Photo courtesy of the Minot Daily News.
50 Years Ago, Minot Teachers Went on Strike
Educators recall how their community was strained by strife felt within profession By Kelly Hagen NDU Communications
It is March 28, 1969, and the Minot School Board has just moved to issue teachers’ contracts in a special session by formally terminating negotiations between the teachers and the board. Negotiations had broken down several days earlier, with teachers unhappy over a decreased rate of increase on their pay. Their superintendent was instructed to issue contracts with a $6,000 base salary and a revised salary schedule, eliminating four lanes – from 10 down to six. Teachers were feeling additionally
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frustrated at how quickly negotiations were terminated. “We could have arrived at a more satisfactory agreement, I believe,” Rudy Zupetz, president of the Minot Federation of Teachers, told the Minot Daily News. “Had the board’s team not insisted upon winding everything up Friday night. They felt they could not keep the news media waiting upon further negotiations.” Minot teachers were not alone in the frustrations they were feeling 50 years ago, nationally or in the state of North Dakota. An editorial in the Williston Herald from February of 1968 stated that “a new breed of militant educator
