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STRIKE OR DEAL? Here’s where the Seattle school talks stand tonight

September 5, 2022 9:14 pm
|      45 COMMENTS
 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle schools

The scheduled start of Seattle Public Schools classes for all but kindergarteners is just ~36 hours away. But the district and its educators’ union haven’t reached a contract agreement yet. Here are tonight’s notes:

MEDIATION: Though the district said Friday that the union had rejected its suggestion for mediation, the Seattle Education Association‘s media update tonight said, ” The SEA Bargaining Team met with SPS on Sunday and met with a mediator today to continue work toward an agreement.”

STRIKE VOTE: The union’s media update also noted that members’ strike-authorization voting ends at 9 am tomorrow. They will announce the results during an online media briefing at noon. They’re then planning on a rally at district headquarters at 4:30 pm.

DISTRICT: No new update since Sunday’s statement that they wanted the union to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to continue talks while starting school as scheduled. A line atop the district website promises, “If the first day of school is delayed, we will update families and staff as soon as possible.”

SPECIAL-EDUCATION ISSUES: This was called to our attention today by a reader who thought the wider community should know, The Seattle Council and Special Education PTSA issued a joint statement Sunday saying they wanted the public to see the recommendations of the Special Education Task Force – what they consider a “road map” both sides should be following to an agreement. You can read them here.

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45 Replies to "STRIKE OR DEAL? Here's where the Seattle school talks stand tonight"

  • Eric September 5, 2022 (9:52 pm)

    I was never happier as a parent when my kids were out of SPS.  Love the teachers, but the system (including the teachers union) is beyond stupid. Highline and Vashon run circles around the Seattle BS.

    • Frustrated Parent September 5, 2022 (11:54 pm)

      Eric, thank you. I feel the exact same way. I left my teaching degree path after experiencing the mess that is our teacher union and several admin areas within SPS. We have only two more years to go and my family will be finished with SPS for good. Yeah yeah, there’s teacher unions I support, but ours is abysmal and may as well be run by our city council and former mayors…oh wait…

    • LisaS September 6, 2022 (7:27 am)

      Wow, that’s a very helpful statement. Maybe you can support the teachers and staff who work incredibly hard for the students and families that decide to (or have no other choice) go to public school here. We know that our district management sucks, but we still show up every day because we very much want to educate any and all students that walk through our doors. 

      • 4DayWeekend September 6, 2022 (8:02 am)

        Unless it’s the day after a holiday and the teachers all want an unplanned four day weekend with no notice to every parent in the district. 

      • Frustrated Parent September 6, 2022 (12:53 pm)

        Lisa – I work incredibly hard, too. Your job isn’t more important than mine.You’re not showing up for work tomorrow, but us parents still have too.

  • Josh September 5, 2022 (9:56 pm)

    What a helpful link. It makes clear the the SEA leadership is disingenuous when they claim that their demand to not change the current model is best for special Ed students as the joint task force clearly recommends a need to change the current contract language to allow for the recommended pathway which encourages appropriate inclusion in general Ed as necessary for improvement. The SEA bargaining team is using this special Ed language to confuse and anger the public as a cynical mask for their actual priorities in the negotiation: saying they will agree with the necessary changes to special Ed language in the CBA as a bargaining chip to maintain their memberships ability to call off work constantly with no recourse and to demand an unnecessarily large raise to their already bloated pay structure which caps out as of last year at 125,000. Adjusting for the 4 months a year they have off work that’s an effective ceiling of 180+K. They are not underpaid.  They only care about their ability to do as little as possible for as much as possible and are disingenuous about the whole all we care about are your kids stuff.

    If you care about the kids and working families then start school on time and sort out the differences while school is in session. Just like SPS is trying to do. Every piece of info coming out makes SEA look bad.

    • How Can We Help Josh September 6, 2022 (12:23 am)

      Which answer is the most likely reason Josh mysteriously keeps copying and pasting the same misinformed rhetoric:

      1. Josh does not like the corrections that were generously provided to him.

      2. Josh does not understand the corrections that were generously provided to him.

      3. Josh is not reading the corrections that were generously provided to him.

    • Al King September 6, 2022 (5:55 am)

      Josh. It’s clear you really dislike teachers. From your tone your anger is that they’re not providing the daycare you want them to. Is that what you want-teachers to make the same low pay as daycare workers? What exactly is your goal here????

    • Anne September 6, 2022 (6:53 am)

      “They only care about doing as little as possible for as much as possible”  are you kidding? That’s probably the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read. 

