Some child care will provided at local YMCAs, with parents paying, but registration has closed, the district said. Decisions about sports and extracurricular activities will be made on a case-by-case basis.
"The school board is disappointed that we have not been able to resolve this contract," said spokesman Jeffrey Sultanik, a lawyer who is assisting the board in negotiations. "We had a number of different official and unofficial proposals that crossed the bargaining table today. We believe we made a good-faith effort to resolve the issues."
Gary Smith, a staff member with the Pennsylvania State Education Association who is working with the 512-member Souderton Area Education Association in negotiations, said: "The board doesn't realize that Souderton is no longer a sleepy little countryside township. It's a place where everyone wants to live. People are moving there in great numbers, and the teachers deserve to have the same pay and benefits as other teachers in Montgomery County, which they do not now.
"I believe this has been a deliberate attempt by the board to push the teachers into a strike, hoping they will lose public support," Smith said. "But I believe the public fully understands what is going on and will support the teachers."
Sultanik said that the teachers were asking for a four-year contract with average payroll increases of 5.98 percent in the first year, 9.4 percent in the second year, 7.14 percent in the third, and 6.9 percent in the fourth.
The school board is proposing a three-year contract with increases of 2.5 percent each year.
"I know of no teachers union that has gone out on a work stoppage with these kinds of dollars on the bargaining table, or of any school district that would accept them," Sultanik said. "It's unconscionable."
