Little Rock teachers to go on strike over district’s control
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Little Rock teachers will go on strike for one day this week over an Arkansas panel’s decision to strip their collective bargaining power and complaints about state control of the 23,000-student district, union officials said Monday.
Full Coverage: Strikes
The strike that will take place Thursday will be only the second time teachers have walked out of the job in Little Rock history. The Little Rock Education Association’s announcement comes after the state Board of Education in October voted to no longer recognize the union when the contract expired Oct. 31.
The union has been calling for the state to give them back their bargaining power. Before the contract ended on Oct. 31, the Little Rock School District had been the only one in Arkansas where a teachers union had collective bargaining power. But union leaders said Thursday’s strike was focused more broadly on returning full local control to the district.
Arkansas has run Little Rock’s schools since the state board took over the district in January 2015 because of low test scores at several schools. The state board has voted to put the district under a local board that will be elected in November 2020, but with limits on its authority. The strike will occur the day the state panel is expected to vote on establishing the zones for the new local board.
“As educators, we would rather be in the classroom with our students, not on the picket line,” Teresa Knapp Gordon, the union’s president, said at a news conference outside Little Rock Central High School. “However, this community and the passionate, dedicated educators of this district will do what is necessary to protect the futures of our students.”
While the union billed it as a one-day strike, Gordon left open the possibility of it stretching beyond Thursday if the panel doesn’t return full local control.
“No options are off the table at this point,” she said.
The only other teachers strike in the district was in 1987, when Little Rock students missed six days of school before a new two-year contract was approved.
Little Rock Superintendent Michael Poore said the district’s schools will remain open and buses CONTINUE READING: Little Rock teachers to go on strike over district's control
LRSD superintendent says no decision yet on whether striking teachers will be disciplined or terminated - Arkansas Times - https://arktimes.com/?p=457768 via @arktimes
