The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

WARWICK — A Superior Court judge yesterday ordered East Greenwich’s striking public school teachers to report for work this morning, ruling that to allow the three-day-old walkout to continue would do “irreparable harm” to the students.

Judge Jeffrey A. Lanphear issued the decision after a three-hour hearing on the schools’ request for a back-to-work order against the East Greenwich Education Association, which represents the system’s 235 teachers.

The union’s rank and file voted last night to comply with the order, said Donna Hayes, co-president of the union.

School Department lawyer Richard Ackerman, who filed the court complaint yesterday morning, argued before the judge that the strike was a disservice to the public and the students.

The union’s lawyer, John E. DeCubellis Jr., asserted that postponing the order for a few days, to allow continued mediator-assisted negotiations, would do no harm.

After hearing testimony on both sides, Lanphear ruled the strike illegal.

“The schools and the union are unlikely to resolve this without the court’s intervention … without the prompt and immediate court intervention,” he said.

Lanphear said parents and students have been inconvenienced because they don’t know when classes will begin; the schools have been unable to provide free and reduced-price lunches to needy children; teachers can’t move forward on individual education plans, as required by law; high school seniors and other students are missing out on preparation time for SATs and state tests, and special-needs students are being deprived of their programs.

“All are demonstrative that students will suffer irreparable harm. The learning process has been interfered with. And work stoppages are prohibited by law,” Lanphear said.

The teachers, the judge ruled, “are prohibited from engaging in any work stoppage after this day, Sept. 6.”

The state law governing teachers contract negotiations does not give teachers the right to strike. However, the state Supreme Court went a step further, ruling that such work stoppages are illegal. The high court added that teachers cannot be ordered back to their classrooms without a lower court hearing.

The union members gathered at the American Legion post in East Greenwich at 7 last night to decide whether to comply with the judge’s order.

A majority voted to obey it, according to Hayes, who would not divulge the tally.

“I do believe this could have all been avoided if the [School] Committee bargained in good faith,” she said. “They were not putting any better proposals on the table.”

Hayes said she hoped a settlement could be negotiated soon.

The teachers’ last, three-year contract expired Friday, and the rank and file later voted not to return to work unless a tentative settlement on a new agreement was reached by the scheduled start of schools Tuesday morning.

Mediated talks over the holiday weekend failed to produce an accord and the schools canceled classes day to day. The primary unresolved issues are pay and the schools’ proposal to double the contribution top-scale teachers must make toward their health insurance premiums.

In court yesterday, Schools Supt. Charles E. Meyers testified that allowing the walkout to continue would especially harm special-needs students.

“These are children that regress quite easily. I’m worried they are going to regress if we are out for any length of time,” Meyers said.

A union witness, Laura Blecharczyk, a special-education teacher at East Greenwich High School, testified that students requiring an individual educational program sometimes aren’t reviewed until a few weeks into the school year and not necessarily in the first week of school, as Meyers testified.

DeCubellis, the union’s lawyer, told the judge that the walkout had not reached the point at which it would harm students. “We are not there yet, nor will we be there next week,” he asserted.

The judge disagreed.

A mediated negotiation session has been scheduled for next Friday.

lsparks@projo.com