News

November 19, 2008

Pickets, protest and then a movie

Northwest Area union critic protests teachers’ picket line.

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
Mark Guydish on Facebook   |   @TLMarkGuydish on Twitter

SHICKSHINNY – The morning had a teacher picket line and a counter protest – perpetual union critic Alton Farver sported a nursing bottle big enough for a calf (its real purpose), contending teachers are “acting like babies.”

But the evening boasted youngsters sprawled on the school gym floor with sleeping bags and pillows, munching popcorn and laughing at “Kung Fu Panda.”

For a few hours in Northwest Area School District’s Garrison Elementary you could almost ask: What strike?

Teachers carried signs outside the Junior/Senior High School for the second day, and lead negotiator Matt Gruenloh repeated the union’s chief complaint: Teachers keep modifying their proposal, but the board won’t budge.

“They put something on the table and we say ‘OK, we agree,’ but then they want something else,” Gruenloh said.

Board members and their lead negotiator, Attorney Richard Galtman, have countered that their latest offer is fair to teachers and affordable to taxpayers. While the union dropped a long-standing refusal to pay part of health insurance premiums, the chief sticking points are how much they pay toward it, and salary raises.

The district has threatened to drop teacher insurance during the strike. Gruenloh said the union is researching possible responses.

Farver and fellow critic Fred Ruggles walked a few dozen yards behind the teachers in the morning, sporting signs that read “Union’s only job: Greed,” and “Students used for teacher gain.” Farver, known for his wry quips at board meetings delivered in a folksy drawl, sported the super-sized milk bottle and what amounted to a diaper over his trousers.

“It’s the teacher’s new dress code,” he said. “They’re acting like kids.”

Yet nearly all of this was left at the doors of Garrison in the evening when the PTA – or the “PA” as one person joked, now that teachers are on strike – held its first movie night. More than 30 students showed up, many with siblings and parents.

The National PTA provided the video, along with a spare DVD and a CD game to be given away. The event had been in the works for about two months, local PTA President Vicky Bilby said as she made popcorn in the kitchen, but was nearly scuttled when 57 non-striking support staff workers were idled along with the picketing teachers. Cleaning people who were supposed to open the school weren’t available.

A custodian – one of only eight support staff not affected by the strike – volunteered to help out.

“I just wish it was over,” Bilby said of the contract dispute and the strike, which has two of her children, Kate and Sarah, looking for ways to pass the days. “They’ve been helping mommy get ready for movie night,” Bilby laughed.

When another mother sitting on the gym floor with two children was asked how they are spending the unexpected vacation, she laughed as she answered: “Fighting.”

Time for the movie, and the custodian – who had already worked a full shift before starting his volunteer stint – went to another room to dim the lights. They got brighter. “You flipped the wrong switch” Bilby yelled up the hallway as children giggled.

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