budget for child care," Herring said.

Herring, who saw teachers go on strike for a month when she was in a Mississippi high school, wasn't surprised by the strike.

"I kind of figured it was going to come to this," Herring said. "No one was backing down."

Herring left her sixth-grade son at home with math and reading assignments and chores to do.

"I took his books and said, 'You know this. Now do this,'" she said. "Maybe tomorrow I'll give him a break. But they have very minimal days at school already. If (the strike) goes long, that would be detrimental to the children."

Around the state:

• Spirits were high among Maui teachers as the strike got off to a calm start, with few teachers crossing the picket line and no incidents of violence reported.

Strikers at Baldwin High School in Wailuku appeared to be getting plenty of support from motorists honking their horns.

• A handful of teachers crossed picket lines on Kaua'i. Two of 61 teachers crossed at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School near Puhi. Kamakahelei Principal Maggie Cox stood at the school entrance alongside picketers to wave nonstriking employees and strikebreaking teachers through the lines.

• On O'ahu, teachers at Aikahi Elementary School in Kailua were almost festive as they formed a 41-person picket line in the pre-dawn darkness beginning at about 5:40 a.m.

One of them, Myra Grist, remembered the strike of 1973 and the benefits teachers won.

"We got people to clean the classrooms instead of cleaning them ourselves," she said. "We got duty-free lunches instead of having to work at lunch. We got preparation time built into our schedules, and we got some small raises."

Teachers' pay was $3,000 a year when Grist started in Waimanalo in 1966. Today, after 35 years of teaching, she makes top scale, about $58,000 a year.

Still, her salary is far smaller than the $81,000 a year her brother and his wife earn as teachers in New York, she said.

Respecting duty

Both Aikahi principal Roberta Tokumaru and Hawai'i State Teachers Association strike captain Pauline Lacroux said both sides would respect the others as administrators and more than 15 non-HSTA employees crossed the picket lines.

Tokumaru said she would take a place on the picket line before her official work day started. "We are really supportive," she said. Parents are also supportive, and have organized lunch for the pickets beginning on Tuesday.

A cell phone and picnic table outside the YMCA building became an instant office for Kama'aina Kid supervisor Tracy Lessary, who was checking in the students as they arrived.

Marcia Kalmbacher of Kahaluu dropped off son Casey, 14, a King Intermediate School 8th-grader, at about 6:45 on her way to work at a Waimanalo plant nursery.

"I'm going to have to make do with (paying) the $20 a day," Kalmbacher said, "but the parents who have three or four kids really have it tough," she said.

Casey Kalmbacher said "its OK to get out of school. But I hope they don't go more than 20 days, because that's when they can add more school days during the summer, and it will be kind of junk for people who have made plans.

"It's kind of like a break, but I kind of miss going to school and seeing all my friends," he said.

Parent Gina Karras, a Hawai'i credit union league employee, said she and her husband, a mechanic, cannot care for their children at home. They'll have to dip into savings to pay the child-care costs for son Dylan, 9, a 4th-grader, and daughter Irish, 6, a kindergarten student at Kane'ohe Elementary.

"I don't know what we would have done without day care," she said.