Whenever Seattle’s teachers threaten to strike, they always claim their advocacy is for the kids. But it’s hard to take that seriously. Because, in fact, they don’t need to strike at all.
As Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said in a blistering email to parents on Sunday night — three days before the start of the new school year — the Seattle Education Association, which represents about 6,000 of the district’s educators, could work under their current contract even after it expires Monday night, while continuing to negotiate with Seattle Public Schools. Teachers would continue to be paid, and they’d get their raises retroactively, as soon as a new agreement is signed.
“We are not the NFL owners who lock out our players trying to exact concessions or givebacks,” the superintendent wrote. “There is absolutely no reason to strike other than to flex power.”
In the maelstrom of innuendo and spin coming from both sides, this is the crux of the matter. The teachers union can continue to press for improved working conditions without throwing thousands of families into upheaval.
They can continue to argue for staff-to-student ratios in special education that are higher than the district wants — without delaying the education of 50,000 students. (It’s also somewhat awkward for the union to make its stand on this issue when SEA President Ibijoke Idowu, a special-education teacher, was under district investigation for physically harming one of her students when elected to the position. She denies the allegations.)
As well, there’s a legitimate argument to be made for overhauling special education in Seattle, since its outcomes are widely seen as subpar. Graduation rates for students with disabilities have been trending downward the past three years.
It’s hard to be sure special education ratios are even the real sticking point — or if there is one beyond flexing muscle — since late in this arduous, months-long negotiation the teachers union presented a brand-new special education proposal millions of dollars more expensive than what they’d initially offered.
That is the definition of “regressive bargaining,” Shuldiner says, and it triggered him to immediately call in an outside mediator from the Public Employment Relations Commission, who worked all day Sunday and was back at it Monday.
It’s a level of hardball this district has not seen before.
But School Board President Gina Topp and Vice President Joe Mizrahi — himself a former leader of one of Washington’s largest unions — are on board with it. So are the rest of SPS’s trustees, they say, and many parents, including those who value the education provided by Seattle’s teachers.
Using special needs students as pawns in a labor negotiation is an ugly tactic. But it’s not the school district that’s doing so.
