Day 46

Not much to tell. They met yesterday, they're supposed to be meeting today, and there's been no word from anybody yet. Lots of people are saying the district will just stonewall in the hopes that the judge will order the teachers back to work Monday morning anyway, but I suspect she'd see right through that.

What bugs me is that a lot of people are complaining and/or assuming that the district will stonewall because they've already announced that school has been cancelled through Monday. I'm sorry, I don't see the connection. I may not get most of what the district has been doing lately, but this, at least, I understand. Let's say that an agreement is reached this weekend. Well, before everyone can go back to work, three things have to happen:

1. The judge has to deal with any final issues.
   
2. The union has to vote on and approve the contract.
   
3. The district has to notify the students and families, get the buses rolling, get ready to make all those hot lunches, and probably about a thousand other things I haven't even thought of.
   

All of those will probably get taken care of quickly, but not instantly. (I've heard reports that the bus drivers have stated they need forty-eight hours to get going.) And with negotiations going on through the weekend, I find it very unlikely that all of the above can be taken care of before Monday. Even if we were able to ratify the contract, say, tomorrow, it's been going on long enough that Monday could be used as an extra prep day. (Hey, it's been seven weeks now, one more day won't make much of a difference.) So the naysayers complaining that no possibility of school on Monday means the district won't bargain in good faith are not thinking this through, it seems to me. The district has done a pretty good job of not bargaining anyway without giving out these sorts of clues…