Michael Schlusser sees the discord at school districts from Yuba City to Wheatland and wonders if what's happening is clear.

"This is a conservative area," Schlusser said. "To get people active in their unions you really have to be doing something to them."

Fuel prices, food costs and foreclosures, along with a federal law for the nation's schools, can benefit not-so benevolent local officials, said Schlusser, president of the Marysville Unified Teachers Association.

"What I see is a move by management and school boards and superintendents to take advantage of the economic uncertainty and the draconcian hammer of 'No Child Left Behind' to engage in a little bit of union busting," Schlusser said. "It's like after 9-11. You either get on board, or you're not a patriot."

That's not how some others see it.

Gay Todd, superintendent of the Marysville school district, said hard economic times make for hard decisions.

"The monetary issues are always easy when things are going well, school districts are growing and the state's budget is good," Todd said.

A proposed $4.8 billion statewide budget cut for education is part of an outlook statewide for schools that she calls "probably one of the worst times financially in my 30-year career."

Whatever their cause and their cure, few seem to dispute that local school districts are rich in conflicts.

"I've never seen education like this," said Jim Flurry, a trustee for the Marysville school district, who from 1971-2004 worked as a teacher or school administrator.

An overflow crowd came to the meeting of the Wheatland Union High School District on Tuesday to protest what they heard were plans to change the schedule of classes.

Marysville and Yuba City school districts continue talks over teacher contracts.

The Nuestro Elementary School District near Live Oak, where teachers say forming a local union ran into resistance from the administration, meets Tuesday in closed session to confer with labor negotiators.

Attorney Thomas M. Griffin, who represents the school district and for decades has worked on education-related issues, said economics explains much of the current controversy surrounding education. But some conflict comes from the many lawsuits filed against schools during good and bad times.

Griffin, who has a doctorate in education from the University of California, Berkeley, said he's taught enough classes to know the work is very difficult.

"It's a hell of a lot easier being a lawyer than it is being a teacher," Griffin said.

But teacher unions can be a part of the problems faced by school districts, he added.

"The job of the labor union is not to educate kids," the attorney said. "It's to get more (money) and benefits for the teachers for less and less work."

Dina Luetgens, president of the Yuba City Teachers Association, doesn't see that as the union's role. And she doesn't believe that economics alone explains the continuing dispute between teachers and the district in Yuba City.

"It doesn't seem to matter whether there's money or not," Luetgens, a science teacher, said of school district finances and negotiations. "It seems to depend on who's the leadership."

Teachers in counties including Sutter and Yuba will celebrate the 26th annual "Day of the Teacher" on Wednesday.

The day will include banquets and awards of past years — plus a new statewide grassroots "highways and byways" effort that will meet locally at Gray Avenue School in Yuba City and then to the mall on Colusa Avenue.

"This is a new thing," said Cathy McGuigan, a Yuba City representative of the California Teachers Association.

The demonstration is designed to protest the $4.8 billion cut in state education, while arguing for a state budget the CTA said "protects our schools and students."