STRONGSVILLE, Ohio – The mayor of Strongsville called on the district’s teachers’ union and school board members to meet Friday, and negotiate a deal to end the teachers’ strike that’s now in its third week.
“It’s time for the posturing to stop, the rhetoric to stop, that’s enough,” said Mayor Thomas Perciak, who addressed hundreds of Strongsville residents at his annual state of the city address Tuesday.
Perciak invited representatives from both sides to meet in his office at 10 a.m. Friday and stay until a resolution is reached.
“This stoppage isn’t good for anybody,” he said. “It’s not good for our community, it’s not good for our children.”
In a phone interview after the mayor’s address, Tracy Linscott, president of the Strongsville Educational Association, said the union hasn’t been invited to the Friday meeting yet. But if the invitation is extended, she said they would be “absolutely” meet.
Strongsville Schools Superintendent John Krupinski said he hadn’t been informed of any meeting in the mayor’s office prior to Tuesday’s address.
“Certainly, we thank him for that opportunity,” Krupinski said. “We’re still under the auspices of the federal mediator, but I certainly will take his offer seriously and talk it over with the board of education.”
Perciak said anyone can call a negotiation meeting, and if the two sides agree to be there, the federal mediator will be present. However, Krupinski said he understood the guidelines to be that the federal mediator is the only individual that can call a meeting.
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LOCAL: Strongsville Mayor Calling for Teachers Strike to End was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
