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Amid the heightened tensions, the striking teachers voted late last month to back down on every issue — with the condition that they be given back their jobs. The board turned them down. As Board President Roger Weihing, 41, told TIME Correspondent Richard Woodbury last week: "People were shocked and turned off by a lot of their tactics.
There are a lot of teachers we don't want back in school." This time, the board's intransigence caused some supporters to have second thoughts. As Sheriff Spice put it: "There was bullheadedness on both sides. Now they've both backed themselves into a corner."
The next round promises to be a long, drawn-out battle in the courts. Two weeks ago, Outagamie County Judge R. Thomas Cane directed the board to fill all present openings with teachers who had been fired, and five were rehired. But the order leaves unsettled both the contract and the rehiring of the others. As the strikers mapped plans last week for mass demonstrations in June, others in Hortonville expressed dismay at what the dispute had done to their once-tranquil community. Said Mrs. Ann Milleren: "Such a hatred has grown. The scars will be a long time healing."