Some members of the Tacoma Education Association who gathered Monday at Mount Tahoma High School sounded doubtful that their union and the Tacoma School District will be able to come to a contract agreement by Wednesday.
That’s when the teachers’ three-year contract expires, and that’s when teachers will gather again to decide their next step.
That could range from a strike to an agreement to start school on time Thursday and allow bargaining to continue.
“I’m sad that it’s come to this,” said Emmy Murphy, a teacher at Washington-Hoyt Elementary who has taught in Tacoma for 21 years. “I feel like it’s so adversarial.”
TEA President Andy Coons was more optimistic. “I’m hopeful. We have 48 hours,” he said Monday.
Union officials estimated there were about 800 TEA members at Monday’s meeting, which was designed to answer their questions about the state of contract talks. The union is bargaining new contracts for an estimated 2,100 teachers. It’s also negotiating a separate contract for about 200 to 300 office professionals, technology experts and other employees.
No bargaining occurred Sunday or Monday. Both sides had agreed to take a break from talks.
Union officials said the school district’s lead negotiator was not available Monday, and they did not want to bargain without the full district team present. District spokesman Dan Voelpel said that the district had offered to have the rest of its team at the table and to make the negotiator, a consultant from Washington Employers, available by telephone.
Negotiators are scheduled to be back at the bargaining table again today.
Some teachers said they don’t believe everything they’re hearing from the district.
“I am incredibly disappointed at the dishonesty of the district on so many levels,” said Elizabeth Fortson-Oxford, an elementary school music teacher. She criticized the district for holding fast to its savings account while asking teachers to give up pay.
The union quotes a budget reserve figure of $45 million, while the district says that number was true at the beginning of last school year. Voelpel said the figure now is about $39 million.
By policy, the district keeps 4.5 percent of its general fund budget in reserve. The $39 million represents about 11.5 percent, Voelpel said. But he points out that the school district plans to spend more than $15 million of its reserves this year, and another $7.6 million next year to avoid further cuts.
“We are using the reserve fund, trying to be prudent as we head into another phase of the great recession,” he said. “We are being criticized for being prudent fiscal managers and preserving teacher positions.”
The Legislature this session cut funding for teacher pay 1.9 percent, and for other school employees by 3 percent. But teachers say they have already lost pay in previous state cutbacks, and that it’s time to spend the money from district savings.
“They (the district) are sitting on a huge rainy day fund,” said Tom O’Kelley, a teacher at Oakland Middle School and a 20-year Tacoma teacher. “They don’t seem to recognize that it’s raining.”
Some districts have agreed to make up the state pay cuts for teachers from savings. Others have asked teachers to work fewer days in exchange for being paid less.
TEA President Andy Coons said that although the two sides are still talking about dollars, the union is more concerned about other issues, including proposals by the school district to increase the cap on class size. District proposals have called for increases of one or two students.
“Everybody wants to avoid a strike,” said Theresa Tommaney, a music teacher at Lister Elementary who represents Tacoma teachers on the Washington Education Association board. But she said increasing class size would hurt kids.
“We don’t want to be stacking them in deep and teaching them cheap,” she said.
Both district officials and the School Board have been talking for months about increasing class size as a way to deal with state funding cuts. Two sources of state funding aimed at reducing class size were cut during the last legislative session.
TEA is sponsoring a public forum on the School District budget tonight at 6 p.m. at Jason Lee Middle School.
Debbie Cafazzo:253-597-8635 debbie.cafazzo@thenewstribune.com
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