Ottawa Township High School Education Assoc.

With no new talks scheduled today, Friday or over the weekend, the strike that has closed Ottawa High School since Sept. 30 appears to be headed into next week.

Ottawa High School teachers reported today that despite their best efforts they have been unable to persuade the Board of Education to schedule additional negotiations sessions or agree to enter into impartial arbitration.

Teachers have stated their position repeatedly since late September that the board should stay as long as it takes to negotiate to settlement. In an effort to get school started quickly, the teachers offered to arbitrate the dispute in last Sunday's negotiations session. The Board of Education has refused both offers.

"The Board's refusal either to meet with us or to arbitrate speaks volumes about their respect for the community," said Glenn Weatherford, president of the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA). "The community is demanding settlement or arbitration. The teachers absolutely agree with that sentiment. But we can't do it if the Board won't meet with us and work out a deal."

Weatherford said teachers have received much positive feedback about their continued efforts to work out an agreement.

"Our community is united in wanting the Board to meet with us and get this resolved," Weatherford said. "The students are missing too much school and we're beginning to run short of opportunities to provide them with the full school year they deserve. Every day that we don't meet and settle or agree to arbitration delays the education that the students deserve."

Weatherford reiterated the association's stance that school should start immediately upon settlement or agreement to go to arbitration. He said teachers are fully prepared to resume classroom duties and extra-curricular activities as soon as school starts.

Ottawa High School teachers contended today that a community forum on Tuesday night shows increased support for neutral, fair arbitration as a means to settle the contract dispute that has idled school since Sept. 30.

"At the end of the forum many in attendance expressed support of arbitration," said Glenn Weatherford, president of the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA). "They've got it right. Both sides must get together now. It's time either to arbitrate this dispute or negotiate it to settlement. The board of education needs to show up and work to the end to get this finished."

Weatherford reiterated that teacher negotiators are available to meet at any time. The teachers association has requested negotiations to resume each day since the dispute started. The board of education has declined to meet since ending negotiations at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

According to the association, classes can resume immediately upon agreement to arbitrate or settlement.

Weatherford said the forum was highly successful in that it provided teachers with a direct link to members of the community.

"The school board cancelled the board meeting, and there hadn't been any other public meetings," Weatherford said. "Our community needed a place to meet and talk with us and with each other. As far as we're concerned, it was successful to the point that we intend to schedule another next week if this doesn't settle."

"Most importantly, what we confirmed is that the community wants this to end one way or the other. We do too."

Ottawa High School teachers will hold a communitywide meeting on Tuesday night for the purpose of discussing the current crisis. All parents and members of the Ottawa community are invited to attend at 6 p.m., Oct. 20, at the First Baptist annex, 1401 State Street, Ottawa.

"We want the entire Ottawa community to have an opportunity to come together, to listen to each other, to share their concerns and to hear from us directly," said Glenn Weatherford, president of the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA).

"The teachers have offered neutral arbitration to settle the dispute, we've offered to stay forever in negotiations until it's settled, we've offered for the first time ever to pay over $185 a month for health coverage for teachers, and we've reduced our salary proposal several times," Weatherford added. "We're doing our part but we can't settle it if the Board keeps walking out."

Weatherford said parents and teachers present were angry when Board members walked out of negotiations without a settlement on Sunday night. Earlier reports from Friday had indicated productive talks and that the parties might be nearing an agreement.

"We gave them an excellent offer shortly before 7 p.m.," said Weatherford, "but they didn't respond. They cancelled Monday's school way too early and then walked out. One side of this dispute is trying. The other is not. That will not bring settlement."

Ottawa High teachers today issued a call to action for the Ottawa community to contact school board members and demand they make an effort to settle the dispute that has idled school since September 30th.

Using their website www.ieanea.org/local/ottawa to deliver a video message, teachers urged the community to demand that both sides come to the table and stay there until the crisis is resolved.

Board members walked out of negotiations last Sunday after staying for less than two hours. Teachers have said they're prepared to work round-the-clock until an agreement can be reached.

"Our students and entire school district are truly suffering," said Glenn Weatherford, president of the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA). "With this crisis and the loss of our superintendent, we must not delay getting this resolved. It's time for the board to come to the table, negotiate in good faith, and stay for as long as it takes to get an agreement."

Weatherford has said repeatedly that teachers have been frustrated by the board's unwillingness to meet during the dispute. When meetings have been set, he said, the board has consistently made early exits.

"We can't resolve these issues alone," Weatherford said. "We've been calling for meetings each day since the strike began. The board mostly says they're too busy to meet. Then, when we have had meetings, the board has walked out without trying. The failure to meet is prolonging the strike."

The Ottawa high school board of education walked out of negotiations Sunday without an agreement and refuses to return to the negotiations table despite the teachers' proposal that calls for teachers to contribute significantly to costs of their family and health insurance, according to a spokesperson for the teacher's association.

"We came to the table on Sunday with new proposals and a total focus on settling the dispute and getting school started again," said Trent Swords, a spokesperson for the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA). "We offered roughly $570,000 in single and family insurance contributions. The board walked out again without making a new proposal because they didn't get their way. It's an outrage to us and should be an outrage to the entire Ottawa community."

Swords said the main sticking point in the negotiations and the strike has been the poor insurance coverage being offered to teachers and whether or not teachers will make an additional contribution to costs of insurance. The teachers agreed to pay increased costs in an effort to get the negotiations moving, he said.

"This entire community should know that the board of education is not doing its part to get this settled," Swords said. "We were absolutely committed last Sunday to working through every item in dispute and getting school back in session. But we can't do it if the board just drops a take-it-or-leave-it offer and then goes home."

