Teachers throughout the district have been working this year under their old contract, despite the fact that it expired on August 31, under the assumption that the new contract will apply retroactively once an agreement is reached. Professional negotiators representing the Vashon Island School District and the island teachers’ union, the Vashon Education Association, have been meeting to negotiate a new contract for VEA. Tom DeVries, a Vashon Island High School science teacher, was one of three staff members who served on an advisory committee to the professional negotiator sent in by the Washington Education Association to represent VEA employees.
“Our job was to advise our negotiator on the feelings of the staff about the negotiations and to give input on the issues so that the negotiator could represent us to the administration,” DeVries said. “We did almost none of the negotiation ourselves.”
In similar situations, the result of failing to come to an agreement can lead to a teacher strike, delaying class, and graduation for seniors by weeks or even months. Vashon teachers, however, were hesitant to take such extreme action.
“There was never any talk of a strike. One or two people on the staff had suggested a work slowdown, but I think it was only being suggested for weeks or months from now if we weren’t making any progress. We didn’t think that there would be a need for it, unlike in Bellevue, where the two sides were really far apart,” DeVries said.
And a strike may not be in the strategic interest of Vashon Island teachers, either.
“A strike is not always to the benefit of the strikers. It can stop being helpful and start being harmful to their side once it angers the community,” DeVries said.
While it was important to staff that some revisions were made to the old contract, the talks remained friendly.
“I don’t know that there were any ‘deal-breakers,’ because that’s a pretty confrontational situation, and that’s not what we had,” DeVries said. “I expected people to be banging the table, and it wasn’t like that at all.”
The negotiators reached a tentative agreement, approved by committees on both sides, last week. Ultimately, though, final approval is contingent on the new contract being approved by both the school board and a general vote of district teachers.
The teachers ratified the section with their vote on September 16.
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