UPDATE August 29 at 10 a.m. : The Spokane Education Association and Spokane School District have come to an agreement on a new contract. No details have been released. The proposal will go to union members, perhaps later this week, for their approval.
Meanwhile, West Valley teachers ratified their new contract at a meeting Tuesday evening.
“It was a long summer," said Cheri Osmuss, the leader of the union representing the West Valley teachers. "It was a good negotiation. Both sides wanted to do the best for our teachers that we could, based on the money that we received from the state.”
Osmuss says the deal includes a raise of about 14 percent.
“Beginning total compensation is around $46,000, and a teacher at 28 years will end at around $89,000,” Osmuss said.
On Monday night, Mead teachers voted to approve a new three-year contract with a 16 percent pay raise. In a Facebook post after the vote, Mead Education Association leaders credited their negotiators and district administrators for working through tough issues in a collaborative manner.
“The good news is that school districts across the state, dozens of them, have reached settlements with their teachers and have included double-digit percentage pay raises," said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association.
"That’s what we need in every school district. Unfortunately, in some districts, the superintendents and school boards are making excuses and finding reasons not to invest in quality teachers,” he said.
However, Nathan Olson, a spokesman for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, says it isn't quite so simple.
The money for these raises comes from the state , after the “McLeary decision" declared that lawmakers were not fully funding education.
Olson says that while the legislature set aside a billion dollars for education this year, districts can't spend it all on teachers' raises because they won’t be able to raise as much money in the future through school levies.
“The state legislature in 2017 approved a plan that would increase funding for education, but at the same time would lower the amount that districts could raise through levies," said Olson. "That was a direct response to the McLeary decision which said basically the state wasn’t doing enough to pay for basic education, and the districts were compensating for that through local levies.”
He says districts need to send his agency a four year budget outlook, and what they do now needs to be sustainable, given the decrease they will see from levy sources.
Other districts in Eastern Washington to agree on new contracts include Brewster (15% rasies), Bridgepoint (21% rasies), Odessa (13% rasies) and Washticna (15% raises).
