Negotiators To Step Up Talks in Oakland Strike

By Cheryl Gamble

Neither a cooling-off period following a confrontation between striking Oakland, Calif., teachers and district officials nor renewed negotiations last week brought the two sides much closer to an agreement.

Ward Rountree, the executive director of the 3,500-member Oakland Education Association, said late last week that the two groups were planning to begin all-day negotiations in a further effort to reach a compromise.

The state education department has appointed an administrative-law judge, Jim Tamm, to act as a mediator in the dispute. The judge called for the one-day respite late last month after one picketing teacher was slightly injured in...