Sacramento Ca Schools

Thousands of students stayed away from Sacramento schools Wednesday as a walkout by teachers, counselors and nurses entered its second day. Meanwhile, San Jose's 29,000 students attended their second day of school in classrooms staffed by teachers who came very close to striking but at the last minute accepted a tentative contract offer. In San Diego, teachers prepared to go back to school next week with a 6.4% pay hike approved by school trustees Tuesday.

About 2,500 teachers, counselors and nurses on Tuesday rejected the Sacramento City Unified School District's offer and went on strike on the first day of classes after negotiations that stretched into the early morning. In the nearby San Juan School District, however, teachers earlier agreed to postpone their threatened strike while they seek the help of a mediator in their talks. And in San Jose, a tentative contract settlement was announced shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday.

Teachers in the Sacramento Unified School District, the state's seventh largest, went on strike Tuesday, primarily in protest over the issue of pay. A union official said 83% of the district's 2,300 full-time teachers manned picket lines at the start of school Tuesday and are determined to resume the protest today.