Vancouver Public Schools and its union are throwing public barbs, each issuing letters to the community after ongoing negotiations yielded no salary deal after three days of striking.
Superintendent Steve Webb issued an “Open Letter to the Community” on the district’s website and FlashAlert, a widely used press release distribution service, saying “every single net new discretionary McCleary dollar, and more, would be invested into teacher compensation.”
Again, Webb blamed the Legislature for changes to state school funding, saying the district is “in a no-win position of negotiating fair and competitive teacher salaries while significantly reducing the amount of revenue we can collect to help pay for employee compensation.”
The letter prompted the Vancouver Education Association, the teachers union, to issue a letter of their own, accusing Webb and other county districts of “making excuses and complaining about our state’s new funding system.”
“They claim that somehow our seven striking districts are unique, that somehow we’re different than all those districts that have provided their educators with pay raises,” the letter read.
“The only place a contract can get settled is at the bargaining table,” Rich Wood, Washington Education Association spokesman, said of Webb’s initial letter. “Not on social media or the district website. When administrators resort to a war of numbers in the public, that usually means they aren’t focused on getting the deal done. It’s more of a stalling tactic.”
But district spokeswoman Pat Nuzzo said Webb wanted to clarify what the district has offered for pay raises.
“The superintendent just wanted to make sure that people are aware of what has been offered, because of some of the information that’s been circulating, that the district’s not offering enough or as much as they can.”
Details of proposal
Teachers remain at odds over salary agreements, as districts around Washington negotiate how to spend the additional money they’re slated to receive after two years of McCleary legislation. The Legislature allocated $7.3 billion over four years toward basic education during the 2017 session, then approved another $1 billion in school funding after the state Supreme Court told them to allocate more toward teacher salaries.
More districts are expected to start striking next week. Seattle Public Schools, the state’s largest district, announced an agreement late Friday night.
Vancouver Public Schools is slated to receive an additional $52.4 million in net new discretionary funding over the next three years, according to Webb’s letter. The union agrees with that figure.
According to the district, teachers at the bottom of the salary scale under the district’s proposal on Sunday would see a 14.8 percent salary increase over the next three years to $51,254. The most experienced teachers, meanwhile, would see raises over that same time period of 18.4 percent to $99,406.
The district estimates that proposal would cost the district about $57.7 million over the next three years.
Still, the union letter accused Webb of “holding back money specifically allocated for educator salaries.”
“Webb and his fellow superintendents in other nearby districts refuse to settle with their educators,” the letter reads. It did not specify the teacher’s latest salary proposal or the amount they say the district is holding back.
Nuzzo said additional proposals have been made since Sunday. The district has not released details on more recent proposals.
Vancouver Public Schools is among 30 districts statewide working with a Public Employment Relations Commission mediator to aid in negotiations. PERC Executive Director Mike Sellars said mediators generally advise the organizations they’re working with to limit their outside communication. It does vary from mediation to mediation and the culture of the group, but “it’s not going to serve either party anything to basically just castigate the other side publicly on social media,” he said.
Nuzzo said no one advised the district not to share information about proposals.
Evergreen Public Schools posted to its website shortly after a mediator began working with that district that it would no longer post documents shared by the district or the Evergreen Education Association. But sometime this week, the district posted an infographic depicting a perky looking woman holding books reading “spending the full state allocation on our teachers … and then some.”
Demonstrations
After apparently little movement this week, the district’s largest teachers unions signed off on a week of striking with large-scale rallies at their district offices. About 2,000 people gathered at Vancouver Public Schools’ offices on Falk Road, including parents, students and members of the firefighter’s union and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. A group of music teachers performed pep band tunes, while drivers blasted on their horns as they passed.
The bargaining team, meanwhile, continued to meet, stepping out briefly to wave to supporters and hug members.
Anne Wiley, a first-grade teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School, was helping direct traffic at Vancouver Public Schools.
“I think everybody was getting tired,” she shouted over the raucous music and blaring horns. “But this has really sent us into the weekend on a positive note.”
Across town, Evergreen Public Schools saw a similarly large crowd at Northeast 28th Street, where district offices are located. Still, no deals came Friday. Vancouver and Evergreen both are slated to continue negotiating Saturday.
Wiley, the teacher and a picket captain, said she was frustrated by Webb’s letter.
“Everybody I talked to got very angry,” she said. “We felt like it was a misrepresentation.”
Read more strike coverage at www.columbian.com/news/schools.
