EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been corrected to reflect that after school extra-curricular activities scheduled for May 18 in Port Angeles schools have been cancelled and that the last day of school for the Sequim School District is now June 18.
CHIMACUM — Members of the Chimacum Education Association this Friday will join a “rolling walkout” of protest over legislative inaction on school funding.
The 75-member association voted Thursday by a 97 percent margin to join unions in 39 other public school districts in the state, including Sequim and Port Angeles, in the job action urged by the Washington Education Association, a statewide teachers union, according to Todd Miller, president of the Chimacum teachers group.
Chimacum School District directors will decide how they will handle the walkout when they meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 91 West Valley Road.
“Yes, they’re walking out on May 15, and yes, we will decide what to do,” Chimacum Superintendent Rich Stewart told the Peninsula Daily News on Saturday.
Chimacum teachers will rally at 8 a.m. Friday at the corner of West Valley Road and Rhody Drive, Miller said, with possible other action to follow. Supporters will be welcome, he said.
Washington Education Association members in Port Angeles and Sequim will strike in their respective districts May 18.
The one-day walkouts are to protest what the WEA says is too little funding for the state’s public schools.
Teachers want to see better health-care benefits for school staff, more money to pay for voter-approved class-size reductions and higher cost-of-living raises than the state House or Senate have proposed so far. There are also other issues.
PA, Sequim
Port Angeles School Board members will discuss their response to the walkout when they meet at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Central Services Building, 216 E. Fourth St.
Port Angeles Superintendent Marc Jackson said he expected board members to cancel May 18 classes and to make up the day June 15, which the school calendar had already provided as a possible snow day.
Extra-curricular activities scheduled for May 18 in Port Angeles schools have been cancelled, according to the school district.
Seniors will not be expected to attend the makeup day, and graduation ceremonies will be held as scheduled June 12.
Sequim School District directors have voted to make up the day lost to the strike June 18 with a half-day schedule.
State lawmakers last week were just beginning to negotiate funding for education, which the state Supreme Court has ordered them to do or face contempt sanctions, according to Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam.
They are about halfway through a special 30-day session that Gov. Jay Inslee called after legislators failed to fund education — or to pass budgets for capital projects, transportation or operations — after their initial 105 days.
Chimacum will become at least the 26th among the state’s 295 school districts to be hit by the rolling walkout, so called because different districts are striking on various days. The strikes began late last month.
Miller noted that his district’s Stephanie McCleary, an administrative aide, was the lead plaintiff in the suit that resulted in the Supreme Court decision that bears her name — the 2012 McCleary decision in which the court said the state must pay for basic education.
McCleary is a native of Sequim.
“Stephanie really stuck her neck out for public education, and we want to stand in support of her,” Miller told the PDN.
Washington Education Association and local teachers union members have said the job actions are not directed at their districts but at the state Legislature.
State Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, has expressed dissatisfaction with the strikers because legislators in the 24th District that he represents — Hargrove; Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Sequim; and himself — all have supported proposals to fund basic education.
That funding includes paying teacher salaries, which most school districts finance through local operating levies.
The Supreme Court in 2012 ruled such a system unconstitutional given the state’s “paramount duty” to educate children.
It gave legislators until 2018 to reform the system.
In an email to the PDN, Miller said one new Chimacum teacher has 42 middle schoolers in her science class.
Another teacher told him that, after she pays for health insurance and student loans, she takes home more money from her night job delivering pizzas than she earns teaching school.
As for Chimacum’s walkout, “it’s hard for [teachers in] a small district to go out because it’s so personal,” Miller said in a telephone interview.
“I look at the action our teachers are willing to take as a down payment on the future of public education,” Miller wrote in his statement.
“The current system is not sustainable.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
