GARY, Indiana (AP) -- Unionized school bus drivers refused to cross picket lines Wednesday on the first day of school as striking teachers carried protest signs and handed out fliers to parents in the first work stoppage in the district in 22 years.
Teachers carrying signs that read "No Contract, No Work" picketed at Gary Westside High School, the largest school in the district of 16,000 pupils. Teachers, who have not had a contract since December 2004, last staged a strike in 1984.
Gary Community Schools Corporation officials said they expected a full day of classes, with substitute teachers and administrators filling in for the strikers.
"We are going ahead with business as usual," spokesman Eric D. Johnson said.
Teacher Foster Stephens, who was part of the negotiating team, said both sides are still talking.
"I'm very optimistic something [will be] done today," he said. "I hope so."
The district struggles with discipline problems and one of the state's highest poverty rates while also having some of the lowest scores on standardized tests among Indiana's schools. The district also has had small increases in state funding as the estimated number of pupils for this school year is down from some 22,000 a decade ago.
School officials have offered 2 percent salary increases for 2006 and 2007, while teachers' shares of health insurance premiums would rise from 7 percent to 10 percent. State figures show that Gary teachers had an average salary of $52,433 last school year, about $5,000 more than the statewide average.
More than 800 teachers and paraprofessionals voted Friday to strike.
Buses were dropping off children further away from the school than they normally would, as drivers refused to go onto school grounds.