When asked whether to approve a strike — should it come to that — the vast majority of Albany teachers said “yes.”
According to voting results Tuesday evening, 92% of Greater Albany Education Association members voted “yes” in this week’s authorization vote.
Supporters and members of the Greater Albany Education Association gather to count strike authorization votes in the community room at Albany’s First Christian Church on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024.
Natalie Pate / OPB
That means that if negotiations with Greater Albany Public Schools administrators don’t appear headed toward an agreement the union supports, and union leaders feel a strike is needed, the vast majority of GAEA members would support that decision.
“This strike vote represents a difficult but necessary decision by our members,” said Dana Lovejoy, president of the union, at a press conference outside Albany’s First Christian Church.
A couple dozen parents, community members and union leaders gathered in the church’s community room Tuesday afternoon to tally the votes.
“Our educators do not take this step lightly,” Lovejoy said. “We do it because we are deeply committed to the students we teach and the community we serve.”
The Greater Albany Education Association represents roughly 600 licensed educators, including teachers and counselors, across the mid-Willamette Valley city. According to the state’s latest available data, Greater Albany Public Schools enrolled about 8,780 students in the 2023-24 school year.
Lovejoy said the union believes their demands, which would cost tens of millions of dollars over the three-year contract, are essential for attracting and retaining high-quality teachers, ensuring safe working and learning conditions, and “upholding the educational standards our students deserve.”
Peter Epp came to support the union Tuesday night as a parent of three young children, two of whom are students in the district. Epp is also a former educator himself, though not in the Albany school district. He said he knows a strike would be hard for everyone. But he still thinks it would be worth it.
“There are some really hard realities in our district right now that I know that me and lots of other parents and families are seeing firsthand, and I think we’re ready to get those things worked out,” he said. “So, we’ll support our teachers as long as they need in order to get to where this district needs to be.”
Epp is especially concerned with turnover in staffing and losing teachers to higher-paying districts. He’s also heard from other families that their children with disabilities, who are on Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, are not having their needs met.
Union leaders have been in contract negotiations with the district for nearly nine months. They’ve presented two proposals. One is a baseline proposal that’s narrowly focused on topics that the district is required to bargain over; the other presents more of the union’s ideal changes for staff and students. They argue the district isn’t treating their negotiations with enough urgency.
“[In] those nine months, for a third of our proposals to [get] no counter or anything means that we need more serious movement,” said Max Nazarian, vice-president of the union, in response to claims that the union is acting too quickly or rashly. “We need them to actually hear us.”
Union leaders also remain unconvinced that the district doesn’t have the money to meet their top demands.
Nazarian says the district is sitting on a substantial surplus that it could spend. “So, to say that they don’t have money, they’re out of money, seems disingenuous,” he said.
When asked if the union’s proposal was financially feasible for the district, Superintendent Andy Gardner said, “You could say it was possible, but class sizes would balloon, and we would have to cut staff in order to make that, what they’re asking for, balance.”
Like other district leaders across the state, Gardner wants to see systemic changes to school funding from the Capitol. Many district leaders, including those from Portland Public and Salem-Keizer, are pushing state lawmakers to revamp Oregon’s education funding model and invest more money in public schools.
Though sticking points around things like additional pay for large class sizes persist, Gardner said the district and union have been able to resolve a number of issues. High school schedules and allotted prep time were solved about a month ago. And last Friday night, he said, they resolved another issue that had been a major point for the union throughout bargaining: managing student behavior and what a teacher could do to address repeated behaviors in their classroom.
Gardner believes a resolution could be reached through ongoing negotiations. The two bargaining teams are meeting again with a state mediator on Nov. 4.
“GAPS is committed to continuing to work with GAEA to avoid a strike and wants to stress that it holds the teachers in the district in high regard,” he said in response to the strike vote. “As we learned last year in Portland, a strike produces no winners.”
This week’s vote comes just days before the one-year anniversary of the Portland Association of Teachers strike that lasted nearly the entire month of November. Salem-Keizer narrowly avoided a strike in March.
Earlier this month, the Beaverton School District requested state mediation in contract talks with its teachers' union. According to the Oregon Education Association, 49 local unions across the state currently have open contracts.
The Albany district and union are still in the 30-day cooling-off period required by the state, which runs until Nov. 10.
Even though members voted to authorize a strike, union leaders would still have to give the district a 10-day notice of their intent to strike before teachers could join picket lines, meaning the earliest a strike may start would be Nov. 12, just after the Veterans Day holiday.
If a strike happens, schools will close. Licensed teachers who report to work during a strike will be paid and receive full benefits, according to the district’s strike contingency plan released Tuesday night. Teachers who do not report to work during the strike period will have days deducted from their checks.
Paychecks for classified staff will not change, and they are still expected to report to work. High schoolers in co-curricular activities will continue to participate in practices and scheduled contests, though to participate in the strike, licensed staff can’t coach any activities.
District leaders are still working out plans to distribute breakfasts and lunches during a potential strike.
Read more information on the district and union websites.