Bitter feelings remain between jailed New Jersey teachers and parents. (News connection: up-to-date and usable education information from schools, government, business, research and professional organizations).

The striking teachers in Middletown, N.J., are back in their classrooms, but the community is not back to normal. There is still a painful rift between teachers and parents, says Jack DeTalvo, superintendent of the Middletown Township District that serves 10,500 students. The hurt feelings center on teacher salary and health insurance disputes that escalated into the largest mass-teacher arrest in three decades. About 228 teachers were arrested--some being led from their homes in handcuffs--because they refused to return to work after a judge issued an injunction to do so.

While negotiations continue with a court-appointed mediator, teachers and parents nurse bruised emotions. It is the timing of the strike that offended many parents. Teachers walked out of the classrooms just two months after the town lost 34 residents in the attack on the World Trade Center.

"How can you have sympathy for a teacher going to jail when you have children in this town crying because their father is never coming home?" Allyson Gilbert, a mother of two, told The New York Times.

For their part, teachers earned some support after images of them behind bars were shown in the local media.

Weeks after the teachers were released from jail, the community was still polarized. Two kindergarten teachers who had been jailed, refused to allow parents into their classrooms for soda and cookies parties during the holiday season, says DeTalvo.

Petty actions like these are new to this community, he adds. During the 1995 and 1998 teacher strikes, many parents sided with the teachers. In this recent case, the community seemed to support the school board. "[The parents] have had it with teachers walking off the job," says DeTalvo.

DeTalvo remained decisive but distant in the dispute. "From my standpoint, I think it was right to close the schools," he says. "We couldn't have opened with substitute teachers, and if we had tried, it would have been a disaster. In terms of the teachers going to jail, we distanced ourselves from that." It wasn't his call, he adds, it was the judge's order. He says he wanted teachers back in the classrooms, however.

By mid-December teachers agreed to go back to their classrooms without a new contract. * www.middletownk12.org