REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio – Regardless of the issues, or who’s perceived to be right or wrong, one fact is indisputable when it comes to teacher strikes: Students are innocent victims who lose precious days of education through no fault of their own.

Many argue that they should have an absolute right to a public education uninterrupted by adult disagreements.

An increasing number of school districts are honoring that concept – to the degree possible during strike situations – by hiring replacement teachers.

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The teachers unions obviously don’t like that practice, because they believe the presence of other teachers negates at least some of their leverage at the bargaining table.

So they do everything they can to scare off the replacement teachers.

In countless school districts over the years, striking teachers have verbally accosted and threatened the people hired to do their jobs. The safety and security of the replacements always becomes an issue.

The subs count on the school district to protect them as much as possible while they provide a temporary but crucial service for students.

But sometimes districts lose their legal ability to keep the spotlight away from the replacement teachers.

That could be happening very soon in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, due to an open records request by the nearby Columbus Dispatch newspaper to the local school district, seeking the names of replacement teachers.

The regular Reynoldsburg teachers have been on strike since Sept. 19.

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Dispatch reporter Joe Boss, who has been covering the strike, explained in an email to EAGnews that the purpose of the request was to research the “credentials and experience” of the replacement teachers, presumably to publish a story on that topic.

That’s reasonable enough. The subs are working in a public school district, so their qualifications are a legitimate topic for public discussion.

But neither Boss nor managing editor Alan Miller responded when asked if the newspaper planned to publish the names of the replacement teachers.

That’s a very bad sign, mostly for those teachers.

History is full of reminders that replacement teachers are constantly in the line of fire during strikes. The examples are countless.

In Federal Way, Washington in 1974, striking teachers at several schools surrounded buses transporting replacement teachers as they pulled into school driveways, and shouted insults at them as they walked from the buses to the buildings.

The replacements who had the courage to drive themselves got the same treatment, with mobs surrounding their cars and impeding their progress as they arrived at school. One newspaper photo shows a male picketer riding on the hood of a replacement teacher’s car as it entered a school parking lot.

Sometimes the subs who drove to school found their tires flattened or gas caps stolen by picketers.

News reports told of one female substitute who was so frightened that she parked blocks away from the school and cut through woods and private yards to use the back entrance.

In 1985, the school board in Hinesburg, Vermont filed an unfair labor practice against the striking teachers union, complaining that teachers picketed at the homes of replacement teachers; distributed disparaging leaflets about them to their neighbors; picketed outside the business of the husband of one of the replacement teachers, engaged in “verbal harassment, threats and coercive actions” against the subs; encouraged students to be disruptive in classes taught by the replacements; and sent “coercive and threatening literature” to the fill-ins.

Last year, in the Strongsville, Ohio school district outside of Cleveland, police had to escort people who showed up at the local police station to apply for replacement teacher positions. Picketers reportedly tried to block the applicants as they approached the building and screamed at them every step of the way.

“This lady was screaming in my face, calling me every name in the book,” Meghan Paris of Cleveland, one of the applicants, told Patch.com. “They said I was taking their job. But they’re striking. I’m not taking your job.”

One picketer reportedly followed a female applicant all the way into the building, screaming “Go home” into her face. Another picketer harassed a black applicant by telling her that “Rosa Parks would be ashamed” of her.

The local union even posted photos of people who applied for the temporary positions on Facebook, calling it a “visual of scabs.”

One striking teacher was ticketed for swerving his vehicle in the direction of an oncoming van transporting replacement teachers.

When the strike was over, an official from the nearby Cleveland teachers union went to court in an effort to secure the names of the replacement teachers. The intent seemed pretty obvious, particularly since the strike had been settled – to make sure they were exposed and blackballed, so they never found work in public schools again.

Is that type of behavior ever warranted?

Of course there’s no way to keep the identity of replacement teachers completely anonymous. Students are going to learn their names and will share that information with their parents.

Concerned parents will inquire about the replacement teachers, and will want to know their backgrounds. That’s their right, and schools should cooperate fully with them.

But it would be reckless and irresponsible for the Dispatch to publish the names of the Reynoldsburg replacement teachers, regardless of its legal right to do so. It would expose the subs to potential harassment – or worse – by union members and their sympathizers throughout the community.

If the union gets the names of all the replacement teachers, it can certainly find addresses. That would probably mean the subs could count on all sorts of increasingly hostile treatment.

They could be followed home by strikers and have picketers on their sidewalks. Their spouses, significant others and children could be targeted at school or the workplace. Their property could be damaged and their labor-friendly neighbors could become instant enemies.

And in an emotionally charged situation like a teachers strike, there’s also the potential for a disturbed striker, or union supporter, physically attacking a replacement teacher.

Does the Dispatch want such an occurrence on its corporate conscience?

One troubling thought is that it may not matter to the people who run the newspaper. Perhaps, like union leaders and agitators, they believe the teachers’ cause is so just, and their grievances so legitimate, that any type of behavior is excusable or warranted.

When replacement teachers are harassed, threatened or have their property vandalized, their colleagues will think twice about cooperating with the school district. Before long no subs will be willing to go through the daily hell that’s required of them.

Soon the classrooms will be empty again, and parents and students will become even more restless and pressure the school board to give the union what it wants. That will signal “mission accomplished” for the union. Well-meaning human beings may have to be terrorized in the process, but for some, the ends justify the means.

Do the editors of the Dispatch share that very typical union sentiment?

We can only hope they make the responsible decision and leave the names of the replacement teachers off the pages of their newspaper.