MARYSVILLE – At a top-secret location somewhere in Sea-Tac, Marysville teachers and the school district are sitting down with a negotiator to discuss – yet again – how to settle their differences and finally get 11,000 students into classrooms for the first time this school year.
As the meetings began, Marysville School District released a new proposal for the teachers to consider. The district is asking that the current salary schedule remain as-is for the 2003-2004 school year and that a committee be formed to come up with a way to switch teachers to the state’s pay structure without teachers suffering a loss in pay.
Also under the proposal, school would start Tuesday, Oct. 14, with a preparation day on Monday.
There has been no word up to now on whether negotiations are making any progress.
The teacher’s union responded at 5 p.m., saying they will not really comment on the new proposal until Monday, “when we report any bargaining developments to our members.”
The statement then continued by saying the strike would continue as long as the Marysville school board and Superintendent Linda Whitehead demand they move to the state salary schedule.
It’s been 39 days since teachers decided to strike, and the lack of movement since the Labor Day weekend finally caught the attention of Gov. Gary Locke this week. Locke, who rarely turns to the bully pulpit, stepped up public pressure on both sides Thursday after the strike became the longest by teachers in state history.
Both sides say their bitter differences in the proposed contract involve the Byzantine turns of local versus state compensation schedules. But relations have been sour for years between the 650 teachers, Whitehead and elected board members who are seen as favoring one camp over the other.
The school board and the governor both have said they have prepared statements to release to the public later today, depending on what happens in the negotiation. In any event, Locke has said he wants students to be back in school on Monday, though the state does not give the governor any explicit power to make it an order.
A court injunction, however, could compel teachers back to school.
Parents have already asked a Snohomish County judge to order teachers back. And earlier today, state senators Dave Schmidt, R-Everett, and Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, both members of the Senate Education Committee, urged the state attorney general to work with the state superintendent of public instruction to seek an injunction to end the strike.
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