Voices From the Picket Lines: Salmon Bay K-8 School

Tell me about why you’re out here today.

For me, this strike is not about pay or about any of these smaller issues, but it’s about bringing everyone together to finally show some unity and have a voice [and] to have the shaping of education come from communities and educators, not from legislators and administrators or corporations. I think this strike represents a return of the swing of the pendulum to go back toward that. We’re done being pushed in that direction so far that the administrators and legislators get to tell us everything that we do. Their micromanaging is completely out of control.

In what ways are they micromanaging?

They are using testing to shape what we teach, which I think is very backwards. The common core is designed to give us very specific skills and things we need to teach that aren’t necessarily developmentally appropriate. What the district seems to be wanting to do is tell us exactly what to teach, when to teach it, and how to teach it. Then, they want to test it… because that gives administrators the numbers they want to see.

You’re dealing with that here?

No, I think that’s what we all fear. What we’re dealing with here is having to change a lot of the things we feel are best practice that are alternative teaching methods because it doesn’t fit with what the common core is requiring of us.

What could the district do [about that testing]?

What the union has asked for is for there to be a clear limit on how much testing there is, for there to be a schedule that’s made ahead of time to show when that’s going to happen, and for teachers to get to be part of that conversation… The district so far has refused to allow us to be part of that conversation or to put any limits on the number of tests that we give.

Tell me about your experience teaching here. Where in the classroom do you see the issues you’re bargaining over?

The equity issue I can see in my classroom. Because we don’t have a lot of children of color here, and so when we do have children of color, whatever has happened with them isn’t necessarily addressed by our system because we are mostly white people here, to be frank about that. [Eckert also spoke to the equity question earlier, as I was interviewing teacher Bill Sweigert (see below). “Because our school values social justice so highly,” Eckert said, “we would be here even if nothing would change for our kids. It’s an issues we have to stand up for even if we’re just showing our kids how important it is to stand up for equity.”]

The special ed issues have a lot of impact here because a lot of the alternative schools end up having more special needs kids than traditional schools because when things don’t work out for kids at other schools they come here… All of our special ed staff are incredibly overworked. They have way too many kids and not enough time to spend with them. The instructional assistants are very poorly paid and as a result we have a really hard time keeping people who are really good at that job…

And the pay is definitely hard. I’m a single mom and I live in the south end and I can’t afford to live close to my school. I can’t live in this neighborhood. There’s no way. If for some reason my rent did change, I’d have to move out of Seattle because I couldn’t possibly find another place to live.

How long are you willing to stay on strike?

As long as it takes. It means we have no summer next summer… but I don’t care. I think it’s really important.

My family is all teachers, so I’ve watched the kind of swinging of the pendulum over time, the evolution of education. I feel like this is a really important moment when there’s a strong tension. The corporate interests and the political interests are really in a tug of war that starts here with educators and people who really love education. I feel like this is just the beginning of a bigger battle. And it starts here. Finally, we have power. Finally, we have unanimous, united teachers and parents are with us. I haven’t seen that before.

“I’ve worked at four or five different schools,” says 6th grade math teacher Jon Olver. “I know very clearly the playing field isn’t level.” HG

What’s the main reason you’re out here today?

There’s lots of reasons. As someone who’s been working for a long time in the school district, it feels like the district this time is not really being honest and bargaining in total good faith. It feels like a lot of our people on the negotiating team would show up and the other people wouldn’t show or they’d put proposals out there and they’d say we’ll get right back to you and they wouldn’t. This started early in the summer.

The recess issue is a classic example. That’s a non-issue. It’s not like you have to give up anything. Even that, they couldn’t agree to before [recently]. So, there’s a sense that perhaps the district doesn’t have the best intentions in mind for families. They’re mostly just trying to squish down on the union for whatever reason.

Are there any of those things still being bargained over that you think are particularly important

All the compensation issues are important. For me, less so because I’m much closer to retirement, but I think about: How do you attract young teachers? The city is booming and yet particularly the [paraprofessionals] and the support staff aren’t getting paid as much and can’t afford to live in Seattle… If you want to attract people who are engaged in a part of the community to help educate the children in that community, it would be nice if they could afford to live in that community…

The compensation piece I would tie into the “Why don’t you lengthen the school day?” thing. [The district has proposed adding another 30 minutes to the school day.] It’s hard to conceive of that as less than a very deliberate slap at people that they know are donating their time.

Do you think there’s a necessity for that extra half hour for students?

I’m not at all against lengthening the school day. I think we could do a lot of good things with it. But to expect it to be given for free is a calculated move to tick teachers off, to insult them.

What I heard when I was coming here was this school is wealthier than some others and doesn’t face the same equity issues that other schools do. If you’re not facing a lot of the issues being discussed, why strike?

