Friday, September 22, 2006

Strike Update - Fact Finder Averts Strike for Now.

At about 8:00 a.m. I saw Principal Mudlock at Shafer Elementary and he was on his way to the administration offices for a meeting, but had not been apprised of the strike status.

A teacher, however, did inform me that the sides agreed to send each parties' terms to a fact finder.

The fact finder has forty days to present a contract to the two sides.

Each side will then need to approve the new contract.

If either side declines, we are in essence back where we started. The teachers will still be able to strike if it is turned down.

At the very least, the strike has been averted for the next forty days.

If you have any additional information please share it. Once new information is posted online I will link to it here as well.

Update: Kudos to Channel 69 for having the first coverage I've seen (read it here).

Update: The Express-Times also reported prior to the announcement of the Fact Finder, but it seems to only have been indexed in search recently. You can read that article here.

Update: An alert reader just posted that the school district has now posted its announcement (10:09 a.m.) - Read it here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think nasd will update their website?

Anonymous said...

All indication were that the website would be updated at the end of talks....nothing as of yet. It would be nice to have an offical announcement. Teachers have commented on what issues are still outstanding, but nothing from the board. I am a bit surprised that salary was not mentioned as a unresolved issue, does that mean that they settled on a salary?

Anonymous said...

I think this is a pretty savvy decision on the teachers part. Had they gone out now they would have disrupted the fall sports season and created some discontent.

Assuming the clock starts immediately, forty days takes you to Oct. 31 which is conveniently slotted after all of the fall teams will have completed their seasons yet before the PIAA allows winter sports to begin (November 13).

If the teachers go out on November 1 they will have about eight school days before the next sports season (i.e. wrestling) begins. I think ALL of these dates (9/21, 11/1) and the next steps have been carefully chosen ahead of time so as not to sway public sentiment too far against them.

Anonymous said...

Seems like a normal course of action from the school board not to hear as stated they would do so on the district website.

Anonymous said...

The news release is now on the NASD website..interesting

RossRN said...

Thanks to all for checking and keeping everyone informed.

I do have the guts of the release posted now.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks.