Judge: $200 daily fine on each striking Kent teacher

Kent School District teachers who don't report to work Monday will be fined $200 a day, a judge ruled this afternoon after morning-long negotiations failed to end a 15-day teachers' strike.

The Kent Education Association, which represents the teachers, also faces fines of $1,500 a day if the strike continues, said King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas. All fines would be retroactive to Sept. 8, the day Darvas first ordered the district's 1,700 teachers to return to work.

The two sides had begun bargaining at 8 this morning. At some point, the KEA offered a contract amount that was $200,000 less than the district's $10.5 million proposal — provided the district would reduce class sizes, said union president Lisa Brackin Johnson. The union even lowered its earlier class-size reduction request, she said.

The two sides bargained right up until the 1 p.m. court hearing. District spokeswoman Becky Hanks said the district didn't have time to fully consider the union's latest terms before the hearing began.

Grass Lake Elementary teacher Shayne Satter said he was stunned and saddened by Darvas' ruling and doesn't yet know if he'll report to the classroom Monday.

Parent Sarah Lancaster called the ruling "Awful. It's forcibly trying to get [the teachers] back to the class rather than listening to the reasons of why they went on strike. It was to help our kids."

Hanks said she's optimistic the district, teachers and community will eventually come together and reach an agreement.

"It's sad it came to this," she said.

Overcrowded classrooms have remained the teachers' No. 1 concern. "This has never been about salary," said KEA spokesman Dale Folkerts It's a strike about the district's respect for teachers and class size, he said.

Superintendent Ed Vargas, in a prepared speech, said the district does respect and value the teachers but has been constrained financially and unable to grant the class-size reduction they sought.

Throughout the strike, teachers told stories of classes so large that some students had no desk and that teaching became more a matter of managing behavior. They talked about having to take hours of work home at night and on weekends.

Th strike began Aug. 27, after talks with the help of a mediator broke down. The school district sought an injunction to force teachers back to work and at a hearing on Sept. 1, Darvas called the strike illegal and ordered the teachers to report to work on Sept. 8.

On Sept. 7, Labor Day, 74 percent of the 1,300 teachers who voted decided not to obey the injunction and to continue to strike.

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