Danvers
This morning is a day that will be recorded in the history of Danvers. It will be recorded as St. Teachers’ Day. Today will prove to every citizen in this town and your employer, the School Committee, that we teachers do stand up for what we believe in.
Danvers ‘professional day’ walkout deemed a strike
Frustrated by lack of progress on reaching an agreement on numerous outstanding issues, 189 out of 230 Danvers teachers left their classrooms on the morning of March 16, 1984, to meet at the local Knights of Columbus Hall. They considered their walkout a “professional day” to address teaching and learning issues impacted by stalled contract talks, but the state Labor Relations Commission deemed it a strike.
“Some of the proposals set forth [by the School Committee] have a direct impact on providing quality education to the children of Danvers,” Union President Sonia Baker told the Danvers Herald. “They talk of teaching six classes, nine-period days, and, yes, salary enters into it to a certain extent.”
Although the district was given advance notice of the walkout, school was not cancelled. At the high school, students were greeted by local police and instructed to gather in the field house. They and the junior high school students were dismissed at 10 a.m., while elementary students were kept in their classrooms until 11 a.m.
The action lasted one day. The teachers who walked out were docked a day’s pay.
Members of the DTA are severely frustrated. In spite of the fact that a professional day was held and in spite of the fact the results of the survey were published, there is still no dialogue, still no contact. We are just being ignored. This is incomprehensible to us.