Albany teachers hold strike vote; The district says the union rushed through the negotiating steps

ALBANY Ore. (KPTV) – Greater Albany Public School District teachers will hold their first strike vote in 40 years next week, the Greater Albany Education Association announced Friday.

The strike authorization vote begins Oct. 24 and runs through Oct. 29 and is the first strike vote by Greater Albany Public Schools teachers since 1987.

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Greater Albany Education Association teachers have been in contract negotiations with GAPS for eight months, but the union says they have been unable to reach an agreement with the district on “essential school safety measures.” The union also said the district is unwilling to “raise standards of student support that lag other districts in Oregon.”

The Greater Albany Education Association represents 600 teachers in Albany and is an affiliate of the Oregon Education Association.

The union’s written statement quoted Jenn Stadstad, a physical education teacher at Calapooia Middle School who has taught for the district for 26 years, as saying her students deserve better.

“The district’s severe understaffing of our classrooms, including its failure to provide adequate resources and support for students with serious behavioral challenges, has created a crisis environment that has resulted in school violence becoming commonplace in our district,” Stadstad said . “I’m voting for the strike because every student deserves to be safe when they go to school in the morning.”

According to the union, while the district has a 13% budget surplus, GAPS has failed to provide the same level of support to students with special behavioral needs or individualized education programs (IEPs) that almost every other district in the state offers.

FOX 12 also contacted the Greater Albany Public School District for comment. The district leader said the union rushed through the legal steps in the negotiation process and added a timeline in his response:

“The district is aware that the GAEA teachers union is holding a “Strike Vote” event next week.

“GAEA’s negotiation schedule since August has been as follows:

• On August 15, GAEA notified the district that it had requested mediation.
• Both parties have scheduled mediation sessions for September 9th and October 8th.
• Without going through the October 8th meeting, the GAEA declared a standstill on October 4th. Typically, districts and unions hold multiple mediation sessions.
• On October 11th, GAEA presented its “Best Final Offer” at the start of the 30-day cooling-off period, which runs until November 10th. The offer results in over $60 million in new costs to the district, including a 25.3% increase in cost of living, as well as an increase in the monthly insurance premium of over $400 per month, with coverage provided by GAPS is already among the highest rates among comparable districts. The union’s “best final offer” remains exactly what was originally proposed on May 15 in terms of compensation.
• Two further mediation sessions are planned during the reflection period, on October 25th and November 4th.

“A cursory review of the timeline of the above events shows that rather than working through the mediation process, the union moved as quickly as possible through the legal steps outlined in the public employee bargaining process.” Even the casual observer can see from the timeline that they go through the negotiation steps at a rapid pace in good faith. We ask all teachers in the district to carefully consider the haste involved in taking these steps and the ultimate impact of their actions on the community, families and, most importantly, their students. Last year, Portland Public Schools learned that there are no winners at the end of such a process. The district has already publicly stated its intention to focus on behavioral support processes at the next mediation meeting, and we hope GAEA will be ready to go as well.”

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