Seattle teachers, staff members picket outside schools

SEATTLE Teachers across Seattle took to the picket lines Wednesday as thousands of parents seek child care options and leaders of Seattle Public Schools consider legal action to end a strike that’s the first of its kind in 30 years.

Meanwhile, Seattle school officials have canceled school Thursday, but also said the two sides will return to the bargaining table that day.

Teachers announced their walkout Tuesday evening, just before the Seattle School Board voted to authorize the superintendent to go to court to try to force them back to work.

Engineering instructor Doug Hartley was among dozens of Cleveland High School employees who cheered for honking cars and waved picket signs saying “On Strike!” at South Lucile Street and 15th Avenue South on Wednesday morning.

They started marching down the street at 8:25 a.m., with Hartley giving directions and passing out Seattle Education Association union garb and signs.

“It doesn’t seem like we’re getting much respect from the district. It isn’t about the money or anything else; it’s respect,” he said.

Hartley has been a Seattle School District employee for more than two decades. And after years of settling for what he called “subpar contracts,” he said teachers aren’t going to “roll over” anymore.

“We’ve been putting up for so much for so long. At some point, it’s the tipping point,” he said. “This isn’t vacation for us. ... I don’t know how many weeks or months it’s going to take. I hope it doesn’t last forever.”

Biology teacher Mike Shaw said that by raising compensation for teachers the district might lower its turnover rate. Teachers are coming to the area to gain experience, he said, and then often move to other places where the pay is higher.

“It’s time for teachers to get paid what they are worth,” Shaw said. “It’s time for Seattle schools to say it with money.”

Members of the union that represents about 5,000 Seattle teachers and other school employees voted Thursday to strike if they failed to reach a consensus with district officials on contract agreements before school was supposed to start.

District officials and union leaders have said bargaining will continue, even amid the strike.

The two sides have been in contract talks for months. They reached agreement on a number of issues over the Labor Day weekend, including a guaranteed 30 minutes of recess for elementary students and increased pay for certified and classified substitute teachers.

Unresolved issues include pay increases and increased instructional time.

The district wants to add 30 minutes to the school day, saying that will increase student achievement and allow more time for physical education, arts and music.

And the district says it has provided raises to teachers over the past several years, even when the state wasn’t providing cost-of-living increases, and said its salary proposal would keep Seattle teachers among the highest paid in the state.

A little before noon, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray spoke at Van Asselt Community Center, thanking its staff for scrambling to help cover families’ child care needs.

Murray dipped his hands in wet starch with the kids to shape bouncy balls, joking that the kids, who were at the center for the school day, were better at the task than he was.

The mayor said he was encouraged that both the school district and the teachers’ union were continuing to talk. He said he didn’t intend to get involved in the negotiations, but said that education funding is a “multi-decade crisis” in Washington and said he wasn’t surprised that the teachers voted to strike.

(Seattle Times reporters Lynn Thompson and Paige Cornwell contributed to this report.)

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