Injunction banning teacher strikes remains in place, for now, after court hearing

A judge says she is inclined to drop a court injunction preventing further teacher strikes in the Clark County School District, but it appears she can’t do it just now.

Clark County District Judge Jessica Peterson said at a hearing Thursday that she would likely dissolve the preliminary injunction, which has been in place since September, after the Clark County Education Association asked to have the ban lifted because circumstances have changed since last fall.

“Based on the current state of affairs — that there are no sickouts that are happening, where there’s obviously been a contract that has been negotiated — this need for the injunction is no longer presently in place,” Peterson said, agreeing with the teachers union.

However, the Nevada Supreme Court also needs to step in because CCEA has separately appealed the legality of the injunction. The appeal is pending.

Within hours of the hearing, CCEA’S legal team filed a request to the high court asking it to remand — or send back — the injunction to the district court for the limited purposes of potentially dissolving it before Peterson could grant the union’s motion, she said.

A judge filling in for Peterson on Sept. 13 issued the injunction to halt the illegal rolling sickouts by teachers that caused eight district schools to cancel one day of school each and disrupted classes at additional schools over the first two weeks of September. The sickouts came amid tense negotiations for a new teacher contract.

CCSD and CCEA announced in December that an arbitrator had accepted a compromise presented by the two sides. Teachers will receive significant pay raises under the new agreement.

Lawyers for CCSD argued that Peterson no longer had jurisdiction to decide on the injunction once the case went to the higher appeals court. Further, lifting the motion could make the appeal moot, the district said.

Injunctions, the union argued, are to address ongoing or impending actions, not to be a permanent state.

CCEA’S lawyers characterized their request as procedural and argued that dissolving the injunction would have no bearing on the substance of the related appeal, as the appeal questions whether the injunction was “lawfully issued” in the first place.

The appeal itself has not yet been scheduled for a hearing, according to the Supreme Court’s online docket.