With a $90 million gap in the latest reported negotiations between the Seattle Public Schools district and the Seattle Education Association union representing around 4,000 educators in the city, the first day of pickets brought red shirts, marching, and chants to the streets around Capitol Hill’s public schools. “Some of these folks are high school counselors with 400 students”. “We won’t be scared into abandoning our commitment to winning a fair contract”.
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“We are committed to continuing negotiations”, Ms. Carr said. The court has also ruled that the state’s charter schools are unconstitutional. Teachers in Pasco in southeast Washington have voted not to return to the classroom despite a court order to end the strike.
One-on-one attention: Current workloads mean many students aren’t getting the one-on-one attention they need from teachers and counselors.
The district has provided a pay improve of nearly 9 % over three years, and the union countered with a 10.5 % improve over two years. (Washington state has a statewide salary schedule and adjustments, which are supplemented via local negotiations.) In point of fact, the Seattle situation seems partly the collatoral damage from a bruising funding battle in the state.
Seattle teachers last went on strike in 1985 and schools were canceled for three weeks.
Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Assn., said the strikes were mainly about local issues not tied to the larger debate about funding.
Catherine Beard, whose two daughters attend McDonald global school, said she plans to visit the picket lines to support the striking teachers.
Washington state is being sanctioned $100,000 a day by the state Supreme Court because the justices say lawmakers have failed to adequately pay to educate the state’s 1 million school children.
Seattle educators have officially started their strike today, delaying the first day of school.
The educators, who have not received a cost-of-living pay raise in six years, have joined other workers pushing for higher wages as the city tries to balance its identity as a hub for tech talent while keeping housing and other costs within reach.
Surely the public will support Seattle teachers, who are doing something about the situation and fighting for great schools. Superintendent Larry Nyland sent a note to parents reminding them that the walkout wasn’t about the district-it was “a statement to the state legislature about the current lack of adequate state funding for basic education”.
“We are going to the Queen Anne Community Center for a few days until it is resolved”, said one parent.
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He famous that instructor strikes are comparatively uncommon in Washington’s 295 faculty districts, with the final main one in Tacoma in 2011. Ultimately none of those things did happen, as we officially entered the second week of the Pasco teachers strike. The notification of intent to strike, was made prior to the Board’s decision to approve a resolution that would allow appropriate legal action. “That doesn’t even begin to touch what we are asking for”.