    • Shufflerunner September 6, 2022 (7:47 am)

      Just to check some of the constant misinformation and misrepresentation – a majority of teachers do not make the max on salary schedule but rather something half of that. The median teacher salary hovers something just below the median salary in Seattle. If you want an idea of how bad it is feel free to wonder over to the SPS jobs website and notice how many SPED jobs are unfilled. It’s hard work, you will be under paid for your education level, and now SPS is telling you that you they don’t care if you’re resourced correctly. 

    • Jeff September 6, 2022 (8:43 am)

      4 months a year off is beyond disingenuous and you know it, and $125k (the very top of the scale, as you say yourself) is just barely over median income for Seattle.     I have no strong opinion about who is in the right on this particular occasion, but you can’t make a solid argument from shaky foundations.  

    • Math Teacher September 6, 2022 (9:26 am)

      Confirmation bias, anyone? The link includes: “2. The district’s special education department will pilot a resource teacher workload calculator that takes into consideration student SDI, progress monitoring data collection, planning and prep periods, lunch, workload calculation time, and/or any other elements deemed necessary by the bargained CBA.”   The entire linked document makes no sense without a bargained CBA that addresses teacher workload.

    • The King September 6, 2022 (9:39 am)

      Nice play on the numbers but hardly accurate. Sounds like your angry at a teacher possibly making over $100,000 a year while our government lost billions to “Nigerian princes” in unemployment scams, we really don’t know how much our own state lost because inslee wouldn’t allow an investigation, how much did taxpayers shell out to PPP scams, 50 billion plus to supply weapons to a war we have nothing to do with. The list is very long. Your anger is misplaced. 

    • miws September 6, 2022 (10:00 am)

      Josh, this article is 9 years old, so, the dollar amounts have likely changed some, but it has some info dispelling the myth, you continue to repeat, that teachers only work 8 months out of the year: https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/08/how-many-hours-do-educators-actually-work

    • Shufflerunner September 6, 2022 (10:02 am)

      Again, all teachers do not make the max on the salary schedule. On average, a teachers salary in Seattle hovers just below the average salary for Seattle (just shy of $80K per year). That is with a degree and typically with a graduate degree plus certification. Teachers are also not a homogenous group, however, the vast majority care deeply about the welfare and success of their students otherwise they would not choose the profession. Resources for special education has been a continuous issue in SPS the can be seen by the disproportionate number of special education positions currently open on the SPS job board. 

    • Sasquatch September 6, 2022 (10:34 am)

      This misinformed attitude by Josh, and the targeting of teachers and the union as the “problem” only makes less of us want to teach. It is SPS that has failed to be at the negotiating table again and again. If they worked on this earlier, the contract would be finished. Furthermore, the issues with SPED date back 20 years or longer, including high-profile lawsuits and Federal intervention. Yet the problem persists. SPED students are mainstreamed without needed supports leading teachers to scramble to create multiple pathways for each learning standard. 

    • Really?! September 13, 2022 (3:55 pm)

      Not all teachers get paid $125,000 a year. Many make less than half of that amount. After 15 years, SPS teachers typically only get a raise if it’s a COLA from the district when it is bargained into the contract. This year SEA is bargaining for SUPPORT staff to earn more.  You know, someone can always go to private school. I am sure their local school wouldn’t mind. 

  • HPE fan September 5, 2022 (10:23 pm)

    The SPED task force does amazing work. The taskforce agrees on a proposal to recommend to the school board to adopt. the school board is what approves or denies or accepts portions of the recommendation.

  • Danny September 6, 2022 (3:08 am)

    Every piece of info coming out was made that way because SPS controls the flow of information. They have the media connections, they have the emails to every single parent. They no showed to a scheduled meeting on Saturday to continue contract talks. Did you know that?  If we really want to talk about bloated pay structures, take a good look at the Sanford Center on 3rd Ave/Lander. There’s an awful lot of nice looking cars driven by people who don’t leave that building. Almost all of them don’t work with kids at all. That’s where we need to start. Push the admins to the school sites. If they don’t qualify to work with  kids in a classroom, then get rid of them. Were you aware that several schools last year did not have a SPED teacher by the end of the school year? They quit because they were burned out. To top it off, it is a position that very few people on this planet can actually do effectively. I guarantee you couldn’t do it for more than a week.  The district promised more support in the classroom with more IAs or lower class numbers. Instead, they left the schools to deal with it themselves, without allowing them to hire anyone. The district said it was going to hire more teachers and IAs and never did. I’m not surprised why SEA isn’t doing the MOU. SPS lies, regularly.  I’m a parent BTW with friends on both sides and I’m taking the teachers’ side on this one. 

