Nearly three weeks after the scheduled Aug. 26 start of the school year, students at Evergreen Public Schools returned to classes on Friday, and students in the La Center School District returned to the classroom on Monday

Carleen Johnson
The Center Square Washington

Two strikes in Southwest Washington state – Evergreen Public Schools and the La Center School District – are over.

Nearly three weeks after the scheduled Aug. 26 start of the school year, students at Evergreen Public Schools returned to classes on Friday, and students in the La Center School District returned to the classroom on Monday. Classes were initially slated to start on Aug. 27.

Public School Employees of Washington SEIU Local 1948, which includes paraeducators, custodians, bus drivers, mechanics, security officers, and other non-teaching staff in the Evergreen School District, represented striking workers.

Union members negotiated additional compensation for mechanics who participate in further training, and drivers will receive additional pay for time spent preparing buses for state inspection.

Teachers were not up for a contract renewal, but joined the support staff union on the picket lines, idling some 22,000 students in the Vancouver-area district.

Evergreen Public Schools has 38 schools that employ more than 1,500 teachers, who, on average, earned nearly $112,000 in base pay and additional compensation in the 2023-24 school year, according to the Washington State Fiscal Information website.

The Evergreen Public Schools Board of Directors had authorized its legal team to take whatever legal action was necessary to end the strike, including filing a request in Clark County Superior Court for an injunction requiring striking workers to return to work.

That became unnecessary when the district and union leaders reached a tentative agreement last Wednesday, and the union voted to accept the offer last Thursday evening.

Early Monday afternoon, the Board of Directors held a special meeting to approve the tentative contract agreement and voted to approve an adjusted school calendar to make up for the 12 days that were missed.

Students will now attend classes on Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving, and will also give up a day during Christmas break and two previously planned days off in January. The last day of the school year will now be June 18, 2026.

In the La Center School District, union members sought higher wages to compete with neighboring districts.

“Thank you for your patience and understanding during this process. We are looking forward to welcoming students back to their classrooms,” Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz said in a Sept. 11 Facebook post.

A Sept. 2 Facebook post from the La Center School District indicated that the district was offering 2.3% raises and step increases.

According to Washington State Fiscal Information, teachers in La Center earned an average of more than $98,000 in the 2023-24 school year, including base pay and additional compensation.

In La Center, students have eight days to make up because of the strike.

Parents posting to Facebook are urging the district to look at alternatives to shortening holiday breaks or lengthening the school year.

“Please consider that some families already have reservations booked for spring break and Christmas. Those breaks will be much needed with the added stress this strike has caused. I recommend either making school days longer by 30-60 mins and adding back some of the in-service days,” one parent wrote.

Teacher strikes are illegal in the state of Washington; however, state law does not currently include specific penalties for public employees who strike. 

Elizabeth New, director of the Center for Worker Rights at the free-market Washington Policy Center think tank, told The Center Square on Monday that school strikes harm students and families.

“This is not something that helps our state economy run well or helps us function in the services that are promised to taxpayers and having them taken away like this is prohibited by the state,” she said. “The courts have backed this up when injunctions are issued, but they don’t usually end up in any fines, and the law is toothless, which is why I think they continue.”

She noted that other states that institute strike penalties see far fewer walkouts.

“The part that always boggles my mind is you have workers going on strike and they’re hurting other workers. These students’ families, some of them don’t get paid because they can’t go to work, so it hurts family budgets and shows no regard for the students and their families that they’re serving,” New said. “The Legislature could enact fines, penalties, but I don’t think they will.”

She urged teachers and support staff in these two districts who did not support the walkout to consider opting out of union dues.

“I think a lot of people don’t even know that they have the right to join or not join their union because they don’t agree with the union politics or what the union is all about,” she said.

This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.