9:05 AM: After last night’s vote on the tentative agreement between the Seattle Education Association and Seattle Public Schools, the union has just announced that members ratified it, so the strike is officially over. “We are thrilled,” said union vice president Uti Hawkins. After five days on the picket line, teachers voted last week to suspend the strike after the agreement was reached, but it wasn’t finalized until this vote. The union says two-thirds of its 6,000-person membership voted. The agreement actually involved three contracts; the certificated (teachers) contract was ratified with 71 percent approval. “We won a lot,” says union president Jennifer Matter, while saying the fight is now for better state education funding, especially getting the state to lift caps on special-education funding. More details to come.
9:45 AM: Other notes from the SEA media briefing just held online: The other ratification percentages were 82 percent for SAEOPS (office professionals), 66 percent for paraprofessionals. SEA hasn’t sent a contract document or highlights yet, but here’s the document SPS released with key points from the three-year deal. We asked what the union leaders considered the biggest wins. Hawkins said it was increased school-library funding, following “a 10-year battle.” Matter added that special-education caseload relief was another major win – currently if more students are added to the caseload, there’s a three-month wait for the district to address it, and now that will be reduced to two weeks. The union’s Center for Racial Equity director Joaquin Rodriguez added one more, improvements in paraprofessionals’ access to technology.
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