Day 4 of the strike — or is it a lockout???

First off, my apologies to my regular readers, but I wasn't able to blog yesterday because of connectivity troubles. They seem to have been mostly ironed out now, but I'm sure my wife will complain about it anyway...

Yesterday was a shortened day, we only walked until noon. The big bombshell that was dropped on everyone was that the district cancelled school for all of next week, so I take it they're not very confident anything will happen in that time. This has got me thinking, is this really a strike now? The district has refused to actually do any negotiating from the start of the process, we had our keys taken from us the week before the strike began (or, in my case, I was never even issued any keys), and now even if everything is settled tomorrow, there will be no classes to go back to next week. The district is trying to strongarm the union into a deal, which doesn't sound like they value us as much as they claim. Well, at least there won't be any replacement teachers, at least in the next few days. By the way, my colleagues gave me special thanks for being the only new teacher to be on the line for the entire first week.

After picketing, I went up to see my grandmother, a retired Marysville teacher herself. We had a great visit, she took me out for lunch, and she's about as pleased as I am at the whole situation. Many district parents held a rally outside the district headquarters, and I could hear it from my granny's condo, and it was on all the local news channels last night. Now if the district will actually bargain in good faith, some progress might actually be made!