Teacher’s union contract still not finalized after Thursday negotiations

Wenatchee Education Association negotiators failed to reach an agreement with the Wenatchee School District in the bargaining session yesterday at the district office.

The bargaining team for the teacher’s union is headed by Wenatchee High School English teacher and WenEa lead negotiator Chris Cloke, alongside Washington Elementary School teacher Monika Christensen and Colombia Elementary School teacher  Mark Woolsey. The district’s bargaining team was made of WSD Deputy Superintendent Jon DeJong, standing in for Superintendent Brian Flones, Executive Director of Human Resources Lisa Turner, Pioneer Middle School principal Mark Helm, WHS assistant principal Donna Moser, and Mission View Elementary School principal Jeff Jaeger.

“We’re still at the table and having really good conversation,” DeJong said. “I felt like it was a positive night of conversation.”

According to DeJong, if an agreement is not reached by the beginning of next school year, the teachers will enter the year with the contract that is currently in place.

WenEA President Kris Cameron expressed frustration at the lack of an agreement.

“Our students only get one chance at an education and we should do everything in our power to ensure they have the best learning environment possible,” Cameron said. “It is extremely disappointing that the District is unwilling to make progress on important priorities like reducing class sizes, protecting educator planning time, and offering competitive compensation when it has the resources to make a positive difference in these and other areas.”

Teachers rallied outside the doors of the district office yesterday to show their support for the union bargainers.

“Our negotiating team has worked really hard to represent the staff and what the school district employees want to see in their contract and the improvements,” WHS English teacher Jake St. John said. “The negotiation process, from what I understand, has been very challenging. This [was] the last opportunity for them to make headway [with the contract].”

The union negotiators have been at the table since late June, but a long legislative session pushed talks of money and finances back to August, according to Cameron.

There are 150 districts around the state in contract negotiations.

“The biggest sticking point between the district and the association is that the district doesn’t seem willing to allow non-teaching staff to cover non-classroom supervisory duties. We have teachers who are covering bus duty, lunch duty and recess duty,” Cameron said. “That takes away their time from being able to plan and collaborate, to get ready for student in their classrooms… The other [point of conflict] is that we’re asking for lower class sizes. We’ve received a lot of new revenue from the state to reduce class sizes and we’re asking for our district class sizes to be lowered… As everyone knows, the fewer kids we have, the better job we can do for each one.”

Cameron quoted the WSD mission statement, supporting educators “to personalize learning,” to validate her claims.

“If we can get smaller class sizes, that’s huge,” St. John said. “If we can’t provide for individual student needs, we’re doing them a disservice. We physically cannot provide the individual attention that every student deserves when our classroom is so overcrowded.”

Another issue being discussed is the subject of teacher compensation.

“When our members are taken care of, when our teachers are being taken care of, it allows them to put their best foot forward in the classroom,” WHS French teacher Rachel Simmons said. “When other districts have more competitive contracts, we sometimes lose teachers to those districts. Our kids in Wenatchee deserve the top teachers… Students are directly affected by the teacher’s contracts.”

Over 150 teacher’s unions across the state are currently struggling to have their contract renewed for next year.

The bargaining session was the last of it’s kind before the teacher union’s contract expires on Monday, Aug. 31. Teachers will meet on Monday at 3:15 p.m. to discuss their options going forward. Those options include:

• Extending the bargaining window to allow for more time to negotiate

• Hiring a mediator to work with both sides to come up with a fair, neutral solution

• As a last resort, teachers may go on strike. The teachers of Wenatchee School District have never gone on strike before.

“Frankly, we’re not going able to continue to attract and retain a quality teaching staff if we don’t make changes.” Cameron said.