After more than a week of being unavailable to meet, the Ottawa High School Board of Education agreed to resume negotiations with striking teachers at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

The Board notified the press and the mediator on Thursday morning that it would agree to Sunday's meeting. The Ottawa High School teachers have been calling for new negotiations talks each day since the crisis began on Sept. 30.

Association President Glenn Weatherford said while the teachers are pleased that a negotiations meeting is finally scheduled, they are still disappointed it has taken so long.

"We're more than ready to get back to the classrooms and resume providing the high quality education that our students deserve," Weatherford said. "Setting this weekend for negotiations still seems like too long a delay to us, but it's better than the Board responses we've had up to now."

Weatherford expressed optimism that an agreement can be reached this weekend, with school to resume on Tuesday.

"We're coming to the table with ideas and openness that we think can help solve the crisis," Weatherford said. "It'll go a long way toward resolution if the school board does the same."

The Ottawa Township High School Board of Education continues to refuse to negotiate an end to the current crisis, though teachers called again for negotiations Wednesday.

The federal mediator assigned to the dispute informed the teachers association that the Board is continuing to refuse to come to the table until teachers submit a written proposal for review by the board president in advance of the meeting.

"The Board's unwillingness to come to the table is disrespectful to the community and to us," said Association President Glenn Weatherford. "The students miss more school every day simply because the Board won't follow the law and come to the table. It's appalling."

Weatherford said the association is calling on the community to contact the school board members and demand that the Board return to the table.

Ottawa High School teachers today requested a negotiations meeting with the Board of Education, an offer that the Board refused.

"The Board's refusal to come to the table is an affront to the students and the entire Ottawa community," said Glenn Weatherford, OTHSEA president. "Their behavior is prolonging the strike when we could be resolving the problems that separate us. We have offered to meet with the Board repeatedly since the strike began. One side cannot settle it alone."

The teachers were notified by the federal mediator at 9:20 a.m. today that the Board would not meet. Teachers had offered to meet at 2 p.m. today because the Board of Education had indicated its availability at that time.

The Board president, George Hupp, has demanded that teachers submit new proposals either to the Board's attorney or to himself in advance of any meeting so they can "review and decide if it requires a face-to-face meeting."

"We have informed the mediator that we have some new ideas that might help move this crisis off dead center," said Weatherford. "But we absolutely expect the Board to respond in kind. We won't condition a meeting on submitting our ideas in advance."

Weatherford said teacher negotiators are still intending to be at the high school today at 2 p.m., with their ideas, ready to negotiate.

The Ottawa High School Board of Education walked out of negotiations late this evening, leaving no end in sight for a teachers' strike entering its third day.

"We are very disappointed that the Board walked out of what was the one chance we had to end the strike before the weekend," said Glenn Weatherford, president of the Ottawa Township High School Education Association. "We were prepared to stay as long as it would take to get an agreement. Now the football team takes a loss and the music program is cancelled."

Negotiators for the Ottawa Township High School Education Association (OTHSEA) and Board of Education met on Thursday for more than 6 hours without reaching an agreement. No further talks are scheduled.

Weatherford said teachers called for the negotiation session earlier today in hopes that the sides could put together an agreement with new ideas and proposals that would end the strike. He said the strike now will continue next week.

"We remain committed to negotiating a fair agreement and we're willing to meet at any time and place in order to do so," said Weatherford. "But it does us little good if the Board continues to walk out without an agreement. The only way this will get resolved is if the Board stays put and is willing to put a fair offer forward. We're hopeful that will happen sooner rather than later."

At the request of Ottawa teacher negotiators, the Ottawa teacher representatives and board of education negotiators will sit down together at 6 p.m. tonight to try to hammer out an agreement that will end the teachers' strike.

Association President Glenn Weatherford said representatives of the teachers contacted the federal mediator earlier today and requested that he contact the board for a meeting. The mediator then notified the teachers that the board had accepted the offer.

"We are doing our best to bring this to a resolution with a fair agreement that will serve the district, the teachers and the community well," said Weatherford. "We want to get this done now so weekend programs can continue and we can get back to what we do best, teaching the students."

Weatherford said he and the association are hopeful that members of the community will attend a candlelight vigil being held tonight at the high school to show their support for ending the conflict.

"The entire community is affected by this difficult situation," Weatherford said. "We're hoping everybody can join us and help bring it to resolution."

As you know, the teachers at Ottawa High School are on strike. As professionals in this excellent school district, it's important that we share with you that this action is not something we take lightly. It's not something we wanted to do. It's something we believe we must do in order to protect our school district, protect its employees, and maintain a fair employment contract - an important benchmark that helps us attract and retain talented professionals.

There are two major issues that are still unresolved in these negotiations - salary and insurance.

In its last offer, the Board of Education offered a salary increase of only 1%, an offer that is unacceptable to us. Candidly, that offer does not keep up with the salary increases made in surrounding school districts.

The situation is even worse when you consider that the Board is asking teachers to contribute over $2,000 per year for family health insurance, a situation that actually results in salary decreases for some of our members. That's not fair. Just four years ago, our Association agreed to insurance changes that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district. We've done our part. Those concessions remain in place today. It's not fair for the Board to ask for more.

We believe it's time for reasonable people on our Board to come to the table with fairness in mind. We are willing and eager to meet any time and any place with the Board in order to work out an agreement that's fair to everyone.

It's also important that we share something else with you. The teacher proposals at the bargaining table are affordable for the district with no new taxes.

Finally, when this situation resolves, our commitment to the community remains the same. We're going to return to our classrooms as the excellent professionals you've come to know and trust. We're committed to having a good school year with full dedication to the students and community we serve.

A four-hour meeting Tuesday failed to resolve salary and insurance issues between the Ottawa Township High School Board and the teacher’s union.

The high school will be closed and all activities are cancelled. The school has about 1,500 students and 153 teachers.

News