Our village is big… [Teachers in poorer schools] are trying to do the same thing for society. Everyone suffers if children don’t feel welcome in school, don’t do well in school, or are stigmatized in some way shape or form. We all suffer—the entire society.

A lot of us have worked at different schools. I’ve worked at four or five different schools. I know very clearly the playing field isn’t level. Every school has its own challenges, but some are more challenged for sure.

There’s a lot of people doing absolutely heroic work, above and beyond what the job description is, and it feels like the system is set up to demand that, rather than reward it…

Here, I think we’re really lucky. [There are] very involved parents. People are very attached to the school. It’s a great place to work. People don’t mind working 12 hours at school when they feel supported because it is our community. Other people have greater challenges and less support and are held to unfair standards as a measure of their effectiveness.

Instructional assistant Nancy Gruber says her salary of $35,000 “is truly not a livable wage in an Amazon pay scale society.” HG

What’s the main reason you’re out here today?

I understand mine isn’t a living wage. When I talk about the wage part, I don’t think about myself. I think about the people who are much younger than I am and people who live in the city of Seattle. That is truly not a livable wage in an Amazon pay scale society.

Beyond that for me, what the difference was this year was there were so many issues beyond pay… They have things on the table like 30 minutes of recess. Really, do we have to negotiate that with teachers and the school district or is that just a child’s right to be able to get up and move around? When those kinds of issues [are being bargained over] and you start in the spring negotiating and they don’t get negotiated until a week before school, that just seems ludicrous to me.

We have specialists within the district who provide speech therapy, occupational therapy, these are services kids qualify for. And for years, those professionals have not had any case load limit… Who really gets hurt? Those kids are entitled to those minutes of service.

The pay is an adult level decision, but I really get moved and exacerbated when we’re negotiating things that are really basically student rights.

Were you at the vote to strike?

Yes… .It was amazing. Walking into the building, I felt like maybe 75 percent of the people would be on board… by the end, it was like a crescendo. When they asked for the vote and you heard this unanimous “Yay” and then when they called for the nay in this quiet singular voice and not a word, it was really powerful.

When you’re that unified, it means something’s not right. This isn’t flippant. This wasn’t done on a whim. There’s not a person out here on the line—parent, child, or educator—who doesn’t want to be in that building working right now.

How long are you willing to stay out here?

I think we’re in it for the long haul. That’s the only way you do a strike, isn’t it?

That’s the hard part. It’s not always going to be a party. It feels festive the first day, but it doesn’t feel festive later on. When you let something get to this point, it really isn’t very pleasant.

Going on strike is a hardship for people and people don’t want to do it. For that “yes” strike vote, there’s a lot of people who are single income earners in their families, a lot of double teacher families. We know that this is really difficult for families and it is not good for kids who are stoked for the first day of school… But at some point, when do you say enough is enough?

Third grade teacher Bill Sweigert says he regularly works 10-hour days, leaving little time to spend with his family. HG

Why are you out here today?

I’m definitely thinking about the teachers that are just starting out and they have to try and live in Seattle on the starting wage on our pay scale and there’s just no way. Even with my wife and I working full time, we’re going under every month. It’s like we don’t make any progress…

Do you live in the city?

We live in Ballard. We can both walk to work. Otherwise, we could never pay for gas. That would never work… The young teachers in the district are driving in from somewhere cheaper to live and they’re driving really far distances…

We’re thinking of selling [our house]. If our house goes up in value anymore, we just have to sell and move out of Seattle… We can make roughly the same wage in Spokane and we can get a house there for $200,000 as opposed to $500,000-$600,000 here, so we could actually maybe afford to pay off our house one day somewhere cheaper.

What’s at stake if salaries don’t keep up with increased cost of living?

Finding quality teachers. If they don’t increase pay, the teachers are going to go to Spokane, they’re going to go to Idaho, they’re going to go to Oregon and Portland—somewhere they can afford to live.

We know salaries aren’t the only issue on the table. [Recess and a possible extra half hour of the school day have also been points of contention between the school district and the union.] Tell me about what things are like in your classroom.

I’ve got 26 [students], which is small for Seattle. It’s 10-hour days and six and a half with kids. Including e-mails and scheduling conferences with troubled kids, their parents, and counselors, meeting with other teachers about how to best support kids—it’s easily 10-hour days and we don’t get overtime. We’re not paid for any of that.

What do you think about the proposal to add an additional 30 minutes to the day?

If they’re going to pay us an additional whatever percentage that would be, I would consider it. But considering I don’t have any time with my family as it is and I work so much overtime anyway and they don’t pay me for any of that, I think it’s disrespectful. I would imagine there’s not a teacher here that would stand for that without a drastic increase in salary that would compensate for that extra time. That’s extra time we don’t have…

My kids are wiped at the end of the day. There’s no way a third grader would benefit from another half an hour. It would be a half an hour where I would be babysitting.

These interviews have been edited for length.