STRONGSVILLE, Ohio, April 15 (UPI) -- A teachers' strike in Strongsville, Ohio, dragged into its seventh week Monday when a 12-hour negotiation session ended without a deal being reached.
The school board of the suburban Cleveland school district said on its website it presented the Strongsville Education Association, the teachers' bargaining agent, with a new contract proposal that would include a partial reinstatement of step raises, but the offer was rebuffed.
The announcement came shortly after the school board announced it would receive $3.2 million more than it anticipated from tax collections for the first half of fiscal 2013, Cleveland's Sun Newspapers reported.
School board President David Frazee said in a statement the money would be used to "stretch out the number of years we will be able to keep our district in the black."
A statement from the teachers' association said the funding increase, combined with what it estimated were $1.6 million in concessions from the teachers, would have allowed the school board to have settled easily.
"Unfortunately, $4.8 million isn't enough to convince the board to put students ahead of their personal agendas," the Strongsville Education Association statement said.
