×

Doesn’t look likely for amicable resolution for teacher negotiations

Despite an impasse being reached weeks ago and a Fact Finding Commission having been called in to hopefully help mediate negotiations between Minot teachers and the school board, there at least seemed to be some signs of optimism. Surely, some thought, there is a compromise to be reached. Surely school board negotiators would recognize the strong will of teachers. Surely teachers would, in turn, recognize the deficit faced by the school board.

Surely, something would happen between two legitimate entities with deep concern for the community, for the quality of our schools, for the future of our children? After all, for right or wrong, it’s part of American philosophy to believe that if two reasonable parties meet at a negotiating table, a resolution can be reached. Or perhaps, it’s only part of American naivete?

Prospects for a compromise, for a negotiated result that leaves both parties feeling they both achieved and acquiesced, seem further from reality than when the impasses was reached.

It feels like one way or another, it is going to be an ugly resolution. In a press release on Friday morning, Minot Education Association President Kristi Reinke said the board’s most recent proposal had failed to garner the two-thirds vote necessary. Teachers who voted rejected the board proposal with 63 percent against and just 37 percent in favor.

While teachers have signaled a willingness to return to the negotiating table, School board president Jim Rostad does not believe the board will go back to the table. Procedurally that means the board can agree to issue contracts based on the last offer made to teachers. The board has scheduled a meeting for noon Wednesday, June 27, to discuss the ongoing teacher negotiations.

The teachers-school board impasse is a quintessential one is that there are valid arguments from both sides and there are no good guys or bad guys. Ultimately, teachers want what is best for their students; and this school board most certainly does as well. The principled positions are tough to address because there is also the pragmatic fact of a budget.

Minot Daily News has called for a negotiated result since imposing contracts on teachers is mildly unseemly on general principle. Since that seems unlikely, since an imposed contract seems likely, since there is no sign that a mutually agreeable deal can be reached, perhaps a longer term solution is needed to seek.

There is no appetite for higher taxes of any sort in Minot even if one acknowledges it as inevitable, which limits options in the years ahead. Instead, Minot schools are encouraged to seek over the next two years, middle-management budget cuts, program consolidation, perhaps even some service outsourcing or additional revenue sources. Only then there could be the kind of room for negotiations that permit both parties to walk away with a sense of accomplishment – and responsibility.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today