EVERETT — School’s finally in session in Marysville.

Marysville teachers Monday night voted more than two-to-one to comply with a judge’s order telling them to get the school year started on Wednesday while they continue to negotiate with school district officials for a new contract.

The teachers met for about four hours behind closed doors Monday night to get legal questions answered before finally voting on the question of whether to continue the strike.

Of the 605 ballots cast, 420 voted to end the strike and 181 voted to continue. There were four abstentions.

Teachers crowding the Everett Historic Theatre cheered when the results were read by Elaine Hanson, Marysville Education Association president.

"Can the supe! Erase the board," they chanted.

The foundations for the strike were laid in long-brewing disputes between teachers, Superintendent Linda Whitehead and the five-member school board.

"I voted to stay on the picket line. I just wanted to keep the pressure on but I will go back and teach the kids," said Paige Elwell, a Pinewood Elementary School teacher. "Our school board has to go."

The 49-day-long teachers strike — a new record for the state — was the longest one still going on in the United States. Marysville’s 11,000 students have not been in school since June.

"I voted to go back to school," said Jason Fallihee, a physical education teacher also at Pinewood Elementary School. "I think we can do more good going back and getting the community support behind us. At this point, I think (continuing the strike) is a dead end and we can get three new board members."

Parents said they’re ready for the class bells to finally ring.

"I hope the teachers get what they want, but the kids need to be in school," parent Debbie Allen said earlier in the day.

The school calendar is still being worked on, though earlier estimates by the district put the end of the 2003-2004 school year somewhere near the end of July.

"I’m very pleased," said Mark Johnson, school board member. "There’s no reason we can’t negotiate with the kids back in school."

The district does not plan to hold school six days a week because it would run into costly overtime issues, district spokeswoman Judy Parker said.

It also has not been decided when the first school board meeting since the strike will be held. All public board meetings were suspended and Whitehead was given emergency powers to make all district decisions after the teachers walked out in September.

No negotiations were planned for today. On Sunday, a two-man panel appointed by Gov. Gary Locke criticized both sides for their intransigence.

Historically in other striking districts, teachers threatened with injunctions don’t vote to return to work, said former state Rep. Dennis Heck, one of the panel members. Usually teachers get back to the negotiating table quickly, though, and resolve it within days.

"They’re to be commended for it," Heck said of the teachers. "The next step is to get back to the table and get a contract."

The vote came about 13 hours after Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Linda Krese ordered the 650 striking Marysville School District teachers back to work Wednesday.

"It’s time for all the adults to grow up and start looking at their obligations to these children," she said.

A frustrated group of parents, Tired of the Strike, brought the injunction request to court, and the district joined the lawsuit last week.

Krese emphasized that her decision should not be viewed as her taking sides in the labor dispute, but that she has no choice under the law because the students and community have been harmed.

"It has been suggested this is no more than inconvenience," Krese said. "I can not agree with this assessment."

The long strike "unquestionably has resulted in actual and substantial harm" to students, parents, school district employees other than teachers and the district itself, she said.

She also ordered both sides to negotiate in good faith — the second time she has issued that order.

"I think, unfortunately, things have become so polarized that anytime anyone offers a suggestion … the respective parties only look at what’s said about the other side instead of what’s said about them."

She even suggested switching to a new mediator.

"There must be some way to get past this impasse, and the participants need to start thinking what that will be," Krese said.

After the ruling, Hanson said she didn’t think the membership will work without a contract.

"I’m outraged the district would even take us to court," Hanson said, adding that the contract dispute must be settled at the bargaining table.

"We’ve worked on a compromise. The district needs to step up and compromise," Hanson said. "Over and over again they’ve said no to the things we’ve proposed. It needs to be a compromise."

Standing beneath the eaves and lobby of the Historic Everett Theatre, many teachers said they were undecided about how they would vote going into Monday night’s general membership meeting.

Most said they wanted to hear what their union attorneys had to say first. Others wanted to hear from their peers. Several said they would follow the vote of their fellow teachers regardless of which way it went.

"Our only chance with this bargaining is to get a new school board," said Rick Scriven, a seventh-grade science teacher at Cedarcrest School. "If that fails, I strongly suspect there will be a mass exodus of teachers from this district. It is a school board you can’t deal with. They are completely unable to compromise."

Randy Davis, a Marysville-Pilchuck High School teacher, said he didn’t know how he was going to vote beforehand. He said he resented the district waiting so long with unacceptable contract offers before seeking an injunction "to bully teachers back into the classroom."

Marysville’s teachers are among the highest paid in the state, averaging about $54,000 per year. That number reflects the large number of veteran teachers and those who hold higher degrees, who are paid more.

Teachers are asking for a 7.5 percent increase over three years. And there is disagreement over the number of teacher training days the district should control.

The unmovable line, though, has been over the district’s insistence that teachers shift from a locally negotiated salary schedule to a state schedule for the portion of teachers’ salaries that comes from state tax money. That would reduce some teachers’ salaries and affect their retirement earnings, teachers say.

The district, though, says it cannot afford to keep paying teachers according to the local schedule.

On Sunday a two-man team appointed by Gov. Gary Locke to look for solutions to the strike criticized the way both sides are handling negotiations and suggested they consider binding arbitration.

So how would it work?

It is an option both the district and teachers’ union would have to agree to, said Mitch Cogdill, an Everett lawyer representing the Marysville Education Association.

Cogdill has handled similar cases, including recently with Anacortes firefighters, and he represented Fife teachers in 1995, the last, and perhaps, only time binding interest arbitration has been used to resolve a teachers’ strike in Washington.

The two sides would present their cases in a trial-like atmosphere before an arbiter, who could accept or reject their proposals or come up with a compromise, Cogdill said.

"They get to choose what the final product is," Cogdill said, referring to the arbiter’s decision.

In Fife, which had the previous record for longest strike in state history at 37 days, teachers returned to classes in November. The case was not heard until the summer, and a decision didn’t come out until the fall.

The governor’s panel — Heck and retired Washington Supreme Court Justice Robert Utter — recommended both sides submit to binding arbitration if no compromise can be reached quickly. The state’s Public Employment Relations Commission would be able to handle the arbitration for Marysville, their report says.

Both sides in the Marysville dispute are reluctant to pursue the option.

Hanson said the settlement should come at the bargaining table. The district said its negotiators would need to study the option.

The strike is the latest twist in the in-fighting between teachers, administrators and the school board for the soul of the district. Teachers are trying to unseat three incumbents in the Nov. 4 election, and a parents and teachers group is getting legal help in actively trying to find grounds to recall the other two.

Meanwhile, the district’s financial controls have been faulted by the state auditor, test scores are underwhelming, and voters earlier this year rejected more taxes to build the district a new high school.

Parent Bryan Minnig, whose son, Shawn, will be a senior at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, said he believes teachers ultimately will settle for a one-year contract and see what the Nov. 4 election brings.

"I think the teachers realize there’s probably a lot of sentiment to get a new school board together, and they’ll see how that follows through," he said. "I think we’ll get three new school board members, followed by a new superintendent."

The future may not be so rosy, though, for the new board, Minnig said.

"Probably a few years down the road, those (new) school board members will fall by the wayside, too. They’re running on one issue right now."

Herald reporters Victor Balta and Scott Morris contributed to this story.

Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.