Education Week - September 16, 2015 - 6

By Stephen Sawchuk
Seattle's students unexpectedly
got a bit longer summer vacation,
thanks to a teacher strike that began
last week on the first scheduled day
of school.
Though the main sticking points,
wages and work hours, are familiar,
policies on teacher evaluation and
discipline also remain contested between the 53,000-student district
and the Seattle Education Association, which has about 5,000 members.
Teachers walked off the job Sept. 9,
marking the first teachers' strike in
the city since 1985.
For the past two weeks, state mediators have been involved in the negotiations. But talks broke down just
hours before school started, leaving
parents scrambling to rejigger schedules and find child care.
Stephanie Jones, the executive director of Community & Parents for
Public Schools of Seattle, a network
of some 2,600 parents, said the strike
carries implications far beyond employees, administrators, and the bottom line.
"Money is a big [factor], but it's not
just about money-also equity, discipline, testing, the affordability of
living in Seattle," she said. "It feels
like the strike is shaping up to be a
referendum on our values and priorities for education in the city."
The strike comes against a back-

drop of quarreling over K-12 funding.
State lawmakers recently provided a
boost of more than $1 billion in education funding in response to a 2012
state Supreme Court injunction, of
which some $40 million went to the
district. Seattle voters also approved
two levies in 2013. But the SEA, a
National Education Association affiliate, says those increases have yet
to trickle down to the district's salary
proposals.
"This is really a symptom of Washington state not fully funding public
education, but we also know that the
district does have the money," said
Phyllis Campano, the union's vice
president.
The district said that its offers
strike a balance between paying
teachers fairly and fiscal responsibility. On at least one issue, it agrees
with the union-that the state has
continued to underfund its portion of
teacher salaries.

Difficult Timing
Seattle resident David Roberts, the parent of a 4th and a 6th
grader, said he sympathizes with
teachers and supports efforts to secure more state funding for schools.
But finding child care at the last
moment was challenging-and he
says he's aware that other families
are having problems affording it.
"The timing of the strike seems
awful. I wish it could have been re-

Ted S. Warren/AP

Seattle Teachers Strike Over Pay, Delaying Start of School Year

Educators walk a picket line on a pedestrian overpass near Franklin High School in Seattle. Teachers in Seattle
walked out on September 9 over wages and related issues, shuttering schools in the 53,000-student district.

solved in the summer," Roberts said.
"And the funding issues seem like
they've been going on for years."
Some of the key topics at issue in
the strike include:
* Wages: At press time, the district was offering a 9 percent raise
over a three-year period; the Seattle Education Association's latest
demand was for 10.5 percent over
two years. (Those figures do not
include an approved state cost-of-

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living adjustment.)
* Length of the school day: Seattle teachers' in-school workday
amounts to about 7½ hours, but
they instruct for only a little more
than six. The district wants to rebalance the schedule to include
20-30 additional minutes of daily
instructional time in the contract's
third year; the union says it won't
work that time for free.
* Teacher evaluation: The Seattle
district currently can use district
or state standardized-test scores to
trigger additional scrutiny of teachers, though it does not count toward
their formal evaluation results. The
union wants to scratch that option,
noting that it applies only to a fraction of teachers.
* Testing: Long critical of standardized tests, the union wants
a say over the addition of nonrequired tests.
* Equity: The union wants to establish teams at schools to reduce
discipline practices that disproportionately affect students of color.
* Recess: Teachers complained
that recess time varied from school
to school; the district has tentatively agreed to reserve at least 30
minutes of recess daily for elementary students.

Diverse Perspectives
Striking is not legally protected in
Washington state, and the Seattle
school board has authorized Superintendent Larry Nyland to take legal
action against the striking teachers,
though that had not happened as of
press time.
The SEA has promised to remain
on strike regardless, and there's
precedent for that not far away:
Teachers striking in the Pasco district, in Washington state's tri-city
region, ignored a judge's order on
Sept. 4 to return to work.
News reports said about 2,000
Seattle educators participated in
the voice vote to support the strike.
Still, some educators faulted both
parties for not working harder to
avoid one.
"The rhetoric from both sides is

so crazed," said Evin Shinn, a 9th
grade humanities teacher at Cleveland High School in south Seattle.
"We teach our students to keep
your calm, keep your cool, stay at
the table. It's kind of amazing to
me that both sides have thrown up
their hands."
Parents seem largely support-

It feels like the strike
is shaping up to be a
referendum on our
values and priorities
for education in the
city."
STEPHANIE JONES
Executive Director, Community &
Parents for Public Schools of Seattle

ive of better pay for teachers. A
parent-volunteer group, Soup for
Teachers, was bringing hot meals
to picketers, and a change.org petition calling on the district to settle
the contract had more than 4,000
signatures.
But they are divided on some of
the other issues. Louisa Clayton,
the mother of an 8th grader, said
that she wants pay boosts coupled
with accountability. "I agree the position is underpaid, but it is infuriating that we, as parents, have no
control over who actually teaches
our kids," she said.
The closed nature of collective
bargaining probably contributes to
the diversity of opinions, said Jones
of the Seattle parent network.
"The community is sort of last
to learn that a crisis is brewing
because we're not there, so I know
that the strike caught a lot of parents off guard," she said. "They
didn't see the level of discord between the district and teachers."

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Education Week - September 16, 2015

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