About 300 teachers, parents, children and activists picketed Tuesday outside the Santa Barbara Unified School District headquarters and called for new contract with higher wages.

They carried and waved signs and shouted as a steady stream of vehicles drove by and drivers honked their support for the teachers.

“It just feels really sad that they can’t figure it out and that they are not prioritizing keeping good educators in the school district,” said Olivia Wiley, a sixth-grade teacher at Adams Elementary School.

Wiley brought her 2-year-old son to the rally and protest.

“We don’t want a strike,” Wiley said. “We hope it’s tomorrow.”

The rally comes a day before a hearing where a third-party hearing officer will sit with representatives from the Santa Barbara Teachers Association and the Santa Barbara Unified School District for a last-ditch effort to reach a deal on a new contract.

The hearing could last as long as 24 hours. If no resolution is reached, then the school district will issue a report within 20 days, and then the teachers union could call a strike. If a strike happens, it would not take place until the start of the school year.

Although many of the people with whom Noozhawk spoke on Tuesday expressed disappointment in district leadership over the past nine months, rumors were circulating that perhaps the district was ready to settle at Wednesday’s meeting.

The entire event has been a public relations nightmare for the district, with hundreds of residents and business owners placing signs at their homes or at their businesses in support of the teachers.

Last year, Dos Pueblos, San Marcos and Santa Barbara high school students marched out of class in support of the teachers, along with some of the junior high schools and an elementary school.

The union wants a 15% salary increase next year and 8% the following year. The district has offered 9% next year and 4% the following year. In a pre-strike authorization vote, 95% of teachers voted, and 98% voted to strike if the district does not agree to the contract.

On Tuesday, the picketers lined Santa Barbara Street, and many of them shouted, “98, Strike Ready.”

Sarah Gatehouse is an art teacher at Washington Elementary School.

“I am here today because, honestly, I can’t really afford to stay living in Santa Barbara, which is a community that I love and serve, and I want to be part of the community I live in and teach in,” Gatehouse said. “We’re here fighting for our ability to live here and support our students without being stressed about also supporting our families.”

Gatehouse said she understands that public education isn’t a perfect system, but that the district could do much more to pay its teachers.

“It seems through this whole process there is money in our reserves, there’s money for district administrators to be paid a lot, and we haven’t seen that money go to teacher pay increases,” Gatehouse said.

Teacher Becca Lowi said she has been teaching for 24 years and feels like she can “barely make ends meet.”

“I have a mortgage, and my husband has three jobs, and we barely have had any raises in several years, and it’s time to get a serious cost-of-living raise to be able to live in this town,” she said. “I see other teachers leaving the district, young teachers especially, are leaving within five years.”

She said the salary that teachers make is not comparable to the effort they put in.

“It feels really hard when we are having to fight for every penny, and not really being respected while we are doing it,” Lowi said.