It was like having the public in the room with us. She advocated for us, and to the extent (the district) could convince her that they were right, she did the same for them. There are nice theories that bargaining is between the association and the district, but the reality is the district is a public entity, we are public employees, and there's no denying we're sensitive to that.

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A strike simply was not something we wanted to do. I mean, the cost to our members, to the community, to kids was just — it would have had to really be a huge disparity between the district's offer and ours for us to consider it. The differences were not that great and in the end, with the help of the mediator, we split the difference.

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