Riverside Teachers To Walk Out Union Authorizes Leadership To Call Work Stoppage As Protest Against Superintendent

“We could be settled with a contract, and we’d still be having this walkout.”

Marvin Sather, state Teacher of the Year By Wendy Harris Staff writer With only a week of school left, teachers in the Riverside School District plan to stage a one-day walkout to protest their superintendent - a man they accuse of being bad for education.

All but 12 of the district’s 125 teachers voted by secret ballot Monday in favor of allowing the Riverside Education Association leadership to call a strike.

Riverside High School teacher and union spokesman Marvin Sather said the union hasn’t decided when to walk out, but the work stoppage probably will occur before the last day of school, June 13. He said he expects it to last one day.

Superintendent Jerry Wilson says he believes the teachers’ vote is just a union tactic to try to influence contract negotiations.

“I don’t think there is any question there,” Wilson said Monday.

If the work stoppage takes place, the district will consider legal action against the teachers, he said.

“It’s against the law (for teachers) to strike in the state of Washington,” he said.

Riverside teachers have been working without a new contract since their old one expired in August. But Sather and other teachers stress the bogged-down contract negotiations are just one of their many complaints against Wilson.

“We could be settled with a contract, and we’d still be having this walkout,” said Sather, Washington state’s Teacher of the Year. “It’s more than the contract - it goes beyond it.”

Teachers accuse him of being an autocratic leader who makes decisions in a vacuum. They say he ignores input and concerns from teachers and parents. They also criticize him for allegedly having no plans or vision for revamping the district’s curriculum to align it with the state’s tough new academic standards.

Some textbooks are 15 to 20 years old, Sather said, and teachers fill in the gaps with up-to-date information and lessons. While other school districts are providing additional days for teacher training and curriculum planning, Riverside is taking a step backward with fewer, he said.

“We feel that students are being hurt under this current system that doesn’t allow for a democratic process in the decision making,” Sather said.

Wilson, however, has defended his abilities as superintendent and pointed out that teachers don’t run a school district.

Wilson, however, says the Riverside Education Association’s tactics look strikingly familiar.

Teachers in a few other districts around the state have gone a similar route of attempting to oust superintendents who don’t give them what they want, Wilson said.

A case in point, says Wilson, is the Clover Park School District near Tacoma. Last year, teachers there gave their superintendent a vote of no confidence, but the superintendent refused to buckle to the union. After school employees won their contract, the superintendent left the district.

“It’s pretty much the same thing,” Wilson said. “It’s not unique to Riverside.”

The Clover Park case is chronicled in a new report, “Collective Bargaining in Public Schools: Turning the Focus to Students,” by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

The conservative foundation and the Washington Education Association have been fighting ever since the policy group accused the union of major campaign violations during the 1996 elections.

The report, among other findings, charges that the union’s ability and willingness to intimidate administrators results in the union determining education policy, rather than school board members.

Teachers gave Wilson a vote of no confidence in 1997. Last month, 99 of them signed a petition requesting he resign. Wilson has said he has no plans to step down.

Contract negotiations will continue Wednesday. Assistant Superintendent Terry Weinmann, however, wonders whether a strike will hurt progress.

“It’s real disappointing to have this happen because essentially six of the nine items that are in negotiation have been tentatively resolved,” Weinmann said. “I’m not sure what this does to the morale of the negotiation teams as far as moving on.”

Among the outstanding issues are the number of teacher planning days to be allotted, and contract language that would outline how to resolve conflicts other than grievances.

“We want to be able to sit down and facilitate communication and solve problems with the district,” Sather said.

Sather added that teachers are pleased with a tentative agreement reached by both sides to address how teacher transfers are handled. Teachers have long complained that they are arbitrarily reassigned to teach different grade levels or subjects.

School board President Janet Hansen says she is saddened the district has reached such a low point, but believes progress is being made.

“I certainly wished it wouldn’t have come to this, but I still have great hope that things will work out,” she said.