Tumwater students head to school Tuesday, nearly two weeks after scheduled start

Nearly two weeks after school was supposed to begin, Tumwater students start class Tuesday.

The Tumwater Education Association voted Monday morning to ratify its agreement with the district, ending its strike.

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“It's exhilarating, it's exhausting, but we really feel good about what we did for our students and our staff and our community,” said TEA President Tim Voie.

Voie fought on the front lines the entire strike.

"I think, when we look back on it a year from now, years from now, we're going to know that we did some really good things for the students and our community,” he said.

The Tumwater School District said teachers will get a 16.7 percent salary raise for the 2018-19 school year and a 2.4 percent salary increase for 2019-20.

Voie said the boost brings a first-year teacher's salary from about $43,000 per year up to about $51,000. The highest-paid teachers now make about $96,000.

Although the contract increased teacher salaries, Voie said it didn’t bring down class sizes. Instead, the district agreed to redistribute students so classes aren’t overloaded. If classes are overloaded, teachers will receive compensation.

“I'm really excited. These are the kind of things, I can help my daughter go to college or finish her college payment and tuition. We can fix the broken car. Things like that,” said Tumwater teacher Cecilia Harvey.

"It's a much better contract for students, teachers and the safety of everybody. It's just fantastic. I just can't believe it,” said Tumwater teacher Greg Bert.

Although teachers are happy, the district said the new contract puts it in debt. District officials announced Sunday that they expect to face an estimated $4.4 million deficit for 2018-19 and a $7.5 million deficit for 2019-20.

According to the district, this school year’s deficit will be covered by the current fund balance. Officials will be actively looking for other ways to reduce spending to reduce the deficit. The following year, if nothing is done at the legislative level to fix the inequities in the new funding model, the district will require significant reductions.

Voie believes the numbers are exaggerated.

"We ended last year with a $3.1 million fund balance, so I think that if the district continues to be fiscally responsible, like they have been in years past, I think we'll be OK. I'm not too worried about their shortfall,” he said.

He said the new contracts only make Tumwater stronger.

"I think they'll be flocking to us and the people who were considering leaving for other districts have a lot of really good reasons to stay,” said Voie.

The TEA and the district will meet to figure out how to make up the nine school days canceled because of the strike.

Cox Media Group