Teachers in Portland, Oregon have been on strike since November 1st, as school officials and the union continue negotiations for a new contract. The main sticking points continue to be over how to compensate teachers when their class sizes exceed certain thresholds, how much planning time to give them, how much to raise salaries to adjust for inflation, and a new last-minute hurdle emerged in the form of a proposal by the union that families should be allowed two seats on a class size committee at each school.
The two parties are yet to reach a deal to end the strike and are still deep in negotiations. Schools have lost 11 days and teachers have lost 13 days of pay. The teachers and school board would need to ratify any agreement that may come up, as board approval is assured, but approval by the district’s unionized educators is not. Students won’t be back in classrooms until at least November 27th, and parent-teacher conferences that were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday have been indefinitely postponed.
This is the 19th calendar day of PPS’s first teacher strike and the stakeholders remain optimistic about the progress being made, as both sides expressed during the latest round of negotiations. The Portland School Board and the Association of Teachers union also remain committed to working toward a solution, despite the ongoing challenges and last-minute hurdles that remain.
