To the relief of parents, teachers, administrators and, we suspect, even most students, Lake Stevens schools reopened Monday after a two-week teacher strike.
It’s a short-term victory for all, one that should be seized upon as the first step in a concerted healing process for a district that has seen two teacher strikes in just five years. Both sides carry the burden of working to ensure the atmosphere isn’t primed for yet another stoppage in three years.
Now the focus turns solely to Marysville, where teachers are on the picket line for a fourth week. The union and district return to the bargaining table today, and the state mediator would be smart to lock the door and keep both sides inside until they hammer out a deal. Emotions have played out for weeks now. It’s time to put posturing aside and bear down for the good of the district’s 11,000 students.
That’s not to say the sides haven’t been hung up on serious, complex issues. Pressures to increase student achievement, and the costs associated with them, are in play. So are pay issues, along with class size and the availability of specialists. Add a scarcity of resources and determined personalities on both sides and you have a recipe for polarization.
Still, this has gone on too long already. It’s time for the grown-ups to come to grips with the overriding need to get students back in class.
For inspiration, they need only look to those students, who plan to launch a sit-in outside district headquarters today. "We’re not leaving until something happens," said Dustin Dekle, senior class president at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.
If an agreement isn’t reached this week, Marysville will be close to setting a record for the longest teacher strike in state history — a chilling mark of failure for everyone concerned. Even worse, pressure could build on the district to seek a court order to end the strike. If such an order were issued, teachers would have to decide whether to obey or risk arrest. No one wants that.
It’s time for both sides to give some ground, reach an agreement and join Lake Stevens in starting to heal. The wounds to everyone, especially Marysville’s children, can’t be allowed to go deeper.
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