By Brian Beckley and Celeste Gracey
Reporter Newspapers
About 3,700 Renton students didn’t start school Monday, because the Kent School District teachers were on strike.
The district filed a complaint in King County Court at Tuesday seeking to force teachers to end their strike and go back to their classrooms.
The decision is scheduled to be announced Thursday morning, check RentonReporter.com for updates.
“Washington common law is clear,” Superintendent Edward Lee Vargas said at a press conference Tuesday in Kent. “Strikes by public school employees are illegal.”
The move comes unusually fast, as other districts faced with the same problem often wait weeks to file an injunction, said Ridgewood Elementary teacher Kim Baker.
“They haven’t spent enough time at the bargaining table,” she said. “It seems to be a power issue with them.”
School was scheduled to start Monday, but Wednesday teachers from Ridgewood, Fairwood and Northwood protested outside Petrovitsky Park.
“We’re out here with heavy hearts,” said Fairwood teacher Elaine Haroldson.
Fairwood teacher Susanna Taylor added, “We rather be in the classroom.”
The Kent Education Association voted Aug. 26 to go on strike after contract negotiations between the union and the district broke down and a week’s worth of talks with a state-provided mediator failed to reach a settlement.
The two sides have been meeting since April, but still remain far apart on several issues.
“Please know this was not an easy decision,” Vargas said at Tuesday’s press conference. “This illegal strike not only hurts our students, but it also impacts our working parents who must seek care for their children while they are on the job.”
Vargas also said the strike affects more than 1,100 other district employees, who get paid only when school is in session, and that missing a paycheck or the loss of health benefits could be “potentially devastating” to those employees.
He also said the strike impacts 10,906 students in the district who would normally receive free or reduced breakfast and lunch. The district has, however, extended the summer feeding program until the strike concludes.
The district’s injunction request names the Kent Education Association President Lisa Brackin-Johnson and the union executive board by name.
After hearing both sides in the Kent School District’s request for an injunction to end the Kent Education Association’s week-long strike, King County Judge Andrea Darvas postponed a decision until 11 a.m. Thursday morning.
Citing a complex issue that came too late in the morning for her to digest before Wednesday afternoon’s 45-minute-long hearing, Darvas said she wanted to study the arguments from either side and look deeper into the citations in each brief.
The district is arguing that the current strike is illegal under Washington State law and that because it has or will cause irreparable harm to the students, parents and employees of the district, the court should grant injunctive relief demanding the teachers lay down their pickets and go back to work.
The union is arguing that the strike is not illegal and even if it were the burden of proof for proving irreparable harm falls to the district and it hasn’t yet met that standard.
