Contract! La Conner teachers settle with school district

“There will be school tomorrow,” Katie Wigal, spokesperson for La Conner Education Association teachers reported in a phone call to the Weekly News. About 1:45 p.m. Tuesday La Conner Education Association teachers reached a tentative agreement with the La Conner school district. The teachers met at the high school library at 7 p.m. to vote on the contract.

“Everyone hugged,” Whitney Meissner, school superintendent, relayed in a phone call to the Weekly News, an indication that the teacher negotiating team will recommend passage. Meissner, too, said school would start Wednesday.

Tuesday’s bargaining session went about three hours, Meissner said, with the two sides coming to “an agreement and everyone is happy.”

The teachers team is Aly Sehlin, Suzann Keith, Susanne Bruland and Washington Education Association representative Nick Lawrie. Representing the administration Tuesday was Business Manager Bonnie Haley, Fiscal Consultant Jim Baker, Superintendent Whitney Meissner and Middle and High School Principal Todd Torgeson.

All 294 public school districts in Washington are negotiating contracts this summer, a result of the state legislature adding some two billion dollars to the education budget for teacher’s salaries to meet the state supreme court’s McCleary decision mandate to fully fund public schools and increase teacher pay.

As the teachers forcefully expressed at Monday’s school board meeting, they were insisting on a contract that made their pay competitive with other school districts in the area. They shared figures showing La Conner teachers were effectively second from the bottom of 24 area school districts. See the tables on this page.

The teachers have shown unanimity, with 100 percent voting support of the negotiating team. Over 50 teachers, their children and community members attended a rally before the start of the Aug. 14 negotiating session.

“I am super excited that there is a tentative agreement,” Wigal said, expressing a belief on which all sides likely unanimously agree.

School board Chairperson Kate Szurek, District 1, praised Meissner and Haley, saying that in the exempt session Monday the two were “instrumental for helping us reach toward the teachers. … they helped to satisfy us.”

Szurek was appreciative that the LEA “is committed to working with the leadership team to help make sure the contract is sustainable.”

Details of the contract are not being made public until after the teachers vote.

Monday night

The evening ended where no one wanted, with an overwhelming vote by La Conner’s teachers to strike today if a tentative agreement with the La Conner school district administration is not reached. The Weekly News received a press release at 10 p.m. that stated, “La Conner educators remain resolute in finding an agreement.”

The release quotes La Conner Education Association Co-President Lisa Thomas: “Our proposals are a salary correction, after years of being at the bottom of pay in the region. More importantly, what we are asking for is sustainable for the future of our district.”

Monday afternoon

The teachers’ contract was the primary item on the agenda at Monday’s school board meeting. By its 5:30 p.m. start time, close to 150 people had filed into the first-floor meeting room. They filled it, lining up against the walls and sitting on the floor. The blue T-shirts teachers are wearing predominated, but children and elders were well represented.

Suzann Keith, an English, language arts and social studies teacher and member of the negotiating team, presented the La Conner Education Association’s position using PowerPoint. This was probably the same material shared with the administration negotiating team on Sunday.

The teachers are emphasizing the large gap between their pay scale and teachers in regional school districts. Keith told the board: “For many, many years La Conner teachers have received significantly less pay than teachers in other districts, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Two of her slides are on page one. On a percent of revenue of school budgets spent on certified teacher salaries, La Conner was last among seven area districts ranging from Coupeville to Sedro-Woolley. The table states teacher salaries are 39 percent of the budget in Coupeville and 32.5 percent in Conway. La Conner spent 29.7 percent of its budget on teachers in 2017-2018.

Similarly, La Conner teachers are 21st of 24 area districts for minimum and maximum salaries. With Concrete and Nooksack Valley being in a virtual tie at 22 and 23, La Conner is second from the bottom. Minimum salaries are 16.4 percent, or $7,199 below the leading Arlington district. The gap is wider at the maximum level; the $16,522 is 20 percent lower.

Keith said the district’s Sunday offer would not make up the gaps. She told the directors “We are asking for compensation on par with our neighbors.” The Association’s proposal would not require an increase in levy dollars, she said and pointed out that the district could sustain the higher salaries, that in the next three years the state legislature will “significantly increase” funding to the district, $1.9 million above 2016’s level.

