By JULIA SIVERMAN/The Oregonian/OregonLive
ALBANY — Before last year’s prolonged 11-day educator walkout in Portland, teacher strikes had been few and far between in Oregon for decades.
Now the state is seeing its second strike in a year, as teachers at Greater Albany Public Schools, which serves nearly 9,000 students, hit the picket line Tuesday. The two sides have been bargaining since February.
The sticking points in Albany are virtually the same as they were in Portland, and similar to those dragging out current negotiations in Beaverton and Hillboro.
Teachers want smaller classes and caseloads, a larger cost of living increase, more planning time and more support for handling student behavior issues. They say their employers can afford those things by making administrative cuts and spending down reserves.
Like their counterparts in Portland, school boards and administrators in Albany, Beaverton and Hillsboro have said they share the same priorities, but that the Legislature doesn’t give stretched districts enough money to afford the changes, particularly given the ever-rising costs of running a school system.
November is a particularly potent time of year for a hardball tactic like a strike. Elections have concluded and the legislative session looms, meaning the strike and what it costs to resolve it will be fresh in the minds of lawmakers when they convene in Salem in January.
The debate over class size is typically one of the most popular talking points for families and most expensive items on teachers unions’ wish lists, because it means hiring a sizable number of new educators.
In Albany, the school district has said that it could cost $8.5 million over the three-year contract to fulfill its teachers union’s request on class sizes.
During an afternoon press conference Tuesday, Greater Albany Superintendent Andy Gardner said teachers made it plain during a marathon bargaining session that went until the wee hours on Tuesday morning that class size caps were a top priority.
“[Teachers] ended with a statement that ‘If we do not have a hard cap on class size, we will go on strike,’” Gardner said. “… We have come back and provided counteroffers that include an improved process to address class size with teachers. We have offered to set aside a fund of $250,000 to solve those problems. The issue seems to be that there is a need on their part to have a hard class cap.”
The Oregon Education Association has advocated for nearly a decade for the passage of a law that would make class sizes a mandated topic of bargaining for all schools, not just those that serve the largest concentrations of low-income students, as has been required since 2021.
But school boards and administrators pushed back strongly both times, contending that doing so would impede their ability to direct more money from limited budgets into schools that serve those most vulnerable students and would leave them no choice but to chop days or weeks from the school year when budget cuts need to be made.
As unions make class size a centerpiece of labor actions, the state teachers union is promising to push for legislation on the issue again in Salem next year, said Emily McLain, director of public affairs for the Oregon Education Association.
“Class sizes play out constantly in terms of the success of students and teachers,” McLain said. “It’s a key issue about why educators are on strike today in Albany and it continues to be a part of bargaining across the state.”
The statewide teachers union is a reliable source of political donations to Democrats who now hold a supermajority in the Oregon Senate and a 35 to 25 majority in the House.
Efren Zamudio, the senior legislative specialist for the Oregon School Boards Association, said he believes some lawmakers will be receptive to class size legislation, given the spotlight on the topic.
The broader issue, he said, and one that will require a unified front in Salem, is how much money schools will receive for day-to-day operations from the state budget and whether it will stretch to better cover the salary increases sought by unions.
In Albany, one of the largest gulfs between what teachers are seeking and what the district has offered has to do with salaries and cost-of-living increases. Proposals are in flux, but the district had previously offered cost of living increases of between 14 percent and 17 percent over the three year contract, depending on seniority, while teachers were seeking between 22 percent and 26 percent.
In Portland, educators eventually settled for a roughly 14% raise over the life of a three-year contract, a marker in the sand that educators and district negotiators in other metro area districts have said looms large over their current deliberations.
- Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at jsilverman@oregonian.com
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