Early Tuesday morning, dozens of teachers drove to Issaquah High School, parked in the lot and filed indoors. Not an unusual for a mid-week school day. Except on this day, no students would arrive and the teachers wouldn’t lead classes.
Instead, they met in the school’s library to come up with a different kind of lesson plan: how best to picket Front Street.
Issaquah School District teachers staged a walkout Tuesday in protest of state lawmakers’ continued failure to fund basic education. Teachers gathered at Issaquah High, Skyline High School and Liberty High School to picket downtown Issaquah, Sammamish and the Renton Highlands for two hours before taking shuttles to Seattle Center, where they joined teachers from Mercer Island and other state school districts. Tuesday’s protest was part of a larger campaign of 24 local chapters of the Washington Education Association union. Rolling walkouts have taken place since April 22 and more than 4,000 teachers and supporters gathered at the Capitol building in Olympia April 25.
The Issaquah Education Association announced its walkout last week, prompting the District to cancel school for the day.
“I cannot endorse this walkout and regret the negative impact to our students and families,” district Superintendent Ron Thiele wrote in a letter to parents May 14. “However, I do share some of the frustration that has led the teachers across the state to take this action.”
While picketing the four corners of Front Street and Gilman Boulevard in their red “It’s Time” t-shirts, teachers received a steady barrage of supporting honks. One truck driver pointed out his own red shirt before letting out a mighty bellow from his rig.
“My biggest hope is to send a message to the legislature that they should be funding schools,” Instructional Technology Specialist Joshua Moore said. “The McCleary decision made it clear they need to figure it out and make it happen. The point of this is to let them know we’re watching them and they need to make it happen.”
Teachers were also concerned about funding for smaller class sizes as mandated by Initiative 1351, passed in November.
“I’m an English teacher and, at the beginning of the year, I had 34 students in every core class,” Issaquah High instructor Shannon Henderson said. “That’s a lot of papers, that a lot of bodies in the room … I don’t have time to connect to everyone in the class.”
Ellen Hayes, a Spanish teacher at Issaquah High who said she also teaches a 34-strong class, came to the district from Washington, D.C., where unions were able to demand smaller class sizes. She said she was surprised education wasn’t a higher priority in Washington state.
“It’s been a lesson in local government,” Hayes said. “I thought (funding for education) was such a slam dunk. It’s been disappointing to find out that’s not the case.”
The state legislature entered special session in late April after failing to come to agreement on a number of issues, including a state budget or a legislative response to the Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision, which found the legislature was failing to fund public education as required under the state constitution.
The legislature was on its 21st day of special session Tuesday. Special sessions are required to last no longer than 30 days.
Moore said he would like to see the legislature explore alternatives to the state’s current tax structure, such as the establishment of an income tax or a capital gains tax; he added that those were his personal preferences and not the official stance of the union.
Others said they weren’t sure how the state should fund McCleary or smaller class sizes, but the legislature needed to figure it out.
“I’d like them to solve the problem on their end,” Hayes said. “I’ll see it through on mine.”
