Fuck McKenna. His legal opinions are as relevant as Cheney's opinion on the Iran deal.

Nice reporting, Sydney.

Another SPS family in favor of the teacher's position, however long it takes. They're underpaid and under-respected.

Perhaps SPS could have used some of the money they spent on the neighborhood roundtables and *years* of research on the later start times for middle and high school students to fund some of the teacher's requests.

@moretent: They're underpaid and under-respected

Some teachers are underpaid. Others are overpaid. The union contributes to this problem.

Still, I think we can all agree that there should be funding for more teachers in order to reduce class sizes.

Rob McKenna is a crappy lawyer.

If we all went to our bosses and said give me 6 or 7 percent more a year we would be finding new jobs. This is ridiculous. The best benefits and more paid time off than any other profession. Seriously union stop acting like you are doing this for the kids.

Dling57, teachers don't get paid time off. They just spread their yearly income over the course of the whole year when they're not in school. They are getting paid during their time off, but with money withheld from them during the school year.

And the ask of 6-7% is what anyone with common bargaining sense would ask for if the goal of both sides was to meet in the middle. The increase only seems large, but it's to make up for no salary increase for 6 years and a cost of living in the city they work disproportionately higher than other districts when compared by salary.

So why not move to other districts, you might say.... Then all good teachers would leave the district and then you would have some seriously overpaid teachers.

So $15.00 an hour is ok for a burger flipper but 6-7% increase for some one with a BA, BS, or masters is too much?

Thank you for committing journalism, Sydney. It's something the Seattle Times seems loathe to do when they're campaigning on an issue.

It's clear now the District has been dragging its feet in negotiations because they want a strike. However, this is Larry Nyland's last stand, before Leslie Harris boots McLaren from office, and the school board has a majority that is not anti-teacher.

@7 you are assuming there are no burger flippers with BA, BS, MAster's.

Let the Teachers Strike FOREVER I don't care after what did to Charter Schools…. makes an ever STRONGER case for MORE Charter Schools!!!