For many, strike is double trouble

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Marcus and Gail Pottenger have put their paychecks on the line to stay out of the classroom during the strike that has crippled Hawai'i's public education system.

Married teachers Marcus, at counter, and Gail Pottenger went shopping for bargains at Longs Drugs recently, with daughter Yvonne, left. Yvonne, an eighth-grader at Niu Valley Intermediate, recently decided against following her parents into the teaching profession. "Teachers don't get paid well," she said. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Although the Department of Education doesn't keep track of how many of its teachers are married to other teachers, the Pottengers count themselves among half a dozen couples at their schools alone who are feeling the double-whammy of walking off the job.

Gail Pottenger, a reading teacher at Washington Intermediate School in McCully, considers the strike a sacrifice she hopes will eventually pay off. She said she wants the walkout to make it possible for Hawai'i to attract more qualified teachers.

"If this goes on and eliminates another paycheck or two, that's really going to be the hard part," said Marcus, a technology resource teacher at Hokulani Elementary School at the bottom of St. Louis Heights. "Car payments. Insurance payments. You have to look at your basic needs."

Dan and Patti Richardson, teachers who met at Kaiser High School, face another set of challenges. Patti is pregnant. Dan works a second job at Radio Shack.

They've already borrowed $6,000 from his Radio Shack 401(k) retirement savings. Patti has health insurance through the union, but Dan doesn't. The baby is due in July, and they just moved into a bigger place in Hawai'i Kai.

"Both of us moved over here to teach," said Patti, who is from Michigan and whose husband is from Ohio. "It's becoming harder and harder financially, but we both just really enjoy teaching, so it would be hard to leave."

The couples realize, of course, that the state bargaining team takes a contrary view and wants them to return to work. But they are siding with the bulk of the state's rank-and-file teachers, who do not find the state's offers satisfactory.

As the strike goes on, the Pottengers and Richardsons are part of a growing number of families debating which bills can wait.

The Pottengers are prepared to delve into their stash of canned goods, stocked in case of a hurricane emergency. They're putting off shoe shopping. They've scraped money from college savings for their children. They're applying for loans.

"It's like a juggling game," Marcus Pottenger said. "Right now, all the balls are in the air, and we're just waiting to see which ones fall."

A stop at Longs Drugs to pick up Easter prizes for their church's egg hunt meant looking for bargains. The Pottenger's 13-year-old daughter, Yvonne, helped with the math of adding up four-for-a-dollar bubbles and 59-cent balls.

The couple, whose combined income is less than $70,000 a year, including a second job held by Marcus, used paychecks that came last week for the $1,450 rent on the Hawai'i Kai townhouse they share with their two children. They're not sure when they'll get paid again.

"It's going to be in the long run that it benefits us," Gail said. "We're going to be making this up for a year or two."

Marcus, who has a second job with the University of Hawai'i lab school's summer program, is waiting to see whether a prolonged strike will condense that program. His wife is looking into extra work as a teaching consultant. And they say they're fortunate to have parents nearby who can help out in a pinch.

Yvonne, an eighth-grader at Niu Valley Intermediate, already has decided to go into another field.

"Teachers don't get paid well," said Yvonne, whose grandmothers were both teachers and whose grandfather is a University of Hawai'i professor. She's thinking of becoming a nurse or a doctor instead.

"Then she can put her parents through school," her dad said jokingly.

The laughter is one way the Pottengers are coping with the serious business of the strike.

Instead of the usual school car pools, this week's outings have been to places such as the State Capitol, to lobby legislators, and the unemployment office, to pick up paperwork.

The Pottengers look at the bright side. They think of themselves as more fortunate than striking teachers who are single or raising families alone.

Patti Richardson said her husband has thought about leaving teaching to become a Radio Shack manager. Like the Pottengers, she said they are willing to borrow and scrape to get by until the strike ends.

"We realized we're not worse off, necessarily, because there's two of us," Gail Pottenger said. "We're all teachers. We're all hurting."