You WANT to die on this hill..?

 My Bride and the Girl are still in Teacher Strike Stasis, waiting to see if the two sides will settle today.

As I think I said earlier, the union has repeatedly climbed down from its initial (eminently reasonable!) list of objectives because the cheapskate state legislature made it clear that it's more important to hand out tax breaks to gajillionaires than to pay for 21st Century education for everyone.

The final obstacle to settlement is this: "class size committees".

Since the State of Oregon can't be arsed to pay for enough teachers or educational assistants to bring class sizes down to a reasonable level, the proposed "solutions" are to 1) pay teachers more for doing crowd control over those teeming hordes, and 2) refer the worst of the scrums to a committee at each school if the horde gets to be just too huge.

Per the link, this committee will "...negotiate how to resolve class sizes or student loads that exceed agreed-upon limits if the principal, the affected teacher or teachers and a representative of the union don’t agree on a solution."

The union and the district both agree to this thing. What they disagree on is how it should work.

For one, the district wants to appeal process to stay in-house. The union wants to be able to rope in a state-level mediator if they don't agree with the district superintendant's ruling,

For my money? I wouldn't trust the Supe, either. I'm stickin' with the union there.

But the other big disagreement?

Parents.

"Under the union’s proposal, the class size committees could include two parents if school administrators and the teachers union agree to add them."

The district didn't want Joey's mom and Andie's dad, but eventually gave in on the parents. But they want to restrict what the parents (and these committees) can do: "The committees would not be allowed to discuss and make recommendations about class size issues in specific classrooms but would instead be limited to collaborating on potential solutions regarding class sizes and caseloads at their school more generally."

So I get that the primary reason the teachers proposed this is to get public support. They look more parent-friendly if they're pushing for parent involvement.

But, c'mon. Seriously?

You have to deal with these people, teachers. Are you telling me with a straight face that you don't know who is most likely to end up on these committees?

The crank. The obsessive. A Mom For Liberty, a Dad for Anti-Vaxx, and every other socio-edu-political whackadoodle out there in every school intake area.

Oh, fine, okay. Maybe not every parent...but you know who you're most likely to end up with, right, teachers?

And you want that?

Here I just finished ranting about how in the international news governments and "statesmen" are running around wanting things that are stupid things and making plans that are stupid plans...and right here on my street there's...this.

I have no idea how the union and the district will resolve this mess.

But that they started here? That they want this goofy thing?

That's...not particularly encouraging.