Republican Governor Claude R. Kirk, Jr. promised to improve educational funding. The Democratic-controlled state legislature approved higher sales taxes. But Kirk vetoed the budget, and Republican legislators upheld the veto. Outraged by the veto, Florida teachers went on a statewide strike—the first statewide teachers' strike in American history. An August 1967 rally at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando drew 30,000 teachers. Even though public employee strikes are illegal in Florida, FEA leaders began talking up a statewide strike. In September 1967, most of the teachers in Pinellas and Broward counties resigned in protest, forcing schools to close. A court ordered the teachers back into the classroom, but hundreds stayed out. Despite government action, the teachers struck again. Kirk called a special session of the legislature in January 1968, which led to higher sales and sin taxes. But most teachers felt the increases were not enough, and a special convention of the FEA voted against accepting the package. In February 1968, FEA president Jane Arnold said the state association would support local teachers if they walked off the job. Thousands did. Schools closed in roughly two-thirds of Florida's counties. At the height of the strike, 25,712 teachers—about 40 percent of the state's teachers—walked out. The statewide Florida teachers' strike was not uniform, however. Strikes lasted only a few days in some districts, while in others teachers walked picket lines for weeks. In Pinellas County, teachers stayed out for six weeks. Small groups of teachers struck for as long as three months. Arnold and other FEA leaders were threatened with arrest. Tornillo was fined $30,000 and given two-year jail term (which, after appeal, he was not forced to serve). In the end the strike was not successful. Kirk and the legislature refused to appropriate more money or raise taxes further. School districts hired substitute teachers as strikebreakers, and local businesses paid their employees to teach classes. Public support for the teachers, weak at the beginning of the strike, shrunk dramatically after the first several weeks. "'We thought they (the public) would be with us,' Arnold said. 'We thought it would unite the community and the teachers. It did a little bit of the opposite. ... A lot of teachers lost their innocence. They thought the community liked them.'" Local education associations began to negotiate their own settlements, often agreeing not to challenge school districts for terminating the most militant teachers. Although the 1968 strike did not achieve the goals the FEA had set, FEA members were radicalized by the strike and the association won other victories.