MIAMI -- Almost two dozen Miami-Dade County schoolteachers held signs and blew whistles along Biscayne Boulevard on Monday in protest of the school district's decision to renegotiate their contracted raises. Meanwhile, a more civil and less raucous tone governed talks over their raises, a day after heated negotiations began.

At issue was whether the school district could postpone or cancel raises while faced with a quarter-billion dollar budget deficit.

The teachers' raises were supposed to take effect Tuesday, but the school board voted Thursday to allow Superintendent Rudy Crew to postpone the raises for all school district employees as they struggle to trim $284 million from the budget for the upcoming school year.

"A contract means something and it needs to be honored," said teacher Sofia Padilla.

The 300-page, three-year contract that teachers overwhelmingly approved in 2006 increased salaries and raises, with a stipulation that allows the district to renegotiate if state legislators underfund the district.

This year, with property tax cuts and reconfigured state funding, Miami-Dade County Public Schools lost more than $200 million of annual funding.

"I'd take exception to whoever wrote that contract," said teacher Gail Tucker. "If I had been there, I would not have accepted that. Who has a contract where if there's a renegotiation clause, they get to decide whether to invoke it or not?"

During talks that started Sunday, negotiators for the district and teachers union went back and forth over a line in the contract that states, during renegotiations, teachers will "continue to be governed by the current economic agreement for the applicable fiscal year."

The district considers the "applicable fiscal year" to be the 2007-08 contract, which expires Monday. Teachers insist "the applicable year" is the 2008-09 contract that begins Tuesday, along with their raises.

"Because we look like a big pot of money, they are going to take it away from individual teachers, some of whom are going to earn $190 annually different," said United Teachers of Dade President Karen Aronowitz.

The teachers held the protest blocks from the school district's headquarters in front of the downtown Hilton, where a United Way annual meeting was taking place.

Many of them were upset that Crew, the district's highest-paid employee, refuses to "lead by example" and take a pay cut.

Harve Mogul, the president and chief executive officer of the United Way, said he feels for the teachers and will do all he can to keep talks going, but cautioned that his organization is not choosing sides.

"We have good people involved, I believe, on all sides of this issue and it's in all of our best interests to get this thing resolved fast," said Mogul.

Negotiations are set to resume Wednesday.