For decades now, the Lordstown Local School District has basked in its stellar reputation as a center of academic excellence in the Mahoning Valley and Ohio. That’s one reason why it’s particularly disheartening and disturbing that teachers there have approved a 10-day notice of their potential to strike and effectively bulldoze the start of the 2024-25 school year for hundreds of students there.

We therefore issue this plea on behalf of students, parents and all residents of the district to the teachers union and administration: Get back to the bargaining table ASAP, negotiate in good faith, and craft a mutually beneficial contract agreement before the start of classes Sept. 3.

The district’s teachers, represented by the American Federation of Teachers Local 3789, have been without a contract since the expiration of their previous agreement on June 30. The union has filed an unfair labor practice complaint to Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board. Details of that complaint have not been made public.

Union representatives said negotiations began in the spring, but only two meetings between the AFT and school administrators took place. The union rejected the administration’s last offer, and the talks have been at an impasse with a mediator now involved.

From its vantage point, the school district’s administration is perplexed by the strike threat. According to Superintendent Greg Bonamase, “The (school) board has presented a fair and extremely competitive offer to the teachers that includes no changes to their robust health insurance benefits.”

On at least one point, however, the two sides appear united. Both have expressed a desire to restart negotiations. The federal mediator should therefore call a negotiating session post haste.

Too much is at stake to risk a devastating work stoppage by instructors early next month.

For one, it would put a stain on the district’s long-standing spotless image. It has risen to the cream of the crop of districts in the Mahoning Valley and the state, consistently performing excellently in State Report Cards.

According to ratings by Niche, a Pittsburgh-based internet company that analyzes and ranks school districts nationwide, Lordstown owns bragging rights on a variety of factors, including high rankings in best teachers in Ohio, best school districts in the state and best places to teach in Ohio. Among Trumbull County’s two dozen school districts, it ranks No. 1 in all of those categories.

Those outstanding ratings no doubt have played a significant role in the Lordstown community’s reputation as the epicenter for industrial development in the Mahoning Valley and its resulting rock-solid tax base. Business and industry always consider the quality of schools in decisions to take up stakes in a community.

Should the labor strife drag on too much longer, that reputation as a drawing card for economic development certainly would suffer.

Most importantly, however, a settlement must be reached for the best interests of students. The superintendent has pledged to keep schools operating should a work stoppage occur. But whether substitutes are staffed in classrooms or online remote learning takes place, there is no substitute for students learning from teachers they know best and who know them best. The decline in academic achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic drove that point home exceedingly well.

The Lordstown Board of Education is expected to meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the high school for its regular meeting at which it is expected to approve new three-year contracts with 3% pay raises each year for non-teaching personnel throughout the district. We suspect many frustrated parents will attend to drive home the point that a teachers strike would be totally unacceptable.

The district and teachers must listen to those community concerns and get back to the bargaining table swiftly. For the sake of everyone involved, we urge the two sides to come back to the table and commit to not walking away until the issues are resolved. The sides must work tirelessly to settle their differences for the good of the school district, for the good of the teachers, but especially for the good of the students.