Her union, the Washington Education Association, counts “$2 billion specifically to increase educator salaries in 2018-19” statewide, a result of the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision to increase school funding as required by the constitution.

She concluded “We ask the board and administration to move teachers form the bottom of the pack to become competitive” with area districts and asked, “the school board to take all measures to approve the contract tomorrow.”

The room provided a sustained standing ovation with hoops and hollers.

A point Keith made, that La Conner teachers could take jobs in neighboring districts 10 or 30 minutes away and gain substantial increases, was echoed by the six teachers that followed her. Peter Voorhees, athletic director and football coach, said he was the only one of five teachers with whom he started with nine years ago still at La Conner, that three of them, good teachers, had moved for better pay.

Fifth grade teacher Keith Hunter brought a list of teachers who had left the district. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. “I have a great principal in Bev Bowen.”

Hunter’s challenge to the board: “think what you have going on and what you are going to lose: just pure passion,” was riffed on by other teachers. Eric Adam, the elementary technology staff, held up the district’s “high standard of respect,” and said, “those districts that hold themselves to a standard of respect will retain that level of respect.” His challenge: “Now it is up to you to do what we tell our students to do: ‘Do what is right.’”

Similarly, Kindergarten teacher Katie Wigal offered the three guidelines she uses in class: the golden rule, use common sense and make good decisions.

The seven teachers shared their personal stories, whether they were 1970 La Conner graduates like Judy Zimmerman, with deep roots and a sixth generation of students on the way, or transplants like Hunter and Voorhees, who said this was his dream job. They expressed love, commitment and appreciation for their students, the staff and the community.

Wigal said earlier “We are not asking for anything that is not sustainable. We are asking for the money that is there and that is to be used for salaries.” Like others, she called it a salary correction mandated by the state supreme court and funded by the legislature.

Immediately following the meeting, the school board went into exempt session with its administrators, Meissner and Haley.School board directors are Chair Kate Szurek, Janie Beasley, Brad Smith, Lynette Cram, John Thulen and Matty Lagerwey, student representative.

The La Conner school district has almost 600 students, and the La Conner Education Association represents more than 49 certificated teachers.

Sunday

By 9 a.m. teachers, their spouses and children and community supporters were setting up tents, camp chairs, grills, tables, food and refreshments and corn hole ahead of the 10:30 a.m. negotiation session. The group numbered over 75 adults and children.

Bargaining continued till about 8:30 p.m. when the administration team called an end to the day. The teacher representatives asked them to continue. They declined.

Meissner, Haley, Torge-son, fiscal consultant Jim Baker, and contracted negotiator David Burgess walked passed a crowd of teachers to their cars.

The teachers met in the middle school for 90 minutes.

Susanne Bruland, union co-president, negotiating team member and third grade teacher, expressed her disappointment with the talks ending without an agreement.

Georgia Johnson, culinary arts teacher, was also frustrated, saying “They had agreed to keep going. We are feeling disrespected.”

The district posted this on its Facebook page: “The District and LEA were unable to reach an agreement despite over 10 hours of negotiations on Sunday. We will continue bargaining on Tuesday, August 28.”

Later Meissner said “We are looking forward to a settlement on Tuesday. We were negotiating within the board’s parameters.”

Teachers and supporters expressed disappointment that the administration left without an agreement. They pointed to the Aug. 14 Facebook post: “Both sides have agreed to set aside as much time as is needed on that Sunday.” They had interpreted that as meaning talks would continue until a settlement was reached.

Around the region

Coupeville teachers and administration reached agreement for a 22.2 percent raise by Aug. 22.

Mount Vernon teachers rejected their school board’s offer Monday and authorized a strike if a settlement wasn’t reached by the district’s first day of school, Sept. 4.

The Sedro-Woolley school board was set to approve a contract for a 17.7 percent raise for teachers at its Aug. 27 board meeting,

Stanwood-Camano teachers voted overwhelmingly to strike if a tentative agreement is not reached by the Aug. 31 expiration of their contract. The first day of the strike would be Sept. 4. The vote was Aug. 23.

These are the only two contracts approved north of Edmunds.

Educators in some 30 school districts across Washington already have negotiated double-digit percentage pay raises this summer according to a La Conner Education Association news release.