EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED TO INCLUDE DISTRICT RESPONSE TO THE TEACHERS’ COMMENTS. THAT RESPONSE IS A CONCLUSION AT THE END OF THIS STORY.
A strike vote Wednesday evening brought teachers from the Kent School District out in droves early Thursday morning, picketing at the schools where they teach.
When they might actually be back in those schools and teaching remains a big question.
The strike vote – which passed with an overwhelming 86.4 percent of the teachers’ union membership – tosses the Aug. 31 start date of the school year out the window, although the union, the Kent Education Association, has tentatively scheduled another vote for Aug. 30.
“If we don’t fix this problem now in the school district, we are going to have bigger problems down the road,” said Nancy Hill, a sixth-grade teacher at Kent Elementary, regarding the main beefs that striking teachers have with the district – namely, more time, smaller class sizes and better compensation.
Hill, who was out picketing early this morning outside the elementary with several dozen of her colleagues, said the time was ripe for change in the way the district operates.
“This is a huge change and a huge priority,” she said, noting that teachers in Kent haven’t gone on strike since 1976, and that is the veteran teachers – the ones who have been in Kent schools for more than 20 years – who are driving the engine of change.
“It’s these veteran teachers who have been with this district for 20, 25 years. They’re the ones saying ‘I can’t do that anymore,'” Hill said, noting she herself has only taught for four years, after being an instructional assistant in Kent for eight years.
“What does this say to new teachers like me?”
Billie Ryan Howard, another Kent Elementary teacher who was picketing with Hill, blamed the district for the stalled negotiations for a new contract.
“They’re not listening – they’re directing,” she said, claiming district negotiators have walked away from the table several times.
But the bottom line, Hill noted, was a sense of disconnect between administration officials and the people working in the trenches – the teachers.
“I don’t think they understand on a daily basis what happens,” she said. “You get this curriculum (to teach) and it’s ‘do this, do that.'”
What happens, she said, is that curriculi are handed down by the district, and teachers are not getting the time they need to adequately absorb the materials so that they can effectively apply them to their classrooms.
“They just don’t respect my time,” she said.
When asked if they had qualms about the legality of their strike, especially in light of a recent Washington Attorney General opinion describing teacher strikes in the state as illegal, both Hill and Howard said they, as well as their colleagues, were firm in their resolve.
“Right now we feel we are doing a good job serving our needs,” Hill said, noting she hasn’t heard of a Washington teacher arrested for striking.
And if it were to happen in Kent’s case?
“In all honesty, I couldn’t imagine going to jail with a better group of people,” she said, looking out at her sign-waving colleagues.
School district officials, however, didn’t mince words over their position that they have continued to work toward a compromise.
“We have heard the Kent Education Association’s concerns over the issues of time, workload and compensation, and the district took those concerns in earnest,” said Kent School District spokesperson Becky Hanks on Thursday, noting that in response to those concerns, the district undertook some difficult steps.
“There were extensive cuts this past spring,” she said. “There are people not returning to jobs this fall. We heard their concerns, we did the research. We heard our teachers were paid at the bottom of the pack. We’ve addressed that, through an offer of 3 percent increase in year one, followed by a one-and-a-half-percent increase in year two, using dollars created by the staff reduction, primarily administrators and others.
“The 3 percent increase (alone) puts them in the middle of the pack.”
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