  • Westie September 6, 2022 (5:43 am)

    It would be good to know how many current Gen Ed classroom teachers are involved in this task force and have endorsed this?They are the one’s that must do the work – not a board, a council or a PTSA.Teachers in the classroom who can speak to what support systems they have or have not gotten from the school district at a building and classroom level.

  • WS Taxpayer September 6, 2022 (7:43 am)

    Holy Rosary is a wonderful School & Community with a number of openings…  

  • Fully Fund Special Education September 6, 2022 (7:48 am)

    Having read the district’s proposal, the unions concerns, and the Special Education Task Force’s original plan, it makes sense why this is a major hold up.
    The Task Force recommended a robust inclusion structure that will be built up over the next few school years. It includes specifics like guaranteed co-planning time (which is crucial for a co-teaching model) and a workload calculator that also includes ratio caps. Overall, it looks like a fairly solid plan and it makes sense that the team that created it had buy in from parents, teachers, and district staff originally.
    The problem with where bargaining is at is the district took these recommendations and used similar inclusion model language in their proposed contract but stripped out most of the language around the workload specifics that are necessary to make it work. Which would mean the goals would be the same but the district would not have the same accountability to support teacher workload. It is reasonable that the teachers would take issue with a change in service model that takes more resources to be implemented without those resources guaranteed in writing. Teaching is a service profession so teachers are well aware of the pressure placed on them to do more for the love of their students even when the resources and funding aren’t there. In a year where teacher burn out is so high nationwide, asking for even more without any guarantee of support is asking too much.
    The question we should be asking is why doesn’t the district want to include specifics that can be measured in their proposal so that they can be held accountable? If they intend to implement this plan with fidelity, they should be happy to commit to the metrics needed to make it work. By avoiding putting those specifics in writing in the enforceable contract, they’re avoiding accountability and that says a lot. Special education is an area the district has already been understaffing and dropping the ball on providing resources for year after year. It would be naive to just trust them to do the right thing for providing resources and manageable workloads without any specifics in place.
    Hoping they can come to a better agreement at the bargaining table and really hoping to avoid a strike, but I don’t blame teachers for speaking up for protecting their workload and district accountability. 

    • StringCheese September 6, 2022 (10:46 am)

      Very well stated FFSE. Thank you!

    • Ed September 6, 2022 (7:16 pm)

      Spot on.  

  • Curtis September 6, 2022 (8:17 am)

    Teachers need to get back to work.  Our kids have suffered enough.

    • Lauren September 6, 2022 (12:19 pm)

      Teachers have been at work for (at least) the past few weeks, getting classrooms set up, preparing lesson plans, attending meetings…

  • M September 6, 2022 (9:46 am)

    Does it seem odd that a rally is already planned at 4pm today, despite supposedly not knowing the results of the vote yet?  Why would you hold a rally if your teachers vote no on a strike? 

    • Lauren September 6, 2022 (12:20 pm)

      Because it’s next to impossible to plan an event like that at the very last minute :) 

  • Johnny Davies September 6, 2022 (10:51 am)

    As a parent of a 6th grader in SPS, I wholly support and have much gratitude for what the teachers do (year round) in their roles.  My general opinion is they should be paid much more for their important role in society.Admittedly, I’m lacking information about the timeline of these contract negotiations, so I have a question.  When do these negotiations begin and why are they seemingly conducted so late in the year? If earnest negotiations began in the past couple weeks, and knowing the likelihood that there could be challenges, this is hardly a “families” first mindset.  School is scheduled to begin TOMORROW and yet all families are left in limbo for childcare & planning.. the day before?  C’mon!why aren’t contracts negotiated before summer break, before teachers and admins leave their posts for the summer?if the answer is teacher union leverage as the school year is about to begin, then this definitely is not a kids/education first approach –  I.e. kids/families are used as leverage, which is a toxic and manipulative course of action.

    • zark00 September 6, 2022 (11:58 am)

      why is it SEA using the start of school as leverage and not SPS?  Reality here is that both SPS and SEA are using the start of school as leverage. One thing that is true, SEA have been honest in their communication about the negotiations thus far, and SPS have straight up lied to parents/families. SEA showed up on Friday and Saturday to negotiate, SPS did not, they cancelled 8 minutes before negotiations started Friday and just no-showed on Sunday. They sent communication to us (families) on Sunday saying they “continue to negotiate” while they literally did the opposite.  SPS is lying to you, SEA is not. 

