Strike Updates

Update from the Soup for Teachers Facebook group:

I am working with Jesse Hagopian to rally the community to raise money for and show our support to our public school educators while they strike. Being without an income isn't easy for many teachers so let's give a hand.

On Sunday evening there will be sets by Official Kimya Dawson, Aesop Rock w/ Rob Sonic & DJ Zone, Grayskul, Jim Page, Alex Zerbe: Professional Zaniac and more!!! So come out, wear red, shake your tail, and thank our teachers for standing up for themselves, walking strong and fighting for our kids!!! 


Starts at 5:30 pm.


Thanks to STG and Neptune Theater for donating the space and staffing the event.

Thanks to Coalition for the Schools Seattle Deserves for sponsoring the event.

ALL AGES!!!

Suggested 5 - 5 billion dollar donation at the door.

No teacher will be turned away for lack of funds. ♥


end of update

KPLU had this tweet at 6:30 pm:

@kystokes: Campano: She & @SeattleEA exec dir will meet state mediator at 10a, but full team has no plans yet to return to the table. #SPSstrike #waedu

Support for Teachers:
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Metropolitan Democratic Club of Seattle stands in support of SEA contract proposals and also acknowledges appreciation of School Board Director Sue Peters’ opposition to Superintendent Nyland’s legal threat against Seattle educators; and
THEREFORE BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Metropolitan Democratic Club of Seattle urges the Seattle School Board to agree to the SEA contract proposals.
From the WestSeattle blog reporting on 34th Dems;  They voted to support SEA and put $500 into strike fund.

From Soup for Teachers Facebook page:


Super good news! Roosevelt students are organizing sandwich making and other goodies for tomorrow, Day 2. They have their own signup genius page and Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/feedtheteachers
Salmon Bay kids are working on a documentary of the strike.
All in all, parents are networking like crazy, working on supporting education and democracy. Kids are getting a big lesson about collective bargaining, democracy and politics. We're getting stronger and energized.

Businesses to thank for their support

- Top Pot donuts
- Starbucks in Fred Meyer on Leary/Starbucks in Wallingford
- The Station coffeeshop on Beacon Hill
- Veraci pizza
- Solid Grounds coffee
- Mighty-O donuts in Tangletown
- Grumpy D in Ballard (use of bathrooms for teachers)
- Safeway in Wedgwood
- Trader Joe's on Capitol Hill

Please thank these businesses for their support of teachers and the schools in their area.

Finally, it was reported to me that Councilman Tim Burgess said at the 36th Dems that he thought Seattle Schools was wrong to vote to authorize legal action against SEA.  I'm quite surprised.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the parents and kids for their support. We were amazed at our school by all of the food donations and support. Thanks so much!
Teacher
Anonymous said…
I'm disgusted by the Metropolitan Dems taking this premature action, dividing the school board and choosing sides without making any attempt to get the full story. The authorization to the Superintendent to take legal action was just SOP to give him tools to use should he need them -- Nyland has spoken only respectfully of teachers and has given no indication that he'll rush to use these tools.

Emile
Anonymous said…
Thank you also the Columbia City Bakery for donating a TON of bread and sandwiches. And the Ark Lodge Cinema in Columbia City, who is offering 55 cent movies to all teachers between now and the strike's resolution.

--SE
GarfieldMom said…
Emile, all I can say is -- actions speak louder than words. Nylon's actions, here and previously, do not show respect for teachers, or anyone, who doesn't toe his line.
Anonymous said…
I'm so glad teachers are getting all this support. I got very upset reading Nyland's manipulative emails, he must believe we're all idiots. Just look at SPS's first offer: 1% raise each year for 3 yrs and a half hour increase in workday - that means Nyland wants teachers and school staff to work 6.25% longer for 1% increase in salary. So he was asking them to agree to A CUT IN PAY! While planning to increase his salary and the salaries of his administrators. What a horrible insult! He isn't negotiating a contract with SEA, he's auditioning for a job with Bezos,
trying to show how he can get people to work the most hours with the least pay!

I don't know what Nyland and his many assistant superintendents find to do all day, there's like ZERO accomplishments evident, unless we call the testing fiasco and the illegal contract he signed accomplishments! The school staff and my kids' incredibly dedicated teachers are the ones who do
all the work for the kids under extremely difficult conditions with overcrowding and inadequate support. SPS keeps cutting school staff and increasing central administration staff. When my kid started K there was a family support worker, a full time librarian and full time counselor. Now there's no family support worker, 0.5 librarian and 0.5 counselor and TWICE the number of students! Yet each year there are new positions created downtown with salaries 2-3 times what the highest paid teachers make. Why do we have several more assistant superintendents when 545 kids only have 0.5 counselor? Why are all the new assistant superintendents hired while no one is hired to replace the heads of Special Ed and Enrollment for over a year? If Nyland can't do his job without help from several very expensive assistants then he needs to be fired. And the next superintendent can't have this absurd contract where they can't be fired for incompetence without costing the district hundreds of thousand $$$! What is that about?

Can anyone look up the salaries of those people at Central Admin. and how many new positions have been created downtown the last 3-4 years? We need to see how they're putting students first with their fiscal decisions like they keep claiming, while parents AND teachers have to use our own money to provide schools with basic supplies like papertowels and cleaners!

CCA
Anonymous said…
He's not a man of many words -- his actions, to my mind, are slow and steady to try to turn this massive ship around in the aftermath of the unmitigated disaster that Banda was. We'll come through this stronger in the end, but not if we drag Nyland down in the process.

