The Evergreen Public Schools’ teachers union on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a three-year, $42.8 million contract. Students return to school this morning.
The union, the Evergreen Education Association, ratified its contract by a vote of 1,199 to 9 in a packed Clark County Events Center at the Fairgrounds, ending 14 months of negotiation between the district and the union. A state-appointed mediator has been helping in negotiations since March.
“It’s a lot of relief,” union president Rob Lutz said after the meeting. “When you have the weight of the needs of 1,800 members and 27,000 students on your shoulders, it feels good to be able to take that off at this moment.”
The contract includes a 14.5 percent pay raises over the three-year period — 4.5 percent this school year and 5 percent each year afterward. Evergreen teachers made between $40,417 and $76,179 in total compensation during the 2015-2016 school year. Between this year’s raise and a 1.8 percent cost of living increase approved by the state, teachers will now earn between $42,963 and $80,975.
The contract also includes an additional $1 million in spending for digital-based curriculum, one secondary level counselor per year districtwide and additional specialists such as speech pathologists and occupational therapists.
Substitutes will see the same raises full-time teachers received, their daily rate increasing by 14.5 percent over the next three years. Substitutes who work for 30 days or more in the district will receive a further 10 percent raise.
Union and district officials settled on the contract at 3:04 a.m. Monday, and Tuesday’s vote officially averts a strike from interrupting the first week of school.
A statement from the district reports that the union originally requested 170 additions and changes to the contract, with a yearly price tag of more than $52 million. The district statement said negotiators honed in on those items that had a “direct benefit to students.”
Many of the teachers, who wore their red union T-shirts, sounded jubilant following the vote, laughing and celebrating as they poured from the building. Angie Heath, a second grade teacher at Burnt Bridge Creek Elementary School, said she overall was pleased with the results of the contract, praising the increased teacher pay as well as increased resources for special education students.
“We’re being recognized for all the extra hours that we put in,” Heath said.
Irene Corbin, a secondary school counselor, said while the contract is a “good bargain,” she worries that it fails to provide enough for special needs students. According to a summary of the contract, there will be extra training for general education teachers who have special education students in their classrooms, and additional support for teachers who have 20 percent or more special education students in their classrooms.
Corbin, however, said adding only three counselors will not be enough to actually make those things happen for students.
“That’s going to fall on counselors,” she said. “We still do not have counseling support for high-need students.”
McCleary looming
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s decision, Evergreen Public Schools also touched on overall education funding in the state. It’s a hot topic in Washington, where the state Supreme Court, in its McCleary decision, ordered the Legislature to fully fund public schools by next school year.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn sued Evergreen Public Schools and six other school districts this spring, ramping up pressure on the Legislature to fund public schools.
The additional money provided in the new teacher contract will be supported by local levy dollars, not state funding.
“While we agreed to get our teachers closer to being compensated for the value they bring to our students, we wish this funding would have come from the state rather (than) through local levy dollars via a difficult bargaining process,” district officials said in a statement released Tuesday evening.
