Teachers in Greater Albany Public Schools (GAPS) are one step closer to a possible strike.

The Greater Albany Education Association announced Friday that it will hold its first strike authorization vote in decades, after the district “failed to agree to essential school safety protections.”

“Our students deserve better,” Jenn Stadstad, a physical education teacher at Calapooia Middle School, said in a recent press release. Stadstad has taught in the district for 26 years and was a student at Calapooia during the last strike nearly 40 years ago.

“The severe understaffing of our classrooms by the district, including their failure to properly resource and support students with serious behavioral needs, has created a crisis environment that has made school violence a daily occurrence in our district,” she said. Increased student behavioral issues have been a national crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m voting to strike because every student deserves to be safe when they leave for school in the morning.”

The Greater Albany Education Association, or GAEA, represents about 600 licensed educators — including teachers and counselors — across the mid-Willamette Valley city south of Salem. The district enrolled about 8,780 students in the 2023-24 school year, according to the state’s latest available data.

The union argues that district officials refuse to allow students with specialized behavioral needs or Individual Education Programs (IEPs) the same level of educational support that nearly every other district in the state provides.

“We are unwilling to allow students in Albany to continue to receive lower support standards and more dangerous conditions than students in other regions of our state,” Dana Lovejoy, president of the teachers union, said in a press release. “Greater Albany teachers are united and ready to strike for the safety and futures of our students.”

Union leaders said they have been in contract negotiations with the district for the past eight months. They argue the district has yet to make any meaningful movement to address crucial safety concerns for students — or raise student support standards that “lag other districts in Oregon.”

However, district leaders argue the union’s step toward a strike is premature and a sign of bad-faith bargaining.

According to the district, the union requested mediation in August, both parties met for mediation sessions in September and October. On Oct. 4, before a session scheduled for Oct. 8, GAEA declared an impasse.

“Typically,” Superintendent Andy Gardner said, “districts and unions work through several sessions of mediation.”

On Oct. 11, he explained, GAEA presented a final offer to begin the 30-day cooling-off period required by the state, which will run until Nov. 10.

The offer introduces more than $60 million in new costs to the district, Gardner said, including a roughly 25% cost-of-living increase and a more than $400 monthly increase in the district’s insurance contribution.

Gardner said GAPS' insurance coverage is already “one of the highest rates among comparable districts.” He also claims the union’s final offer remains “exactly what was initially proposed on May 15th regarding compensation.”

Two more mediation sessions are scheduled to take place on Oct. 25 and Nov. 4 — during the cooling-off period.

On Thursday, a day before the next mediation session, teachers are scheduled to start voting on whether to authorize a strike. They have through Tuesday, Oct. 29, to weigh in.

“[The] union has moved as quickly as possible through the legal steps outlined in the Public Employee Bargaining Process,” Gardner wrote in a statement to reporters. “Even the casual observer can see from the timeline that they are rushing through the steps of bargaining in good faith.”

If union members vote to authorize, union leaders still have to give a 10-day notice after the vote before a strike can start.

According to the union, this is the first strike vote by Greater Albany teachers since 1987. Albany has the potential to hold the first teachers strike in Oregon since the Portland Association of Teachers strike nearly a year ago. Salem-Keizer narrowly avoided a strike in March.

“We ask all teachers in the district to deeply consider the rush through these steps, and the ultimate impact of their actions on the community, families, and most importantly, their students,” Gardner said. “Last year, Portland Public Schools learned that there are no winners at the end of such a process.”

“[GAPS] has already publicly indicated its intention to focus on behavior support processes at the next mediation meeting,” he added, “and we hope that GAEA will come ready to work as well.”

Gardner said on Monday that student discipline and behavior support, special education and safety were discussed at the Oct. 8 mediation session and was the point of discussion for a small group on Monday as well.

The Beaverton School District earlier this month requested state mediation in contract talks with its teachers union. According to the Oregon Education Association, 49 local unions across the state currently have open contracts.

Read the breakdown of the two sides’ offers and more information on the district’s bargaining website and the union’s website.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/21/albany-teachers-strike-school-safety/