Staff at Vancouver Public Schools authorized a future strike on Thursday.
Striking workers at Evergreen Public Schools reached a deal with the district Thursday night, ending a delay in the school year that extended into a third week.
District officials announced the deal just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Union members voted 63% in favor of the new contract.
“I am so happy to confirm that classes in Evergreen Public Schools will begin tomorrow, September 12,” Superintendent Christine Moloney wrote. “We will focus on having our students back in the classroom, and our staff giving them the education they deserve.”
The move ended 12 days without classes at the start of the school year for Evergreen as around 1,400 classified workers, including bus drivers, paraeducators, security officers and support staff, asked for better wages.
Ultimately, the district and union compromised on pay increases. The union had been seeking a 15% pay increase for paraeducators over their three-year contract, but they settled on a 13.5% raise, according to Evergreen Public School Employees chapter President Mindy Troffer-Cooper. That’s an offer that is still larger than previous proposals from the district.
Despite the pay increase, Evergreen Public Schools declined to pay classified staff for the entire year, according to Troffer-Cooper. She said staff will get paid for 11 months, but will not be compensated in September, which will be hard for employees.
The contract agreement came just days after the Evergreen Public Schools board filed an injunction against the union in Clark County Superior Court. Troffer-Cooper described the threat of legal penalties against striking workers as a “scare tactic.”
The delays at Evergreen were just one piece of several labor discussions taking place in Southwest Washington school districts this year.
La Center Education Association members and the La Center School District reached a tentative agreement Thursday night as well, possibly bringing a roughly weeklong teacher strike there to an end.
“Thank you for your patience and understanding during this process. We are looking forward to welcoming students back to their classrooms,” La Center Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz wrote in a brief statement.
La Center teachers were negotiating for a narrower pay increase than the Evergreen staff. Faculty were seeking a 9.9% cost-of-living adjustment over their four-year contract, while the district had offered a 9.2% increase. Details of the tentative agreement were not immediately available.
La Center union members are scheduled to ratify the tentative deal Friday and classes are currently scheduled to resume Monday.
Meanwhile, members of the Vancouver Association of Educational Support Professionals voted Thursday to authorize a strike in the Vancouver Public Schools District.
That union’s contract with the district expired in August. Much like the other strikes, workers in Vancouver are asking for better wages and working conditions in the schools. Both sides will continue in mediation Friday and a date for a potential strike has not been set.
According to union and district representatives, there was no single factor behind the strikes in the three Clark County school districts. Schools across the state are dealing with higher costs from inflation, declining student enrollment and state funding that doesn’t adequately pay for public education.
“Bargaining is especially difficult right now because our current funding does not match today’s real world costs to run a school,” reads a statement on the Vancouver Public Schools website. “We are all left to try to find a way to make sure our students and staff get what they need, and deserve, even with our very limited resources.”