The Seattle Teachers Association voted Tuesday afternoon to suspend its strike and return to the classroom starting Wednesday.
The vote came after Seattle Public Schools earlier announced a tentative, three-year deal with the teachers union amid a strike that delayed the start of the school year by five days as they negotiated improvements to class sizes, pay and health services.
“Our walkout shows the power that educators and the community have when we come together and demand what our students need,” said SEA President Jennifer Mather. “We should all be proud of what we have achieved here for our students and our schools.”
The five days students missed will have to be made up during the school year, the district said in a statement.
“We are excited to welcome students and teachers back into our classrooms to begin this new school year. We are excited to be fully engaged in our mission – our moral imperative – for high-quality teaching and learning,” said Superintendent Brent Jones.
The strike began Wednesday, which was scheduled to be the first day of school for about 50,000 students in the Seattle school district.
The action came as schools across the country face shortages of teachers, who are increasingly expressing frustration at being underpaid and underpaid, teaching in overcrowded classrooms and in difficult conditions exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Seattle, teachers went on strike to demand more support for students, including interpretation and translation services for those receiving multilingual education, and improved special education staffing rates, according to the Seattle Education Union, which represents about 6,000 employees.
“We are educators. We don’t have a lot of batting experience. That’s not what we want to do. We want to be in our schools with our students,” teacher Ellen Santarelli said in a Facebook video. “However, to get what our students need … we are willing to step outside our comfort zones – thousands of steps outside our comfort zones.”
The union also advocated for higher wages and more support and controls to prevent teacher burnout, including limiting certain class sizes.
Details of the agreement will not be released until it is ratified, but the SEA said the contract maintains Special Education ratios and improves them in some areas, adds essential mental health staff to all schools and increases pay each year.
A vote to ratify the tentative agreement will be held later this week, the union said.
Educators lined the tracks for days, holding signs that read “Make mental health a priority,” “fund essential supports” and “students should be able to see a nurse every school day.”
Students stayed out of school Tuesday in another district in Washington state — the Ridgefield School District — as bargaining teams continue months of negotiations.
Ridgefield teachers went on strike Friday, demanding more mental health support, improvements for special education students and a better student intervention program in the district, which enrolls about 3,850 students near the Oregon border.
They joined thousands of other teachers across the country, who in recent weeks have also attended walkouts to negotiate better contracts and improved classroom conditions.
Last week, another Washington state public school district — the Kent School District — ended talks that had similarly delayed the academic year since they began in July.
Teachers in Kent, represented by the Kent Education Association, ended their strike after reaching an agreement with the school district.
Two weeks earlier, a teachers union in Columbus, Ohio, ended a day-long strike over classroom conditions and teacher pay after reaching a deal that included guarantees that classrooms would be climate-controlled by the start of the 2025 academic year. 2026, as well as reducing class sizes.
Teachers in Ohio’s largest school district had complained that students in some cases had to learn in classrooms without working air conditioning.
