After five months of mostly fitful contract negotiations, the Portland Association of Teachers says it wants a state mediator to step in and try to broker its labor agreement with the school district.
The two sides remain far apart on a variety of issues, including pay, particularly for experienced educators at the top of the salary scale, class size caps, workload and the balance between prep time and class time, and safety issues.
The union is also bargaining over “common good” topics, including a proposal it backs for the district to identify vacant properties that it owns which could be converted into affordable housing for low-income students and their families. It’s an approach that began in Chicago and Los Angeles and has spread to urban districts nationwide. Teachers in Oakland, Calif. went on strike for seven days this spring in part over “common good” demands.
State mediation coordinated by the Employment Relations Board is likely to begin in mid-August and will last at least 15 days. If that process yields no agreement, either side may declare an impasse and present their last, best offers.
That in turn triggers a 30-day cooling off period, after which, if there is still no consensus, an employer can impose their final offer and a union may call for a strike. Angela Bonilla, the president of the Portland Association of Teachers, said Tuesday that her members are being surveyed now about the potential of striking in the fall.
A strike — which according to that timeline could not come before October — carries risks and complications for both the school district and the union.
Portland is still the state’s largest school district, but it has been losing enrollment at a steady clip, in part because of a declining birth rate and high housing prices, but also because some families sought private or home-schooling alternatives during the pandemic’s extended building closures, and never returned.
District officials have said that they don’t see that trend reversing within the next few years and have hinted that some of the smallest elementary schools, particularly those with under 300 students, could be facing consolidation in the years ahead. Prolonged labor negotiations could seed further disenchantment or trepidation among families.
Teachers, meanwhile, have long enjoyed widespread support from Portland families and students, but faced some blowback during the pandemic as building closures and abbreviated school days stretched on far longer than almost anywhere else in the country, despite educators being among the first in Oregon to get their COVID vaccines, by special order of then-Gov. Kate Brown.
Once schools did reopen, the union’s proposal during the 2021-2022 school year to move high schoolers to “self-taught Fridays” to allow for more teacher planning time and online support for struggling students went over like a lead balloon among families and caregivers and was ultimately scrapped.
The two sides have been sparring over cost-of-living increases. Teachers have asked for a 21.5% increase over three years, citing raises given to administrators, while the district has raised its offer from 7.5% to 9% over the same period.
Another persistent difference centers on class sizes. The district funds schools differently depending on the level of student need in each building. That equity-based model has translated to more adults and smaller classes in schools that serve a higher percentage of students of color, those learning to speak English and those with disabilities, but has meant that more affluent schools typically have higher class sizes. For example, the average class size at Duniway Elementary in Southeast Portland’s well-heeled Eastmoreland neighborhood is 24:1; a few miles away at Whitman Elementary in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood, the ratio is 15:1.
District officials have said that a shift to across-the-board class size minimums would jeopardize the extra attention and funding for children who need the most support, both academically and emotionally. Teachers have countered that student needs are elevated in all schools, regardless of demographics, and have pointed to reports of disruptive behavior from some of the whitest and wealthiest schools in the district as proof.
Another key issue: How much money the district should hold back each year to cover any emergencies or outstanding expenses and to maintain its credit ratings, which allows for the district to borrow money at low interest rates to pay for construction projects.
Spending down those reserves could help with the push for smaller classes and more mental health supports, teachers say, while district negotiators say spending emergency money now could leave the system even more vulnerable to future enrollment declines and the subsequent funding loss.
In April, teachers and the school district in Woodburn negotiated an agreement to stave off a planned strike, with the district ultimately agreeing to a salary scale that was very close to the union’s original request, underscoring the power that the threat of a looming strike can carry.
In recent weeks, the Portland teachers’ union has sent signals that it is preparing for prolonged negotiations, organizing walkouts during lunch periods and before and after school for itstheir members.
“Educators are ready to do what it takes,” Bonilla said. “We want to be strike ready so we don’t have to get to a strike.”
The district, too, has gotten more direct with its messaging around labor negotiations, including sending several districtwide emails to families updating them on the status of bargaining and laying out the reasons behind the district’s stance.
“We want to share with you that we’re struggling to reconcile the prudence our budget demands with the implications of the contract proposal made by the Portland Association of Teachers” wrote Jonathan Garcia, chief of staff to Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero, in a districtwide email that was sent out in April. The union’s asks, he continued were “not consistent with our available resources.”
— Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, [email protected]