Just two years after Evergreen Public School’s previous teachers’ strike, a new protest rises anew. Unlike the teachers’ strike shown in 2023, however, this strike stems from the Public School Employees of Washington union, a group of staff including maintenance workers, bus drivers, and paraeducators. Standing with pitched tents in weather reaching into the 90s, they are determined to make the board hear their cause, proving that this is more than just an extended summer vacation. Despite being so vital in schools, they have been facing hardships throughout the district for years. After attempting negotiations with the school board for months, they are finally fighting back with what is the first union strike in 57 years. In delaying school, they have both attempted to raise awareness among students and strive for a change in the workplace.
So, why exactly do union workers feel so passionate about this movement? Their reasoning goes beyond the issue of an underpaid salary. Teachers and staff in areas of education, like the special needs department, for example, are not able to adequately take care of either themselves or students due to the lack of staff they are facing. Michelle Culhane, a special education paraeducator at Orchards Elementary School, expressed her difficulties, for starters, saying that without extra help and support from the district, she is faced with situations as drastic as physical harm from students, sometimes going as far as to leave her with painful injuries. This issue alone is one that should never be present in any workplace, especially one in which workers’ safety should be guaranteed. Nevertheless, with not enough staff to handle these situations, teachers like Culhane are put at a continuous risk of their welfare being compromised.
Culhane, however, strikes not just for her own well-being, but for the children’s. Students who require and depend on staff to boost them towards success are not able to reach their full potential with a staff that is torn in half, attempting to compensate for low numbers of paraeducators. “We just want to be with our kids,” Culhane expressed, “And we can’t be with kids when we don’t have enough staff to take care of them, especially the high-behavior kids that really need redirection and can be disruptive to the other students in a mainstream class.” As a whole, help that should be promised to these students is either taken away or deemphasized as staff are unable to make necessary accommodations with the amount of underfunding and staffing they are faced with.
Derek Sytsma, a special education paraeducator from Wy’east Middle School, agrees. Sytsma expressed that, “We contract out for three years and in the negotiations currently, they [the district] are giving us nothing for the second and third year in regards to pay raises.” Almost mirroring Culhane, he continued, “We are also striking for safer work conditions. A lot of us work with some of our highest-needs students and those high-need students can occasionally have violent outbursts. It’s very difficult to have one person to one student, and when you look at our turnover rate, retention is an important thing. They’re not paying—they’re not giving a livable wage that allows for retention.”
Staff like Sytsma and Culhane are put in an extremely difficult position as they care deeply for their students and do not want to come to the option of striking. Culhane further expressed this, stating, “I just want to be in front of my students, that’s what I’m dying to do.” With the continuous struggles they face every day in the workplace, however, it is no surprise that they strive for better, not only for other staff members, but also the kids that they care for and want to push towards success. According to Sytsma, “We want to be back at work, we want to be there for our students, we want the schools to open. We care about you [students], but we can’t keep having paras and bus drivers and custodial and everyone else leave because they’re not being paid enough. That inconsistency is not safe for students, it’s not conducive to your [students’] learning.”
This strike, even more than it may seem, has pushed people outside of staff to stand united as well. Travis Jacobs, a rising senior here at Union High School, for one, is organizing a group of high schoolers together to strike as students in support of the union. He hopes that the district will see the perspective of the students and realize how much they are really impacted. Travis, like every student in the district, has been personally affected and, like many, is worried future plans may go unseen or set back due to the strike. According to him, “I’ve been affected by the strike because I’m a senior this year and I’m super excited to go back to school and start my senior year and reunite with all my friends.” He continued explaining how he has plans for the summer after graduation and is not sure if he can achieve them with the uncertainty of when the school year is to start. “I hope that the board recognizes us as students and as people who are supporting the people who are striking, but also want our voices to be heard.”
This strike and the issues it is protesting have, in no doubt, created a community of people ranging from students pushing forth effort in hopes of pushing the board, to honks of support coming toward protestors from everyday people driving past areas of strikers. Members of the union are not the only ones actively hoping for this strike to come to an end. While speaking with Sytsma, many cars honked their horns in support as they passed by. He spoke as follows, “I mean (cars honk as they go by) as you can hear, those honks—that’s the community standing in solidarity with us. We appreciate it. I am incredibly proud of my union brothers and sisters for standing up for what we know is right.” He also expressed his opinion on having to have to strike at all, saying, “I’m furious that it came to this, that’s the easiest thing I can say.” Culhane shared similar feelings when asked about having to strike, saying, “Hate it. It’s not even a general feeling. I don’t want to be here; nobody wants to be here.”
Moving forward, there is unfortunately no clear end in sight for the strike. According to Dr. Christine Moloney, Superintendent of the Evergreen School District, the board is willing to listen and attempt to reach an agreement with the PSE Large Group union by September 2nd in hopes that school will not be delayed any further. Schools in the district had originally been delayed by a week, moving the first day of school from August 26th to September 2nd. However, many members of the union, including Culhane, do not think the strike will come to an end anytime soon. Culhane, after attending the board meeting on August 26th remarked that, “They [the district] have not come back with anything different, they just told us that we don’t have “the juice” [to strike], which is why if you see people wearing juice boxes, it’s because the district said paras and our union people don’t have the juice to make this happen. And, you know, they’re wrong. Nobody wants to be here.” As Culhane described, attempts of resolve from the district have evidently fallen short of the union’s needs. Because of this, they have recently rejected the district’s “final offer” for an agreement, and with school scheduled to start so soon, it is not doubtful that it will be extended once again.
As members of the union are continuously proving, they do in fact have the “juice” to protest injustices in the workplace. Whether the strike ends soon or continues forward, they will continue to fight for what they believe is right. As Sytsma expressed, “I’m furious that it has affected the start of school. There’s this misconception that we waited and waited, that we made it so that it delayed the start of school. We’ve been negotiating since March.” We can only hope that the EPS Board of Directors will see how long and hard the PSE Large Group has fought for change. Only when they have reached an agreement can the thousands impacted, from janitorial workers to students, begin the new school year.