Seattle superintendent brings needed transparency as teacher strike deadline nears
Seattle families are still wondering whether school will begin on time.
As negotiations between Seattle Public Schools (SPS) and the Seattle Education Association (SEA) come down to the wire, Superintendent Ben Shuldiner deserves credit for giving families an unusually candid account of what is happening at the bargaining table.
In a lengthy update to the community, Shuldiner laid out the district’s offers, the history of negotiations, and the events that led SPS to request a state mediator.
The timeline alone raises questions about how seriously the teachers union has treated the approaching deadline.
According to Shuldiner, SPS asked to begin negotiations on March 6 and was prepared to start immediately. “We were willing and ready to meet anytime, anywhere,” he wrote.
SEA did not commit to an initial bargaining session until June 25, nearly four months later.
Now time is almost gone with school starting this week.
SEA union members have already voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. The current contract expired Monday, Aug. 31, and the union has said a strike will begin Wednesday, Sept. 2 if there is no tentative agreement by the end of Sept. 1. SEA has a general membership meeting scheduled for Tuesday the 1st to consider a tentative agreement if negotiators reach one.
Sept. 2 is also the scheduled first day of school for Seattle students in grades 1 through 12. Preschool and kindergarten are scheduled to begin Sept. 8.
Shuldiner’s description of the latest negotiations makes SEA’s approach even harder to understand.
He says the union submitted a comprehensive proposal on Aug. 24, and SPS responded within 24 hours. The district then waited through Friday without receiving a response. SPS eventually improved its own offer, only to receive a new SEA proposal that Shuldiner says added millions of dollars in additional costs.
SPS viewed that as “regressive bargaining” and asked the state Public Employment Relations Commission to bring in a mediator. A mediator has now been assigned.
There are legitimate disagreements to resolve over compensation, workloads, class sizes, and special education. But there is a difference between negotiating aggressively and making an agreement unnecessarily difficult to reach.
That distinction is particularly important when tens of thousands of families are preparing for the possibility that school will suddenly be canceled.
Shuldiner has also challenged the idea that a strike is inevitable simply because the contract expires.
“SEA does not have to strike. Period, full stop,” he wrote.
The Seattle Times editorial board made the same point, arguing that teachers do not need to strike simply because the contract has expired. The two sides can continue negotiating without once again disrupting the start of school for Seattle families.
The Times’ editorial board went further. “Whenever Seattle’s teachers threaten to strike, they always claim their advocacy is for the kids,” they wrote. “But it’s hard to take that seriously.”
SPS says its current proposal includes nearly 9% in guaranteed salary increases over three years, along with additional investments in special education, mental health support, and school psychologists.
As Future 42 previously reported, those negotiations are occurring while the district is already confronting serious financial problems, despite district spending nearly tripling over the past two decades.
None of that means the teachers union has to accept the district’s proposals as written.
It does mean the union has an obligation to bargain seriously, respond promptly, and recognize that students and families will bear the immediate consequences if negotiations fail.
Shuldiner, meanwhile, says the district remains ready to work.
SPS is willing to meet with the mediator “morning, noon, and night,” he wrote.
That is exactly the posture Seattle families should expect from their superintendent.
Shuldiner deserves credit for putting students first, explaining openly what is happening, and making clear that the district remains willing to negotiate.
The Seattle teachers union should show the same urgency.