As we celebrated Labor Day, we had the chance to reflect on how deeply strange it was to find ourselves, as Seattle School Board Directors, on the employer side of a potential strike from educators last week. Both of us are lifelong supporters of organized labor. Joe spent 19 years working in the labor movement with UFCW 3000, the largest private sector local union in Washington State. Gina worked alongside unions for years at King County. Both of us were fervently supported by labor when we ran for office. We believe unions make workplaces better, workers deserve strong wages and benefits, and teaching may be the hardest job in any school district.
That is why we are relieved that Seattle Public Schools (SPS) has stepped back from the brink of a strike that would have been painful for educators and students, but especially for working families scrambling to find childcare, change work schedules, or figure out how their children would access meals and other essential services.
At literally the eleventh hour, the night before over 50,000 Seattle students were set to start school, the Seattle Education Association (SEA) and SPS announced that they had reached a tentative agreement and there would not be a strike. This came after months of bargaining over a long list of issues, but at its core this bargain came down primarily to compensation and how special education services are delivered, two issues heavily impacted by our district budget. The negotiation teams were able to reach agreement on both issues and the agreement. Next, the agreement will go to ratification votes of both the SEA membership and SPS board.
With this bargaining cycle behind us, the real work should now begin. The only way to get out of this cycle of labor unrest and last-minute uncertainty is to permanently fix our broken education funding system.
Seattle started this budget cycle staring at an $87 million hole. We found a way to balance this year’s budget, but the underlying problem did not disappear. We made cuts, relied on one-time money, and dipped into our savings. Unless something fundamentally changes, our reserves are projected to go negative in 2027.
Special education tells the story particularly clearly. SPS expects to spend roughly $300 million this year providing services to students with disabilities, while the state provides only about $180 million. Seattle is left to fill a gap of roughly $120 million. These are not optional programs. They are legally required, essential services that our students need and deserve. And this is not just a Seattle problem. School districts across Washington are facing the same financial crisis and being forced into the same impossible choices.
Superintendent Ben Shuldiner has been unusually direct about the district’s financial condition: Seattle Public Schools face dire financial instability.
In the labor movement, when we face an employer who pleads poverty at the bargaining table, we rarely accept the premise that the only question is how to divide finite resources. If workers are being asked to settle for too small a slice of the pie, we push the employer to make the pie bigger.
But school boards, which oversee school and district budgets, approve personnel, and ultimately hold fiduciary responsibility, do not have the same power to grow our income. Washington state has systematically underfunded public education and, in particular, special education. But unlike large corporations, we don’t have profits to draw from. Unlike other government entities, we don’t even have the power to independently raise revenue.
In 2025 alone, Seattle voters had two opportunities to fund education, once on the February ballot for Educational Programs and Operations Levy (EP&O) and once on the November ballot for the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy (FEPP). Both measures passed with overwhelming support- around 80 percent of the vote along with a separate levy for capital funding.
But each of these measures face major restrictions. The EP&O levy that Seattle voters approved already exceeds the state-imposed levy cap on how much a school district can collect locally. That means that no matter how much wealth grows in Seattle, or how many levies voters approve, we face a hard cap on what Olympia allows us to collect. Think about that for a minute: Seattle voters overwhelmingly agreed to give our schools more money, and the Legislature will not allow us to collect all of it.
And although the recently renewed FEPP Levy includes millions of dollars for education in Seattle, only a small portion goes directly to the school district—the entity best positioned to direct resources to the classrooms and student services where they are needed most. About a third of the FEPP money goes to pre-K and about a third goes to fund higher education access, both vital programs, but none of that money helps the SPS budget. Even the third of the FEPP Levy designated for K-12 that could go to the district mostly goes to support external community groups rather than the district.
This is the reality of how challenging it is for Seattle school leaders to grow the pie of the resources at our disposal. Without additional resources, the choices we will be forced to make in the years ahead are grim. Our schools already operate with part-time librarians, nurses stretched across buildings, inadequate behavioral supports, and custodial staffing so thin that classrooms go three days between trash collection. Insolvency would mean even more dramatic cuts to programs and positions that most families would be devastated to lose. Like most austerity measures, the people who are hurt most drastically are the students in poverty who rely on our systems for basic support.
Hand waving our budget issues as just “tough choices” or blindly hoping that the state will save the day is a game of chicken that working families cannot afford.
That is why, now that we have avoided a strike, we should take all the energy that went into preparing for a fight with each other and redirect it toward the fight Seattle kids actually need. SEA, SPS, parents, students, community members, and districts across the state must unite. Together, we can demand increased funding from Olympia, ensure a larger share of FEPP levy funds directly support the school district, call for bolder leadership from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and permanently lift the levy lid.
Let’s end the cycle of false choices. Let’s reject the choice between losing nurses, librarians, or basic custodial services so teachers can receive reasonable raises. Let’s reject the choice of which already-inadequate system should become even more inadequate just to survive.
Let’s take this moment of relief and fight in solidarity to make the pie bigger, for our educators, our families and, most importantly, our kids.
Joe Mizrahi worked in the labor movement for 18 years, serving as the Secretary-Treasurer for UFCW 3000 for the last 7. He has served as the School Board Director for Position 4 since 2024. He now works as a Labor and Public Policy consultant.
Gina Topp is an attorney and restaurant owner who believes strong public schools are essential to Seattle’s future. She has represented District 6 on the Seattle School Board since 2023 and currently serves as Board President.
