The standoff between the local teacher’s union and the Morongo Unified School District over a new contract has spiraled into what is now being described as arguing sessions as the negotiations have turned bitter. As teachers now enter their second year without a contract, Reporter David Haldane says the two sides will now try a tactic called fact-finding in an effort to find some common ground…
It’s not just that Morongo teachers and administrators don’t see eye to eye, it’s more like they’re standing nose to nose. And so, after an intense arguing session last Friday, negotiators for the Morongo Unified School District and Morongo Teacher’s Association—at impasse in contract talks since January—have taken a step untried in more than two decades: fact-finding.
At issue is money: specifically, salaries and benefits. But the larger problem, according to assistant superintendent for human resources Doug Weller, is that both sides have slipped into an adversarial style of negotiating in recent years that has seriously undermined trust.
This, he asserts, clearly isn’t working and has to be changed.
In the short term, meanwhile, each side will pick a representative to meet with a third party agreed to by both. His sincere hope, Weller says, is that in the near future this skeleton crew will find a way forward.
