Day 13 of strike: Strongsville parents react

STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - The longer the Strongsville teachers’ strike goes, the greater frustration grows said Strongsville parents Saturday. 

Those parents opened-up to NewsChannel5, talking about how the strike is impacting their children’s lives.

"Once this is all said and done and the kids get back into school, I don't think it's going to this blanket 'oh everything's fine and it's back to normal.' There's going to have to be some mending of fences,” said Linda Taylor outside of the Strongsville Recreation Center. 

That’s the stamp Taylor said this teachers' strike has left on the city and its kids, with Saturday marking Day 13. Today the teachers’ union, the Strongsville Education Association, held a negotiations meeting with a “no show” by the city’s Board of Education because the federal mediator was not involved. 

But it’s what Albina Duggan says her kids saw beyond the meetings, that has several parents still concerned.

“The day before strike when kids saw the teachers bullying substitutes, that really, really upset them very much,” Duggan said describing her children’s reaction to the name calling and teachers shouted at substitutes outside Strongsville's City Hall about two weeks ago.

Parents, Saturday, said they’ve tried to stay neutral in all of this. 

Taylor told NewsChannel5, “As a parent, it's difficult to see how the teachers have responded in certain ways on this, and I'm not saying the Board is right, or the teachers are right and what the demands are, but stripping the class rooms bare, stripping the hallways bare, it really made for sterile and uninviting environment for the kids and that was hard to take. ”

It’s no doubt frustrations continue to grow, but who’s to blame is what parents said they can’t answer. 

What Doug Ingram did  say is, “I just think the teachers could have lasted, waited until the summer to negotiate the contract, the issues on both sides ...  I think the residents have a hard time going with the teachers because it’s - they've made it very uncomfortable for a lot of people in the city."

But Ingram still said Saturday, Strongsville has great teachers and a great education system, which is why frustrated parents aren’t just pointing the finger at teachers.

Dobie Moser said, “My hope that the board will come to the table in a way that's an honest conversation, everybody deserves that …”

The Strongsville Board of Education president confirmed both negotiation teams are expected to meet with a federal mediator Sunday, March 17. The BOE president noted this will be the 3rd time they are meeting with the federal mediator since March 4, the first day of the teacher’s strike.