PORTLAND, Ore. – School leaders should never underestimate the power of a teachers strike threat.

When parents hear that their children’s education (and their own work schedules) might be interrupted by a teacher work stoppage, many of them immediately want school leaders to meet the local teacher union’s demands – whatever they may be – just to keep the schools open and life problem-free.

That appears to be happening in Oregon’s Portland school district, where the local teachers union – the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) – is threatening to initiate the first teachers’ strike in the city’s history.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

The community obviously doesn’t want that to happen, which is likely why the Portland school board recently agreed to spend a big chunk of the district’s rare budget surplus on 30 new teachers for the remaining months of the current school year.

In a press release, district leaders also revealed that they’ve dedicated a large chunk of next year’s projected budget surplus to hire “88 new PAT members” to help reduce workloads even more, and to provide their elementary teachers with more planning time – both major demands of the PAT.

Portland officials – who’ve been writing school budgets in red ink for years – have even agreed to spend some of the district’s surplus on PAT’s lesser demands, such as “restorative justice programs” that reduce the use of out-of-school suspensions for misbehaving students.

Those might be reckless spending decisions, considering that the district is looking at a “structural deficit beyond next year.” But Portland officials are apparently willing to take that risk, just to prove to the union that they’re serious about meeting its demands as best they can.

Certainly, PAT members will reward Portland officials’ good faith efforts by toning down their “strike” rhetoric, right?

Not a chance.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

At Monday night’s school board meeting, Portland teacher Adam Sanchez made it very clear that virtually all of the district’s extra money should go toward hiring extra educators, KATU.com reports.

“No teacher wants to go on strike, we want to be teaching our kids, but if it takes going on strike to make you see that, then we’re ready to walk,” Sanchez said, according to KATU.com.

School leaders may be on the side of logic, common sense and fiscal responsibility, but those things are no match against the threat of a teachers’ strike. PAT members know this and are apparently going to use the strike threat to extract every dollar they can from the district.

The best course of action for Portland school leaders would be for state lawmakers to ban teachers’ strikes, a step numerous states have taken. Removing that weapon from the teacher unions’ arsenal would go a long way toward putting school leaders in charge of their districts and their budgets.