Thousands of Seattle teachers union members will meet Sunday and decide whether to accept a tentative contract agreement and finally end a strike against the school district, which canceled six days of classes.
The Seattle Education Association has called its more-than 5,000 members to Benaroya Hall to a meeting Sunday to cast ballots on the contract proposal. Union president Jonathan Knapp will propose members vote by secret ballot.
Though the district's 53,000 students returned to school Thursday, the union's representative assembly has only voted to suspend the strike — not end it altogether — and recommend the full membership approve the tentative agreement.
Passage of the deal is not a foregone conclusion.
Knapp said the deal secured victories for teachers on issues beyond pay and benefits. The tentative agreement guarantees 30 minutes of recess time for all elementary students, empanels 30 "equity committees" to address disparities in academic achievement and discipline and scraps a portion of the teacher evaluation system the union opposed.
But a sampling of the sentiment on social media reveals lingering frustration among the union's rank-and-file. Some special education advocates say the deal doesn't lower student-to-teacher ratios for disadvantaged students.
Other teachers may have been willing to hold out for larger pay increases. Union negotiators had recently proposed increasing teacher pay by 9.5 percent over two years before state cost-of-living raises. The tentative agreement aligns more closely with the district's latest offers, which hikes teacher pay by 9.5 percent over three years.
After the representative assembly's vote Tuesday, union vice president Phyllis Campano was asked whether the full membership could support the tentative agreement's salary package.
"We'll find out," Campano said, pivoting quickly to union wins in the deal.
"There was a lot of passion in here around the issues of recess. Seriously, where have you ever heard of educators putting recess into their contract?" she said. "The equity piece is huge."
The union's meeting on Sunday begins at 3 p.m.
