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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 20, 1990                   TAG: 9003202774
SECTION: MISCELLANEOUS                    PAGE: A/5   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

WEST VIRGINIA TEACHERS RETURN TO CLASSROOMS/ STATE'S SCHOOLS REOPEN AFTER

"I suspect there's a degree of animosity and maybe even bitterness for those who walked across the picket line," Bob Brown, executive director of the West Virginia Federation of Teachers, said as teachers returned after almost two weeks. "If they can live with themselves, we can live with them."

The 3,000-member federation and the 16,000-member West Virginia Education Association began the state's first teacher strike on March 7. Another 3,000 teachers in the state are not represented by unions.

The key issue in the strike was wages. Only South Dakota and Arkansas pay teachers less than West Virginia's average of $21,900, the National Education Association says.

Teachers voted overwhelmingly Sunday to return to work - without settling the wage issue - after legislative leaders promised to ask Gov. Gaston Caperton to call a special legislative session to consider a long-term plan for West Virginia's education system.

The strike had spread to 47 of the state's 55 counties and affected more than 150,000 pupils.

In some counties, all the teachers stayed off the job, but in others, some teachers crossed the picket lines. In Raleigh County in southern West Virginia, for example, about 30 percent of 900 teachers crossed picket lines, said Dwight Dials, the county school superintendent.

State and union officials would not estimate how many teachers crossed picket lines.

On Monday, in Berkeley County in the easternmost part of the state, the county Ministerial Association sent counselors to the schools to help teachers work out any feelings of animosity toward each other.

Most schools delayed classes for a few hours Monday so teachers could prepare for their students. No major problems were reported.

"It's over, but it's not over," said Joe Mace, Lewis County school superintendent. "We'll do the best we can for the kids for the rest of this school year. You try to mend some fences and put back the pieces."

The June 8 end of the school year will be extended two days to make up last Thursday and Friday, when state School Superintendent Hank Marockie canceled all classes in the state for a cooling-off period.

The average striking teacher will lose an estimated $660 in pay and the 6 percent of their pay that normally would be paid into the financially troubled Teachers Retirement System, Marockie said.

The finance chairmen of the state Senate and House of Delegates said Monday that there is no more money available for teacher pay raises.

Delegate George Farley, D-Wood, said the special session "is going to raise a lot of expectations."

Teachers received a 5 percent raise in February and a two-day special legislative session last week found $27 million for an additional 4 percent raise. The teachers union said the latest legislative package was not enough.

"We skimped and scraped to put together a $27 million package that made nobody happy, and if we did that again it would not make them happy," Farley said.

A statewide poll released Monday, meanwhile, showed the teachers enjoyed broad public support.

The poll of 405 state residents taken during the strike showed nearly two-thirds opposed threats by state officials to fire striking teachers who did not return to work by Monday. The margin of error was 4.9 percentage points.