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September 4, 2007

Update: E. Greenwich school board meeting tonight

EAST GREENWICH -- The School Committee is meeting in closed session tonight, after the first day of classes was cancelled today following a strike vote by teachers.

Teachers and parents may come out in force for the meeting.

In the meantime, the district's superintendent has already declared that schools will be closed again tomorrow. And both sides in the contract dispute are slated to hold a mediated session of talks tomorrow evening.

This morning, Allison Burke Perrelli took her daughter, Julia Perrelli, to the bus stop, only to have her neighbor call out from the window, “There’s no school today; the teachers are on strike.”

After 30 hours of discussion over the Labor Day weekend, teachers and the East Greenwich school committee were not able to come to an agreement over terms of the teachers’ contract.

“I think it’s very unfortunate,” Supt. Charles E. Meyers said late this morning. Students were looking forward to their first day of school, he said. “It’s too bad that this type of enthusiasm for learning has to be curtailed.”

School Committee Chairwoman Suzanne McGee Cienki said the committee was ready to pursue “all legal options available at this point,” including taking the teachers to court and, if that didn’t work, having them arrested.

“The union is fully aware of the financial parameters that we are operating under with this new tax cap,” she said. “They want to use this contract negotiation as a way to put pressure on the General Assembly to come up with a new funding formula.”

-- projo.com staff writer Brandie M. Jefferson and Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal staff writer Lisa Vernon-Sparks

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:42 PM | Permalink

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