
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990                   TAG: 9003152649
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

CAPERTON: FIRE STRIKING TEACHERS

Gov. Gaston Caperton said today that teachers whose illegal strike shut schools should be fired and possibly replaced with volunteers.

"It's up to county superintendents to follow the law," Caperton said by telephone from his farm in Ripley. "The law is very clear about what they should do."

Caperton first raised the possibility of mass firings Sunday after two teachers' unions rejected his plan to end a strike that began March 7 over pay and benefits. It was West Virginia's first teachers strike and idled half the 328,000 students and up to two-thirds of the state's 22,000 teachers.

Attorney General Roger Tompkins last week issued an opinion saying striking teachers can be suspended or fired, barred from teaching for a year or charged with misdemeanors for violating their employment contracts.

The governor said any decision of whether and when to fire teachers rests with county officials. But he went further than before in encouraging such action.

Caperton said the state Board of Education probably would alter certification standards during the strike, and "volunteers probably will be moved into the classroom." When asked to elaborate, he said, "You know what the word volunteer means."

Caperton also said the 16,000-member West Virginia Education Association is not a union "in the classical sense," but is a lobbying group that cannot engage in contract negotiations.

Calls to the association office this morning went unanswered, and the phone at spokeswoman Jackie Goodwin's home was answered by a recording machine.

State School Superintendent Hank Marockie called off classes today and Friday to give county superintendents and strikers a "cooling-off period."

Marockie was scheduled to meet with the state Board of Education today to discuss the next step in dealing with striking teachers, state Department of Education spokeswoman Carolyn Spangler said.

The teachers say a 5 percent raise this year with no promise of a further raise next year is inadequate. In a televised speech Wednesday night, Caperton repeated that a raise for next year is impossible unless the state develops a big enough surplus.

by CNB