When Portland Public Schools reopened its classrooms last Monday after a nearly month-long teachers strike, the joy among students, families, educators and administrators was genuine. No matter where people lined up, the strike took a profound toll on trust and relationships – both between the district and teachers and in the community at large.
The relief, however, didn’t last long. Almost immediately, many teachers and families decried the plan the district and union agreed upon for making up some of the lost 11 days of school – converting the first week of winter break into instructional days. They sparred in social media posts with others who defended the plan as the only way to help students meaningfully reclaim some of the lost time as critical deadlines loom. The tenor only worsened after Portland Association of Teachers President Angela Bonilla advised teachers that they could call in a substitute and take personal days, sick days or unpaid leave during that week, as The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Julia Silverman reported. “Just don’t put up any pictures when you are supposedly sick, please and thank you,” she said. While she walked back her statement after it was shared publicly, the comment roiled many families frustrated that even after the strike has ended, students continue to lose.
This community needs a reset. We need emotions to subside and healing to begin. The challenges ahead are far more complicated and pose much higher stakes than giving up the first week of winter break. But we can only find that path forward by reorienting our compass to focus on students rather than remaining stuck on adults. The strike may be over, but the damage isn’t done.
First, we must recognize that shutting down schools harmed students. With virtually no school during November, the strike took away valuable instructional time mid-semester, canceled student activities and continued this pandemic-era attitude that attending school is optional. Students were already struggling with learning loss and behavioral health declines while chronic absenteeism rates surged following the pandemic. The sense of normalcy that finally returned to schools this year was upended by a contract dispute that could and should have been settled without a strike.
Our obligation to students should set the agenda for winter break and beyond. Certainly, a number of teachers and families understandably may have to miss some make-up days due to previous commitments they cannot break. But the overall sense of aggrievement as well as hints that some teachers may sit out the days are bewildering and contradict the professionalism and commitment that educators have routinely shown. We trust that as the stress of the strike fades, the rhetoric and anger will also diminish, and teachers will deliver their best.
The community must unify behind preserving instructional time for students and protecting the classroom. PPS faces tough questions on how it will afford the contract it just signed with teachers. As the school district repeatedly made clear, the state did not provide anything close to the funding needed to cover the union’s demands for transformational investments. Even the pared-down demands in the contract – which still provide for substantial cost-of-living increases of 6.25%, 4.5% and 3% over three years – will force cuts. The district should look first at administrative or contractual cuts that don’t directly hit the classroom. But figuring out how to save instructional days and maintain academic and mental health supports for students will take shared sacrifice.
Oregonians must mobilize for state funding that addresses the educational needs of today’s students. As we wrote in October, the Legislature has long relied on an outdated funding distribution formula; fails to adequately consider districts’ real costs; heaps unfunded mandates onto districts; and limits how much local communities can raise to supplement their revenue. Even with new funding from the 2019 Student Success Act, students’ needs continue to outmatch resources, particularly considering pandemic-related academic and behavioral health declines. This affects not just PPS, but districts around the state. Salem-Keizer School District, which, unlike PPS, lacks a local option levy or significant reserves, recently announced it is freezing administrative pay and expects to issue layoffs as it continues teacher contract negotiations.
There’s hope on this front if factions unite and capitalize on this opportunity. Gov. Tina Kotek announced last week that her administration will work with lawmakers on reviewing and revising the education funding formula. She also plans to convene a task force to develop a statewide action plan for supporting students’ behavioral health. And she has directed the state education department to make budget information for districts more easily accessible and understandable – a nod to the lack of trust that the teachers union had in PPS’ numbers. The public should press for other legislative initiatives such as a re-evaluation of the Quality Education Model which sets out the necessary investments for supporting K-12 students.
Legislators who contributed to the divisiveness of the strike should promote community-wide healing. The 16 Portland-area legislators who waded into the strike to scold the school district and brag about the funding they authorized for schools owe the public an apology. The legislators – all recipients of teachers union donations – helped promote the fiction that the school district could afford a substantial amount more than PPS was already offering. Their statements reveal either a lack of understanding of the assumptions baked into the state’s calculations – including estimates that teachers would receive raises of only 2.53% and 2.56% this year and next – or a willingness to make hypocritical statements on behalf of a donor. It’s unclear whether legislators’ involvement prolonged the strike. But without a doubt, they muddied the public’s understanding of the district’s finances, put their thumbs on the scale of a highly-contentious labor dispute and miscast funding limitations as PPS’ fault rather than their own.
While Kotek took several actions to move the conflict toward resolution, she, too, should recognize how she fell short in advocating for students. The governor injected clarity into the conflict by sending the state’s chief financial officer to review the district’s revenue forecast. But even after the CFO validated the district’s numbers, the governor, who is a big recipient of teacher union donations, appeared hesitant to correct the misinformation circulated by the Portland Association of Teachers. Kotek issued a convoluted statement – uncharacteristic for this governor who has rarely minced words – that invited confusion and allowed false assertions of the district’s finances to persist.
Finally, recognize our common values and agree to heal. This past month has been a painful display of how mistrust, misinformation and vilifying others can carve up a community. The vandalism at school board members’ homes and sharing of their home addresses were especially demoralizing tactics that will make recruiting others for these public service volunteer roles only tougher. But no one emerged unscathed in this citywide dispute that enveloped 43,000 students, their families, teachers and the district’s many other employees and administrators. Whether and how we choose to repair the deep rifts left by the strike will reveal much about the community’s commitment to protecting public education.
-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board