Union Says Decision to Strike Was 'No Secret'

On what would have been .

Though parents and students were given a , the official cancellation of the first day of school wasn't sent out until 6:30 a.m. Tuesday – 45 minutes before the high school's start time. According to many parents, however, the notification came too late as several high school students were already heading to the bus stops. In some cases, students were already on the bus when they received word that school was cancelled.

“This is about our kids,” said parent Kelly McPartlin. “My children are upset, frustrated, sad and very disappointed. It is unacceptable for this discord to be disrupting my children’s education and it is unacceptable to put political and personal agendas first.”

Auger at 6:20 a.m. Officials from National Education Association of Rhode Island – the parent union of ESP – claim that the decision to strike was “no secret.” NEARI President Larry Purtill said that after Monday’s negotiations fell through without an agreement shortly before 11 p.m., the negotiating team recommended that the union go on strike.

“We did tell [Dr. Auger] that it would be advisable to cancel school in the morning so he wouldn’t have an issue with the students and the start of school,” said Purtill, who also added that he updated the NEARI website around midnight last night about the impending strike.

Auger said that the administration was “forced to wait for picket signs to show up” before officially cancelling school.

“If I were to call the day last night, the ESP union had plans to reverse the decision and come to work simply to make the administration look bad,” said Auger.

According to both Auger and Purtill, the breaking point in the negotiations was the issue over the privatization of the school district’s custodial department. Earlier this summer, . Twenty-six custodians were laid off by the decision – though according to . Though the union came forward with cuts in their contract negotiations, Auger said that it fell short of the projected $400,000 to $600,000 in savings resulting from outsourcing.

“They don’t have a contract and they had to stand up for the custodians who were fired,” said Purtill, who said the strike could be ended by a reversal of the custodial outsourcing decision.

The school department is looking to taking matters into their own hands and have filed an injunction in Superior Court, asking a judge to force the 150 ESP workers back to work. A hearing has been scheduled for 2 p.m. in Washington County Superior Court in South Kingstown.

“If ESP wants to give their support to their custodians, there are other ways to do that,” said Auger. “To hold the entire community hostage for the day is just not right. It doesn’t’ need to be this way.”

The NK teachers union is also supporting the ESP strike and refusing to cross the picket line. As of Tuesday afternoon, no further contract negotiations have been scheduled.