A Clark County Superior Court judge signed an injunction Friday morning against the Battle Ground Education Association, ordering teachers to return to the classroom Monday.
However, at a Battle Ground Education Association general membership meeting that evening, teachers voted by a rate of 89 percent to defy the order. Teachers will remain on the picket lines until a settlement is reached, said Marina Heinz, vice president for the union.
“It sends a message that the Battle Ground teachers are united and will not be divided by the outcome of (Friday) morning’s ruling,” Heinz said. “We also know bargaining will continue until a tentative agreement is reached.”
Heinz declined to give more details about the vote count but said there was a “significant amount” of teachers at Friday evening’s meeting.
The decision comes despite Judge Scott Collier’s ruling that strikes are illegal in Washington. He added that Superior Court judges across the state have ruled in favor of school districts filing injunctions against teachers.
“It’d be naive of me to look at 20 other judges ruling this way, and I have a contrary opinion out there by myself,” he said. “I’m not out there by myself.”
Following the ruling, both union leadership and the district shared their desire to see students back in the classroom.
“We just want to get our kids back in school,” said Mark Ross, superintendent for the district.
But Heinz, a fourth-grade teacher, said the only way to accomplish that is at the bargaining table.
“Taking teachers to court is not a solution. It is a bully tactic and a distraction,” she said in a news conference prior to the court hearing.
Both sides will continue to bargain through the weekend.
No penalties or fines have been set for defying the judge’s order. Collier scheduled a hearing for Sept. 21 to revisit the issue if the strike continues.
The union and the district remain $4.3 million apart in their offers, according to the district. A fact finder on Monday is slated to meet with the district and union to discuss the district’s finances and help guide the parties through a resolution.
“The end of this does not appear to be imminent,” the district’s attorney, Bill Coats, said in court. “We will continue to work hard. We will continue to try to negotiate in good faith. But as we do this, this is dragging out more and more and is not something we will be able to settle in the immediate future.”
Battle Ground Public Schools officials would not give specific comment on the union’s evening vote.
“We are at the bargaining table, and focused on the process,” district spokeswoman Rita Sanders said.
Next steps
It was clear early Friday that sending teachers back to the classroom would take more than a judge’s order. Red-clad teachers gathered in the Clark County Courthouse hallway outside Collier’s courtroom following the decision, whispering about what would happen next and whether they intended to return to the picket lines.
Irene Soohoo, a humanities teacher at Pleasant Valley Middle School, said she doesn’t plan to return to class Monday.
“We are as good or better as any districts as far as the teachers go, but it’s not reflected in our pay,” she said.
Soohoo has been teaching for 45 years, 25 with the Battle Ground school district, she said, and her pay has not kept up with that in other districts. Enough is enough, she said.
“We’ve been disrespected for years,” she said.
William Baur spoke to The Columbian on Thursday, sharing his experience as a teacher on strike in not one, but two districts.
Baur, a math and science teacher at River HomeLink, taught in Tacoma in 2011 when teachers there were on strike for eight days over class sizes and proposed pay cuts.
Teachers there were ordered back to work, but in a meeting at the Tacoma Dome, voted by a vast majority to defy the injunction.
Baur was among them.
“It was a very emotional vote to defy the injunction,” he said. “It brought me to going through that all over again.”
When asked if he thinks Battle Ground will see the same defiance, Baur said there’s strong solidarity in the district in support of the union’s bargaining team.
“Any scare tactic or delay method is really not going to convince us to back down at this point,” he said.
