Kent district tries to force its teachers back to work

The Kent School District on Tuesday announced it is seeking an injunction to force its 1,700 striking teachers back to work.

Superintendent Edward Vargas said in an afternoon news conference that the teachers' week-old strike is illegal.

Classes in the district had been scheduled to start Monday.

Members of the Kent Education Association, who complained that they'd been waiting since 4 p.m. Sunday for the district to respond to the union's latest offer, said they were stunned and angered when they heard early Tuesday that the district had filed for the injunction.

"I don't feel the district is respecting us," said Terri Brown, a sixth-grade teacher at Soos Creek Elementary. "I can't believe instead of working with us, they take us to court. We're the teachers. We're the lifeblood of the schools."

Vargas said the district had made numerous concessions during contract negotiations, and he believes the district and union have reached impasse. Filing for the injunction, Vargas said, "was not an easy decision."

"We do respect and we do value our teachers; they do incredible work," Vargas said.

But, he added, "Our students need to be in school."

And every day the strike continues, employees in other jobs — bus drivers, clerical and cafeteria workers — are prevented from making a living, Vargas said.

At least 150 teachers picketed the district office Tuesday and then pushed into Vargas' 3 p.m. news conference.

As Vargas insisted an injunction would protect the future of the district's 26,000 students, teachers shouted that the district had refused to bargain fairly.

The district's request will be heard at 2:30 p.m. today in King County Superior Court at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

The two sides began bargaining in April and in mid-August resorted to a mediator. They met again for a few hours Tuesday night.

The most divisive remaining issue is class size. The teachers want class size significantly reduced and proposed that in their last offer at 4 p.m. Sunday. The district says the teachers' proposal would cost $2.7 million — out of reach in its budget.

"Teachers are working their hearts out," said an elementary-school teaching coach for the district who is a union member. "If the district came out with a lower class-size proposal, this would be over."

Mandatory morning and after-school staff meetings are also a sticking point. Teachers say if they're obligated to show up at after-school staff meetings, then they can't spend that time meeting with students who need extra help.

The district offered to change the meeting requirement when the two sides resumed bargaining Tuesday night, but the teachers union said the offer had so many loopholes and exceptions that it was moot.

The two sides agree, at this point, on teacher pay. The district is proposing a 2.7 to 3 percent salary increase the first year, depending on where a teacher is on the salary grid, a 1.5 percent increase the second year, and no increase in the last year of a three-year contract.

Injunctions have been used successfully in the past to end teacher strikes, which state Attorney General Rob McKenna says are illegal. In 2003, the Marysville School District successfully ended a 50-day strike by seeking an injunction against its teachers.

But in nearly all the 30 times injunctions have been sought and granted against teachers in Washington, teachers have ignored the court ruling and continued to strike, saying the move was an unfair tactic, according to Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association, with which the Kent teachers union is associated.

Elsewhere, today is the first day of a teachers strike in Sedro-Woolley, where school was scheduled to open today. And according to the Washington Education Association, about 60 teachers-union contracts across the state still remain unsigned and under negotiation.

The Seattle Education Association agreed to a one-year contract with the Seattle School District on Monday. The School Board is scheduled to vote on it tonight.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com