Day Four of the Seattle Schools Teacher Strike

Update: schools WILL be closed tomorrow, Tuesday the 13th. 

End of update

I'm guessing nothing happened last night between SPS and SEA. I've visited both Twitter and Facebook and I see nothing new to report. 

One item to remember - even if they found agreement today, it is unlikely they can reopen the next day. SEA membership has to vote and you would hope that could be done in a day. SPS says it's ready to reopen.

I do wonder if SPS is trying to get SEA to split the baby - meaning, more Special Education supports vs more mental health supports. I sure hope not. I suspect that at the Board meeting on Wednesday the new student "board" members might have something to say about what they have heard from school friends about student mental health. 

SEA's webpage has this to say:

The school board is letting our students down
Our strength continues to move the district and we are at the point in negotiations where we are so, so close… we need to keep up the pressure to get the school board and district to make that last movement to get to an agreement that meets students’ needs.

We had planned a member update for last night, but in all transparency, we kept delaying it because we really thought we could get to agreement. Then at 11pm the SPS team passed us the counterproposals we thought could be a deal, but instead they were hugely disappointing. It’s unacceptable that SPS does not understand what our schools need so they are instead distracted by issues that won’t impact our ability to support students.

For example, we are asking for mental health supports, particularly in buildings with the highest need. In their response to us, SPS is applying their either/or, scarcity-based thinking, proposing to give our students just 0.5 FTE social workers in high schools and rejecting our proposal for supports for elementary, middle, and K-8. 

SPS and the school board need to make significant movement to meet student needs in order to gets us to agreement. We are back at the bargaining table with SPS today. We need to take action to compel them to get there. 

Together, we continue to turn up the heat on the school board.

One comment that was painful to read (and I won't say who said it or where) was this from a person after another parent commented on supporting teachers and getting more help for this proposed move of Special Education students to Gen Ed classrooms.

So everyone should suffer for your child to get a little more help?

Parents, please don't make ignorant statements like that. If you even just tried to learn about the issue, you would know that most Sped students don't see their IEPs or 504s fulfilled. It's not about "a little more help" - it's about the Special Education law. 

And if those Sped students are better supported, that means the teacher can support ALL the students in any given classroom in the manner they ALL need.