As Rochester's parents, teachers, and students grapple with Mayor Bob Duffy's plan to make the city school district a department of city government, a Rhode Island schools superintendent is taking a different approach to solve a familiar problem.

Rhode Island's Central Falls High School has been one of the state's perennial low-performers. Barely half of its students graduate.

When the school board pushed for longer school days, the teachers union tried to negotiate an increase in compensation to cover the added workload.

The move backfired.

The superintendent fired all of the high school's teaching staff.

Central Falls' teachers are taking the blame for a failing school district, and much attention has focused on teacher salaries that average around $75,000 a year, according to a CNN report. Clearly, the union's attempt to negotiate new compensation for a new job description triggered the extreme response.

But teachers tell another side to the story that, they say, quickly gets dismissed or minimized.

The majority of students come from poor households.

For about 60 percent, English is their second language. Absenteeism and truancy have been rampant for years.

Joblessness and homelessness have been a serious problem for the community, and many of the students are living in transient settings.

Some critics have suggested that the superintendent resorted to a seldom-used state education law as a way of cleaning house. The law allows the firing of the teachers as long as half are rehired.

In the meantime, the finger pointing continues.