YOUNGSTOWN – Representatives from the Youngstown City School District and the Youngstown Education Association are due in Columbus Friday for an emergency hearing before the State Employment Relations Board.

The meeting will determine whether or not striking teachers will be forced off the picket lines and back into classrooms.

The YEA voted Monday to strike, and did so on Wednesday, when students were supposed to begin the school year. The district filed an immediate complaint with SERB, alleging that the strike is illegal because the union failed to engage in a fact-finding process the district says state law requires.

YEA representatives say the union followed all the regulations laid out in its contract. Spokesman Jim Courim said the contract only requires the parties execute a third-party mediator as a dispute resolution process during negotiations, which he says the union did. The contract also states the clause pertaining to mediation supersedes any portion of state law that discusses fact finding.

On the picket lines at Volney Rogers Elementary School Thursday, Courim said he has been told the district will not return to the negotiating table until after SERB issues a ruling on the legality of the strike.

According to the hearing notice, the hearing will begin at 3 p.m. Union and district representatives are due at SERB’s East State Street office by 9:45 a.m. to give SERB’s attorneys time to discuss any pre-hearing motions, issues, or stipulations.

The notice says both parties should agree in advance to any stipulations about the dispute, and may provide sworn affidavits to the board. Each side will have 30 minutes to present its case to the board, and the board may allow additional time for rebuttals. Both sides had until 3 p.m. Thursday to file position statements and additional supporting materials with SERB’s General Counsel.

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