“Three strikes and you’re out” is an iron law in baseball, embodying as it does the reasonable idea that three opportunities constitute a fair chance. Given that the Claremont School District’s attempt to unilaterally change the instructional schedule at Stevens High School has now been rejected on three separate occasions, it surely is time for the School Board to take “no” for an answer and explore alternatives.

Earlier this month, the New Hampshire Public Employee Labor Relations Board upheld two earlier arbitration rulings that the school district violated its contract with the teachers union when it imposed a new “A/B” schedule for last school year. The labor board ordered the district to revert to the previous “block schedule,” as specified by the contract, for next school year. “Neither the school board nor the Superintendent has the right or option under (the relevant statute) to unilaterally change from a block schedule to an A/B schedule,” the labor board ruled.

Apparently, the district is considering an appeal of this ruling, although it’s hard to imagine what the grounds would be. The labor board unanimously rejected the district’s central contention that setting teaching schedules is solely a matter of managerial discretion and cannot be the subject of collective bargaining. Given the district’s position, it’s a little hard to understand why it agreed to a contract provision stipulating the use of the block schedule in the first place, but since it did, there appears to be little option but to use it, unless the teachers union agrees to the change.

School Board Chairman Brian Rapp told Valley News correspondent Patrick O’Grady that the decision was troubling. “What should really concern people is that (the labor relations board) is hinting that public policy decisions can actually be ceded to an arbitrator,” he said. Actually, it was the school district itself that ceded the scheduling decision to the arbitrator, by agreeing that binding arbitration would be the method by which disputes with the teachers would be resolved under the contract.

Rapp and other school officials have also complained that it would be extremely difficult to revert to the old schedule on such short notice. But, in fact, they have been on notice since June 2015 that the arbitrator had found their arguments wanting, a decision he reaffirmed this April. The prudent course would have been to make contingency plans.

This is not to suggest that the school district may not have sound reasons for wanting to make the change. It may well be that the A/B schedule, under which students take the same number of classes over the course of the year, with four meeting on “A” days and a separate set of four meeting on “B” days, affords a better education for Stevens students, which, after all, is the School Board’s primary concern.

But public officials need to realize that ignoring their obligations also sends a message to students — a wrong one that undermines the sound education they are trying to provide. The current contract with the teachers runs through 2017. The obvious remedy for the district is to comply for the time being with the rulings made by the labor board and the arbitrator, while using the collective bargaining process to achieve its scheduling goals in the future.