The Burlington teachers strike has entered its second day with no end in sight.

"Unfortunately, they're not listening to us," said Fran Brock, the president of the Burlington Education Association.

Teachers walked away after nine hours of negotiations through a mediator Wednesday.

The Burlington School Board says the union rejected an offered three-year contract deal that would have brought average salary raises of over $6,000, offered the state's benchmark health insurance plan and eliminated some supervision duties of students.

"We were all looking for a two-year contract," Brock said.

The union's leadership says the contract roadblock was also in part due to language about the use of elementary school teachers' time. That includes assigned lunch and recess duties that used to belong to other school staffers. Teachers say those tasks take them away from class preparation and student one-on-one time.

"Teachers need to have the time to work both in creating and preparing lessons, and services and programs to our students," Brock said.

But the board's lead negotiator says those responsibilities are best fit for teachers for a better school environment, so they could not concede.

"Teachers know the students best. And when teachers are not present in these areas, such as lunch and recess, we see problems with bullying emerge," said Stephanie Seguino of the Burlington School Board.

And the district's leadership says those out-of-classroom roles weren't the only deal-breaker.

"The BEA then raised issues around salary and health care," Seguino said. "We made proposals; they were not accepted. We didn't receive counterproposals."

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger served as a co-mediator in Wednesday's negotiations. He says he's disappointed both sides haven't reached a deal leading to disruption and keeping kids out of school.

"People I represent-- the parents, the kids, the businesses in this community-- are being hurt by this strike," said Weinberger, D-Burlington.

Both the board and teachers tell us no decision has been made yet to return to the table. A mediator will likely ask them to come back over the next few days.

Classes are canceled again on Friday.

A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS

Behind the contract debate-- years of steady raises for teachers and tax hikes for Burlington residents.

The school board is facing pressure to improve education outcomes and control costs at the same time, and says statewide teacher salaries rose 74 percent over the last decade. At the same time, the average Vermont salary went up 29 percent.

We looked at 2015 census data to see how Burlington teacher pay compares to what Queen City taxpayers make.

In 2015, the median pay was about $69,570. That means half the teachers made more than $69,000 and half made less.

At the same time, the median household income in Burlington was $44,671, the lowest in Chittenden County. A household could be a single person or several people living together in a single housing unit. And median family income in Burlington was about $72,279.