      • Johnny Davies September 6, 2022 (1:21 pm)

        This is a fair & valid point that both are manipulating with the kids/families and start of school.  I also hadn’t asked who was truth telling, as you want to point out liars,  I just want to know why the negotiations are happening RIGHT NOW and not sooner.  Seems like a basic and logical ask.

  • Frustrated SPS Parent September 6, 2022 (11:14 am)

    If you’re curious what your teachers and school administrators make, check out this searchable database which has data from 2020- 21 school year. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/databases/article252016273.html The information was provided by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, responding to a public records request. It represents a snapshot in time – employees may have left or had changes in status or pay. If you account for the 16 weeks off (not including additional personal days) teachers are making more per hour than a lot of folks working in private industry in Seattle.  To challenge the comment about how much teachers really work, if it’s true that they are working all summer planning and preparing for the next school year, how about we just require them to show up at school to do this work?  My bet, there would be a huge uproar. Most teachers I know LOVE the benefit of 10 weeks of summer to enjoy time with their kids and recoup, some even became teachers because of it, to deny this huge benefit is disingenuous.  Also, I’d be happy to give teachers a raise ONCE they improve the average state proficiency rates in ELA, Math, and Science.  Currently SPS Report Card: 59.6% Met ELA Standards, 43.5% Met Math Standards, 44.1% Met Science Standard.  This is terrible! Maybe the district and our teachers should focus more on teaching our kids the basics instead of turning them in to social justice activists.   https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/100229

    • WestSeattleBadTakes September 6, 2022 (12:03 pm)

      When are you starting the forced labor camps?

    • zark00 September 6, 2022 (12:03 pm)

      School failed you if your take away from this is that teachers are overpaid. 

    • Alki September 6, 2022 (12:22 pm)

      Whole heartedly agree, especially with regards to the dismal state proficiency rates. Very sad indeed..

    • James September 6, 2022 (1:42 pm)

      Wow you’re blaming teachers??? What? It’s the SPS administration that is failing the kids. 

    • Say What? September 13, 2022 (4:33 pm)

      Hmmmm?! How many of Seattle students come from poverty or other events that impact their ability to learn? Even wealthy families spend more time and effort on sports than the importance of learning. It’s so easy to say what is wrong with education when you have no clue. Like everything, you have teachers that suck, but most are saints dealing with kids and then the parents who think their children isn’t the issue. Who doesn’t or can’t support their child. Instead of complaining and saying negative things, maybe, just maybe, ask a teacher how YOU can help your child or them. I bet there will be a bunch of kids who didn’t eat a good healthy breakfast. Didn’t get enough sleep and aren’t ready to learn once school does start. Parents have to help too. 

  • MsJ September 6, 2022 (12:13 pm)

    Just announced that they voted to strike. 

  • Frustrated Parent September 6, 2022 (12:56 pm)

    It’s time for us parents to strike. We’ll drop off our kids on your weekends and summer vacation. We’ll invoice SPS and the Union for time lost at work, for cost of unexpected, unbudgeted extra child care, and for our coffee, doughnuts, and picket signs materials.”Not All Teachers” is not an argument anymore.

    • WestSeattleBadTakes September 6, 2022 (3:37 pm)

      Absolutely unhinged. If you are a friend of this person, don’t enable this behavior. Call them out. Shame them if you have to.

    • ADMDEVILSADVOCATE September 6, 2022 (6:42 pm)

      You do realize that in addition to educating and molding your children into respectable members of society, public school teachers provide very affordable child care, right? Are teachers the ones to blame for the younger generation being glued to a screen or…?

      • Say What? September 13, 2022 (4:36 pm)

        Yep! You are right there. 

    • Say What? September 13, 2022 (4:48 pm)

      Sorry to inconvenience your privilege. School isn’t just a place for your child to go when you are at work. It isn’t the district’s, school’s or teacher’s responsibility to make sure your child has daycare. Ever. What is their responsibility is to teach standards. Now, when class sizes are large, it becomes extremely difficult to make sure every child’s needs are met. That is why teachers are striking. Take a minute and think about how spoiled you sound. 

  • special mom to special kid September 6, 2022 (1:56 pm)

    mom of autistic 6th grader, posting concerns about son being placed in a general ed classroom without there being a pathway for thoughtful differentiated instruction the gen ed teacher and special ed certified teacher co-create to benefit his personal needs.  i’ve never felt IEPs are read by general ed teachers, let alone followed or supported.  so,  i don’t see how instruction that was delivered in a resource room and created by certified instructors compares to my son being in gen ed without his gen ed teacher feeling supported and prepared for helping my son succeed.

Sorry, comment time is over.