The teacher union in Marysville, Washington recently subjected the town's students to the longest teachers' strike in state history. Now, the Marysville teacher union is trying to recall the school board members who defended the community from the union's unreasonable demands.
Washington law permits recall of elected officials only in cases of "misfeasance, malfeasance or a violation of the oath of office" and requires a judge to sign-off that there is plausible evidence of the above in order to let a recall election proceed. In this case, a judge gave a green light to the recall election for an astonishing reason:
Judge George Bowden based his ruling on the School Board's decision last year to hold classes Feb. 14, a day marked as a nonschool day in teachers' contracts. Feb. 14 was scheduled as a makeup day after school was canceled Jan. 14 to allow teachers to participate in a rally in Olympia.The January 14 rally was a teacher union "Day of Action" where teachers from around the state went AWOL from their jobs so they could march on the State Capitol to demand a raise. Now the Marysville teachers are using their own refusal to show up for work as an excuse to try to recall a school board member. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 07, 2004 12:31 PM