It’s important to note those nine districts, and even those that have either ended strikes or narrowly avoided strikes with contract settlements, remain in the vast minority of Washington state’s 295 school districts. More than 50 others around the state have reached tentative agreements.
“There are districts all across Washington in any part of the state that have successfully negotiated significant pay raises for their teachers,” said Rich Wood, spokesman for the Washington Education Association. The state teachers union has been encouraging local unions to push for double-digit pay raises in the 2018-2019 school year, and many in Clark County and in the state have done so.
The labor disputes stem from the change to school funding in the state under the McCleary school funding legislation. Last year, the state Legislature allocated $7.3 billion toward education, and this year added another $1 billion under direction from the state Supreme Court to fund teacher salaries. Teachers unions have accused districts of withholding funds available for them, while district officials have said paying teachers the salaries they’re asking for will drive them into multimillion-dollar deficits over the next four years.
These are the districts outside of Clark County where teachers are striking:
• Longview Public Schools: A Cowlitz County judge will hear the district’s request for an injunction to stop the strike Friday morning. Teacher strikes are illegal under state law, though there’s no penalty for doing so. Judges asked to file restraining orders to halt strikes generally have done so, but according to data from the Public Employment Relations Commission, those court orders have had mixed results. Of 26 teacher strikes in Washington where injunctions were filed, unions defied the order in 12 cases.
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal on Thursday issued a statement reassuring families that, despite the strikes, students will still receive their state-mandated 180 days and 1,000 hours of instructional time.
He did note, as school districts around the state have, that changes to the state’s funding formula have added new pressures and complications to school finances.
“Overall, the Legislature provided new resources to our public K-12 education system, but the new model of distribution leaves some districts with much less opportunity to make additional investments in programs and salary increases,” Reykdal wrote. “In fact, in some school districts, the combination of new state dollars minus local levy dollars will leave them hard pressed to keep up with inflation over the next three years without additional legislative changes.”
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