The Seattle teachers union has signed off on its tentative agreement with the state’s largest school district.
Seattle educators signed off on a new contract with the state's largest school district to boost staffing levels and improve special education.
The union representing teachers, nurses, counselors, paraprofessionals, and other employees voted by the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline on the deal that narrowly avoided a strike. Last week, they approved the option to vote remotely.
“The agreement includes a new, input- and data-driven process to improve special education services,” a Seattle Education Association spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “It also includes several new measures that reduce the growing pressure on educators, from protected planning and collaboration time to increased staffing of nurses, psychologists and social workers or counselors.”
Parents like Anastas Rafailedes told KOMO News Tuesday they were glad to see contract talks coming to a close.
“Teachers could always use more pay, right?” Rafailedes said. “They have a really big job to do, and special education is very important. I think the points they were trying to make were good ones.”
The vote comes nearly two weeks after the union and SPS avoided an educators’ strike by reaching a tentative agreement late Sept. 1, just hours before the first school bell. For days amid the negotiations, union staff rallied for higher pay and more special education supports, threatening to strike and delay the start of classes. Eventually, both sides agreed to bring in a third-party mediator to assist with contract talks.
“That was really stressful for parents. If they could maybe figure this out a little sooner next time,” Rafailedes added.
The collective bargaining agreement is hundreds of pages long, SPS Superintendent Ben Shuldiner has said.
“Our work and our commitment to our students and each other made this possible,” the union wrote in an announcement posted on social media shortly after the 7 p.m. voting deadline Tuesday.
The agreement has some people wondering how it could shape the district’s finances amid an $87 million budget deficit. Shuldiner has said the contract keeps SPS well within its ability to "possibly stay solvent," and that the negotiated salaries fall within a range the district was willing to negotiate.
“There’s still a lot of work ahead, but I think the cost of the new [collective bargaining agreement] allows us to now try to tackle the really large systemic budget issues that we have,” Superintendent Shuldiner explained about the tentative deal on the first day of classes, adding the district and union came together on topics like salary, special education supports and help for multilingual learners. “I think it was an understanding about where both sides were coming from so that we could actually center kids."
Dani Dugan’s son just entered kindergarten in West Seattle, and she said she hopes the teachers get what they deserve.
“Coming from a corporate and tech background myself, I think teachers do the most honest and underrated work, and I know there aren’t always resources to support them in terms of really high salaries,” she added.
The Seattle Public Schools board still needs to ratify the agreement, which could happen at its meeting Wednesday.
