Can a banner be a fire hazard?

Apparently it can when it has the faces of 611 Santa Barbara Unified School District teachers.

Teachers had planned to show a banner at Tuesday night’s board meeting, but Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and board president Wendy Sims-Moten said the sign was a “safety issue,” because if people needed to get out of the meeting quickly, “we don’t want to have to move around things.”

So, teacher Kate Lambert wrapped the 3 X 6 sign around her body and spoke to the more than 200 people in the audience.

“Thank you for letting us know that having a banner would be a fire hazard,” Lambert said. “It is not, but we took it off of our post, we offered you lots of ways to bring it in and you still said no, but I am wearing it and if I have to leave, that’s just fine.”

Lambert received rousing cheers from the crowd, most of them teachers angry that the district underpaid them by $6.7 million last year. The large turnout came on the eve of salary negotiations that are set to kick off on Wednesday.

Teachers in the district are embroiled in an increasingly bitter battle over salaries and staffing levels, and the salary issue has erupted onto the public stage in recent weeks.

Last year, the district failed to spend 55% of its budget for teacher salaries as required by state law. The district has infuriated teachers by belatedly seeking a “waiver” for the lack of payments, instead of paying the teachers. Some speakers criticized the District’s spending priorities, including its travel budget for administrators.

Tuesday night’s meeting had the feel of a Friday night football game instead of a typical board meeting. The teachers and parents in the audience cheered after every speaker. They waved signs demanding more pay, and they rang bells when speakers made salient points.

On the other side, board chairwoman Sims-Moten told the crowd not to cheer after every speaker and to respect the meeting.

She lost the battle, however, to speaker and teacher Leo Borden. The speakers were limited to 90 seconds, but Borden pressed on for twice the amount of time. He pumped his fist and pointed at the board and called them out for the lack of payment.

“No one sitting in front of me,” he said, pointing at the board members, “truly cares about the people standing behind me.”

Borden called out the leadership of Superintendent Maldonado.

“We have a superintendent who has driven off every member of the cabinet, except for one,” Borden said. “More troubling is the annual exodus of teachers — more than 100 this past year and 100 more before that.”

He said the superintendent has only added more staff “to an already bloated administration.”

Borden continued to speak past the 90-second limit, prompting Sims-Moten and board member Gabe Escobedo to say “thank you” nine times combined to encourage Borden to stop speaking. He continued, raising his voice to the cheers of the audience.

“Is somebody calling time, or announcing 30 seconds, when we are grading papers on a Saturday afternoon?” Borden said.

As he wrapped up his comments well past the 90-second mark, Borden delivered one final zinger: “I am sorry for my transgression. Maybe I will ask the state for a waiver.”

Madeleine Bordofsky, a fifth-grade teacher at Harding University Partnership School, said there’s been so much turnover at the district that no one knows who the teachers are anymore.

“Unlike previous administrations who knew my name, my face, my school site, my grade level, I am certain that none of you could pick me out of a lineup,” Bordofsky said.

The board, she said, does not know all the ways that teachers support students daily.

“With that knowledge, there’s no way you could sit up here tonight and feel anything but shame for the lack of effort you have shown to make our district a place teachers feel respected,” Bordofsky said.

For Lambert, the woman who wrapped the banner around her body, Tuesday’s meeting was a memorable experience. She organized the team that created the banner with the 611 teacher names in support of the salary increase.

“I was bursting with pride when I went to pick this up last night in Van Nuys,” Lambert said. “It took me five hours round-trip. I wasn’t going to let us not bring it in tonight. It means a lot to me to represent everyone’s picture and voice.”