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<p>Another school year in Dallas starts for students Wednesday.</p><p>And unfortunately, the long-running stalemate between the school board and teachers union over a new contract still has not been resolved, casting a shadow once again over the entire academic year.</p><p>This is getting ridiculous.</p><p>Back Mountain parents, pupils and taxpayers have suffered enough.</p><p>First, there was a month-long teachers strike last fall, followed by multiple threats to strike again. Finally, at the end of May, union president Michael Cherinka said there would be no strike in June, but there could be in September, just in time for the 2017-18 school year.</p><p>Now, with negotiations apparently on a positive path, the Dallas Education Association announced last week it had rescheduled a potential strike for Sept. 22.</p><p>To that, we say: &#8220;Whoop-De-Doo!&#8221; It&#8217;s far from enough.</p><p>Let&#8217;s guess what happens next: Sometime around Sept. 15, the DEA will announce it has pushed back a strike date to Nov. 1 or so, only serving to raise the angst levels for kids, parents and non-instructional district staff who all depend on the steady hum of the school calendar to plan their daily living.</p><p>To continue to hold a community hostage by threatening to strike is unacceptable and downright self-serving and arrogrant. From the comments we read on our website and social media pages, we believe a majority of the public agrees.</p><p>Now, let&#8217;s move on to what could be done to end this nonsense &#8212; and then what could prevent it from occurring again.</p><p>A few years ago, the Millville Area School District in nearby Columbia County was locked in a similar battle with its teachers. Finally, the courts required the school board and union to meet twice a week until there was a deal. According to the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg, the judge who mandated the bargaining ruled the contract issue &#8220;has been unresolved for far too long, and the Millville Area Education System and the citizens need closure.&#8221;</p><p>You could easily replace &#8220;Millville&#8221; with &#8220;Dallas&#8221; in that judge&#8217;s order. (About six months later, a new deal was in place.)</p><p>Interestingly, it was the Millville teachers union that asked for court intervention after three years of fruitless negotiations, roughly the same amount of time Dallas has been trying to get a new deal.</p><p>We&#8217;d applaud anyone &#8212; the Dallas union or school board &#8212; who files a request with the courts to ask for mandated bargaining. And citizens can play a role as well. In Millville, they started a petition drive asking for a judge&#8217;s help.</p><p>Now, what could prevent this whole mess in Dallas from being repeated elsewhere?</p><p>The answer is a piece of legislation currently in the state House&#8217;s Education Committee. It&#8217;s called the Strike Free Education Act, and it would ban teacher strikes and lockouts while adding transparency to the bargaining process.</p><p>The proposal is far from anti-teacher. Rep. Will Tallman of Adams and Cumberland counties recently re-introduced the measure, pointing out it would guarantee mediation, fact-finding, and non-binding arbitration. And while it would eliminate the strike option &#8212; as 36 states have already done &#8212; it would not force either side to accept a deal. Both sides would still have to come to a mutually acceptable agreement.</p><p>This sounds like only common sense to us.</p><p>Rep. Gerald Mullery, D-Newport Township, sits on the Education Committee, and we&#8217;d encourage fed-up Dallas residents to tell him what you think of Tallman&#8217;s proposal.</p><p>The number for Mullery&#8217;s Nanticoke office: <strong>570-740-7031</strong>.</p><p>Tell him taxpayers are tired of being pushed around and he needs to help end the madness.</p><p style="text-align: right;"><em>&#8212; Times Leader</em></p><style>
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Our view: Let’s end madness in Dallas