I think it's "tow" the line:)

Emile
GarfieldMom said…
No, it's definitely "toe the line." I had excellent teachers. :)

I am LOLing at autocorrect turning "Nyland" into "Nylon" in my comment, though. Trying to figure out what my iPad is trying to say with that one!
Lynn said…
Emile,

Turning this ship around would start with firing (not hiring) highly paid administrators in make-work positions. Jerking around our teachers isn't going to get him (or us) anywhere,
Anonymous said…
Emile - sorry, wtf, the Metropolitan Dems "divided" the school board? As far as I can see, we have Sue Peters standing by herself for students and teachers, a group of craven and checked-out board members, and Betty Patu not having the guts to take a stance. They were already divided.

And it's toe the line.

-flibbertigibbet
seattle citizen said…
Maybe we can get Foss Tug to tow the long, long line of superfluous administrators to some uninhabited island in the San Juans, where they can administrate each other. Meanwhile, back in Seattle, educators proudly toe (to heel to toe to heel to toe...) the picket line, with the support of much of the city. Yay!
Anonymous said…
Not on topic, so feel free to delete me, MW.

Toe the Line

--FremontDad
Anonymous said…
The comments by Emile are very familiar to me as a parent in the SPS. "Don't rock the boat". I've heard it for the last 15 years.
Sickening.

-Parent4Teachers
Emile, the strike has started. When is the right time for groups to decide who they support?

CCA, the link to salaries is under my Odds and Ends thread.

More national coverage, this time from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/seattle-teacher-strike-brings-out-concerned-parents_55f05a2be4b002d5c077859b

I've never heard of Community and Parents for Public Schools, but they don't seem very much in touch with public opinion or that of parents, who overwhelmingly support the teachers. Their claim that parents don't want these issues bargained behind closed doors misses the point that the district has refused to make requested changes to lunch and recess times, or testing policies, when parents brought them up - so the SEA contract process is the only vehicle left to get those issues resolved.

The district is out on a limb and lacks public support. It's a shame that it's come to a strike, but the district has nobody to blame but themselves.
Lynn said…
Robert - I agree. The school board has heard about the lunch and recess issue for a full school year and failed to improve the situation. (Our elementary has scheduled 20 minute lunches again.) It would be idiotic to assume changes will be made without pressure from someone with more leverage than parents have. Thank goodness the teachers are working on it. I wish they had brought up start times too.
Anonymous said…
The thing is, those of us who work with disadvantage children know the impact of reckless adult action. Nyland could eliminate the entire "left side of the org chart," as I have heard people say of the multiple director+plus roles that sprouted under Banda, and he'd probably save two million dollars and cause lots of short term chaos. Two mil wouldn't get close to the SEA's demands, and children whose lives are already on the margins would have programs that provide basic stability pulled out from under them. That's what "rocking the boat" means for kids, mixed metaphors notwithstanding.

Knapp seems to think this is the chaos that could spawn new ideas. But this isn't the time to "roe the boat." We need Nyland to row the boat, and he needs Sue Peters and the rest of the school board to help him.

Emile
Lynn said…
Emile,

I don't believe that eliminating the entire left side of the org chart would affect children at all. Those people aren't providing services - services are provided in the schools. Nyland isn't interested in cooperating with Sue Peters at all and he's not shown any actual interest in meeting the needs of our children. Your faith is misplaced and not supported by any evidence.
Jet City mom said…
Years back, teachers accepted cuts in COL and accepted increases in class size especially to SPED classrooms, the way I remember, and from what I understand of skimming through the contract.
They are still trying to reinstate those benefits, which makes sense to me.

My husband belongs to a union and our family has experienced many strikes and several layoffs, especially when the local industry that employed him when we were first married all but shut down.( The shipyards)
My question is, where is the union?
Shouldnt the dues they have been paying have been going into a strike fund?
If they haven't walked the picket line for 30 years, the fund should be quite large by now.
Anonymous said…
I'm very frustrated by the way that the Seattle Times has been covering the strike AND the charter schools. Beyond the editorials, which frustrate me to no end, the reporting and headlines are all pretty skewed. If it weren't for work, I'd be tempted to bring my children down to their HQ to establish a picket line there, just to underscore the fact that there are people who view the strike as an important "enough is enough" moment, rather than a childcare inconvenience.

Does anybody know what the school board candidates (the ones not currently on the board) have had to say about any of this?

Yearning for Objectivity
Yearning, I do have a statement from Jill Geary on the strike and I have seen photos of both Jill and Leslie Harris walking with teachers at various schools.

I'll put up a thread for any and all candidates who would like to make a statement. I would not necessarily hold it against any candidate who does not make a statement; that's their choice during an election. But I will offer the opportunity.
As, the Times and the charter school ruling coverage? I'll deal with that as well. There is no one who can call that newspaper objective in any way in their editorials OR reporting.
Anonymous said…
Thanks Melissa! The nicest thing I can say about the Times and their coverage of education is that it seems to be lacking in curiosity or journalistic rigor.

Y for O
Ebenezer said…
Yearning, I hear what you're saying. I am a very strong believer in supporting local journalism by subcribing to a local newspaper. However, the Seattle Times is so arrogant and scornful of unions, teachers, tax fairness, etc. that we cancelled our subscription in 2012. We were essentiatlly giving money to the Times to lobby against us. (I'd wanted to cancel for sometime, but my wife wouldn't agree to until the Times ran the free Rob McKenna for Governor ads.)

Melissa is also correct that it's not just the editorial pages, but the Times' news coverage is slanted against those they disagree with. There's no apparent divide between the editorial page and the news department - the Times used to insist there was, but the free McKenna ads left no doubt.

That's not to say the Times doesn't publish anything worthwhile - they do have some good journalists still there. For our family, however, that doesn't compensate for all the harm the Times does to our region.

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