REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio – The teachers union in Reynoldsburg, representing teachers, guidance counselors, nurses and other certified staff, has been on strike since last Thursday, following failed collective bargaining negotiations with the school board.

Three-hundred-sixty union members have walked away from their jobs and their students, leaving the district in a state of chaos.

The school board has attempted to honor the legal guarantee of a free, uninterrupted public education for all students, using substitute teachers, but conditions caused by the strike have made that difficult.

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At least one teacher has reportedly tried to contribute to the chaos by encouraging students to be uncooperative with substitute teachers.

“The teacher said that if we were to misbehave for the substitute teachers, the school board would realize how much we need those teachers and bring them back sooner,” Evie Verplatse, a fifth-grader, told WBNS-TV.

“Seems to me that the students are almost being used as pawns and weapons in that strike by some of these teachers,” said Allen Verplatse, the girl’s father.

The union is unhappy since the school board proposed tying teacher salary increases to performance evaluations. The idea was to reward teachers whose students are making adequate progress and motivate those whose students are not.

The concept is similar to that employed by most private companies, where employees are expected to demonstrate their competence before receiving pay increases.

Union leaders object to the idea of teachers having to demonstrate their ability to effectively instruct students.

Teachers unions typically take the position that all teachers should be considered effective, once they are off probation and gain tenure status. Union officials generally try to maintain the traditional system, where all teachers receive regular cost-of-living raises, along with annual “step” raises, regardless of the results of performance evaluations.

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They also prefer to keep teachers on a standard pay scale based largely on seniority, where more effective teachers get the same financial rewards as their less effective peers.

Reynoldsburg teachers reportedly turned down a more recent offer by the school board to grant teachers an across-the-board cost-of-living raise, maintain traditional “step” raises, and make merit pay based on evaluations optional.

The union is also reportedly upset about a district proposal to give teachers a stipend to purchase their own health insurance, rather than purchasing group insurance for the entire staff.

Union officials are also demanding a cap on class sizes, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Tense and unruly conditions have been reported on the (Reynoldsburg) Livingston High School campus.

Fights broke out between students, according to a report from WBNS-TV. At least two of them were arrested. Students were running throughout the halls unsupervised. When substitute teachers showed up to take over classes, picketing teachers yelled “scabs.”

Students were reportedly nervous and upset. Many of them called home to have a parent come get them.

One parent is suing the school board and new Superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning over the decision to keep school open during the strike.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Tom Drabick, a lawyer whose child attends Reynoldsburg schools, says the district has not provided a safe and secure educational environment since the strike began.

Drabick has not filed a legal motion to force teachers back to work.

Drabick is the director of legal services for the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, the union for the school district’s support staff.

The strike has affected at least one neighboring school district.

The Pickering Central High School marching band has cancelled plans to accompany the school football team to its game against Reynoldsburg Friday night, citing parental concerns about the safety of band members.

Kathy Evans, a spokeswoman for the Reynoldsburg teachers union, told the Columbus Dispatch that the union has not decided what sort of protesting will be done outside the football game.

Greg Lawson, a spokesman for the Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank, says the union is using class size as a phony issue to divert attention away from its more self-serving issues.

It’s a tactic that has been used by teachers unions throughout the nation, because polls have shown that parents tend to favor smaller class sizes.

Some studies have demonstrated that students in larger classes learn and accomplish just as much as students in smaller classes, if they have an effective teacher.

“This is a case where the unions are really pushing very, very hard (for their financial demands) and they are leaning on the notion that you have to have small classrooms,” Lawson said.

“There is a certain element of radicalism in what they’re actually doing.”

Lawson believes the situation is really a power struggle, and union officials are actually trying to preserve their ability to veto district polices they don’t approve of.

Lawson says teachers usually get what they want in strike situations, largely because parents and many students want teachers back to work as soon as possible.

“Everybody needs to step up and get this taken care of,” Christina Rousselle, a Reynoldsburg grandparent, told WBNS.

“We just want our teachers back,” said Jahnae Terrell, a student. “We hope this is over soon.”

Lawson says that type of public opinion puts pressure on the school board to cave in to union demands, whether they are in the best interest of students and the district or not.

“(The unions) are going to come back and negotiate and I bet there going to get pretty much what they want,” he said.

“This is a textbook example of the problem with public sector collective bargaining and public sector unions. They (the unions) have enough power to extract more than they should be able to during contract negotiations.”