CUSD Teachers Cave

After all the tough talk and big votes threatening a strike it looks like the teachers have folded like a cheap suit:

Seeking to avert a strike with an 11th-hour offer to the school board, Capistrano Unified's teachers union has offered to stop fighting a 10.1 percent pay cut imposed on teachers in exchange for a written agreement stating salaries will be restored if the district receives additional, "unforeseen" funding.

The compromise, which comes just three days after teachers resoundingly authorized going on strike, represents a significant reversal of the union's position. Union leaders previously said teachers would walk off the job unless trustees were willing to renegotiate all elements of the 10.1 percent pay cut imposed in March.

"We've moved a whole bunch to avert a strike," Capistrano Unified Education Association President Vicki Soderberg said Monday from the union's offices in Aliso Viejo. "That should say volumes to the public and to the school board."

The union's letter gives Capistrano Unified until 5 p.m. Tuesday to formally notify the union it will return to the bargaining table.

Perhaps a little sanity has returned to the process.  I'd like to think that somebody talked some sense into the union leaders and explained that lots of people are taking cuts these days and there isn't any more taxpayer money to throw their way.

I had a conversation with the mother of a high school junior taking five AP classes who was quite worried that with AP tests coming up a strike could really hurt her student.  Bottom line - the students will win because school  won't be disrupted (except for the drones who were looking forward to staying home during a strike).