Kent teachers rally at ShoWare Center as strike continues

Sunday began with negotiations between the Kent Education Association and the school district, which failed to resolve the teachers’ strike.

At about noon the association released a statement that a contract settlement had not been reached with the Kent School District and there would be no school Monday.

The statement was posted on the association’s blog at about noon.

Later in the afternoon parents in the school district received a recorded call from Superintendent Edward Vargas stating school would not be open because, “the Kent teachers’ union has determined that their strike will continue.”

Sunday ended with an 8 p.m. rally organized by the union at the ShoWare Center in Kent. Several hundred people gathered including teachers, parents and students.

Kent Education Association President Lisa Brackin-Johnson said after the rally, “The teachers are staying resolute to what they believe and what is good for the students.”

Dale Folkerts, spokesman for the union, said at about 11 a.m. Sunday if an agreement was not reached by noon, there would not be time to get the information out to parents and teachers for school to start Monday.

“We are saddened the district has not taken these issues seriously enough to bring a compromise,” Folkerts said by phone Sunday. “The issues are the classes are too crowded and too many administrative meetings. It robs the teachers’ time with the students.”

Pay has also been an issue, but according to Folkerts it did not spark the strike.

Folkerts said he believes if the other two issues had been dealt with the union and district could have come to an agreement over wages.

The most difficult negotiating point according to Folkerts is the district “refuses to put a cap on class sizes. They will not compromise on what the top limit number is.”

Folkerts said the strike will last “until there is movement.”

District Communications Director Becky Hanks said, “We have put new proposals on the table that specifically address what is important to the teachers. We will be there to work, our team is committed, but we will not commit to things we cannot sustain. We have to be able to pay for what we promise.”

Hanks said the problem from the district’s perspective with a cap on class sizes is, “if we put a cap on it you can’t have balance across the classes. In some classes a teacher may have 24 and one class 30.”

According to Hanks teachers were not to have more than 145 students in all the classes during one day and there were seven teachers above 145.

“We need to look at those seven,” Hanks said. “But 95 percent our classes are below 145.”

Hanks stated the district has agreed to bring in extra help if classes are too large.

In the recorded message from Vargas, which was sent by e-mail to The Reporter, he stated, “We have offered extra support and instructional assistants in all 5th and 6th grade classes with more than 29 students. In addition we’ve proposed a joint task force with our teachers’ union to study and address class size issues within available funding.”

Hanks said the district has addressed 16 issues brought up by the union during the negotiation.

Brackin-Johnson said at the rally the 16 were, “side issues. They have not addressed class size and time with students.”

At the rally Lili Slaughter, a mother with a first and seventh-grade student said, “I think classes do need to be smaller.”

Cynthia Tanis, a mother of two students at Neely-O’Brien Elementary in Kent, said the numbers on class size posted on the district’s Web site are inaccurate. She held a sign at the rally stating “Hey KSD… Got Math?”

“In my son’s class they said there were 18 students,” Tanis said. “There were 24. I sent an e-mail to the district asking where they got their numbers. We were flabbergasted.”

The following is an excerpt of the transcript from the district of the recorded message sent out by Vargas:

“Hello, this is Superintendent Vargas. I regret to inform you that the Kent teachers’ union has determined that their strike will continue. As a result, there will be no school, tomorrow, August 31.

Please allow me to take a brief moment of your time to update you.

In addition to reaching agreement on 16 of the union’s proposals, the district has also made the following offers:

1) Compensation: Average 3% pay increase this year and 1.5% next year. This increase amounts to $8.5 million.

2) Time: We have decreased the meetings that teachers must attend, while increasing teacher collaboration time.

3) Class Size: We have offered extra support and instructional assistants in all 5th and 6th grade classes with more than 29 students. In addition we’ve proposed a joint task force with our teachers’ union to study and address class size issues within available funding.

Despite these offers, we do not yet have resolution.

Please visit our website at kentschooldistrict.org for updates and to learn about the district’s work to resolve these issues.

Again, I want to remind you there is no school tomorrow, Monday, August 31. Thank you for your patience and support. I assure you that we are committed to reaching resolution and getting our students back in school where they belong.”

The following is the excerpt from the blog posted today from the Kent Education Association:

“ Kent teachers are saddened to announce that no tentative contract agreement is in place. The district continues to refuse to meaningfully negotiate solutions to the issues that sparked this strike: over-crowed classes and too many administrative meetings that rob our teachers’ time with students. As a result, we have no contract on which to vote, and KEA will NOT meet this afternoon for a general membership meeting….

Overcrowded classes and endless staff meetings are important issues that are harming our students, and the district will need to address them before our contract can be settled. We hope they choose to do it sooner rather than later.

Where’s Vargas? What happened to the leadership in Kent Schools? Each day of School Board procrastination will now cause one more day’s delay to the start of school.

Picketing will resume at individual schools across Kent Monday morning.