Pajaro Valley teachers, who have been fighting for a binding arbitration clause in their contract, show no signs of giving up the struggle.
Some three dozen teachers rallied Thursday morning in front of district headquarters on Green Valley Road in advance of a negotiating session with a mediator.
Negotiators for district management and the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers reached impasse in May. Teachers say they were promised the binding arbitration issue would be settled before negotiations started for the 2009-10 school year and they have refused to talk about the pay and benefit concessions the district seeks to alleviate its severe cash crunch.
The district, which will resume classes for the new school year in three weeks, needs a settlement. After making $14 million in budget cuts in March, the district is facing another $7.5 million deficit due to reduced state education spending. It’s hard to see how more cuts can be made without cutting spending on compensation.
The mediation session was scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today.
I think that education is important, but the Governor and his knife have cut and whant to cut more $ from education. Giving school boards a whole lot less money. Less money to go around. We should be protesting our state representatives and those assemblypersons who side with the Governor in cutting education. But the Gov is smart in taking away from the school boards, so that the anger goes towards the boards and not Sacramento.
Do the teachers care about education? State is cutting more and more from education and so, the teachers need to accept a cut and then let’s begin a march to vote out those state “guys” that voted to cut education, like the Governor. The kids will be waiting for their teachers, if they show up.