Warden teachers, board seek common ground

WARDEN - More than 70 people  attended the Warden School Board meeting last week to encourage a swift resolution to the district's months-long contract negotiations with teachers.

The Warden Education Association, the teacher's union, and the school board have been without a contract since August. The next mediation meeting is set for Thursday.

One of the major issues is the 1.9 percent pay cut to teachers the state Legislature passed last year, Steve Lindholm, UniServ representative for the Washington Education Association, told the Columbia Basin Herald. The Washington Education Association serves as a resource to local unions, including the Warden Education Association.

While school administrators took a three percent pay cut from the state, Warden administrators recouped the cut in their contract, said Lindholm.

"We're proposing that the teachers be treated the exact same way as the administration," he said.

The teachers proposed changes to the contract instead of raising salaries to make up for the pay cut, he said.

"Those are language pieces that are zero cost to the district, it's just changing language," he said. "We've put proposals on the table in terms of language that deal around agency fee, which is for non-union members where they would have to pay a fair share of representation fee because they enjoy the benefits of the contract. We've put language items on there about the length of the teacher's workday, professional duties and things like that."

"There's been little movement," Larry Dagnon, Warden Education Association president, told the Columbia Basin Herald. "In fact, the district has negotiated regressively ... Every time they've come back they've offered less than the time before."

At the school board meeting, teachers and community members took turns addressing the board.

"I want to encourage the board and the negotiation team to help speed up the negotiation process," Dagnon told the school board. "I would like to see a better, more good-faith effort made on behalf of the board. We've sat for 23 hours so far in our mediation process and it's taking a long time. It's taking a toll on our membership, it's taking a toll on our employees and the school."

"One thing that keeps getting brought up is many of us don't live in Warden," said a teacher in the district. "That should say almost more than anything else. We could make more if we worked where we lived. We're not here for the paycheck. We are here because we love your kids. We believe in your community that we have become a part of. And it's just really challenging and frustrating ... Gas is not cheap, the pay is better elsewhere, the benefits are better elsewhere. I've been here 13 years and I came here just for a job, just for a year, and I was going to go somewhere else and I got suckered in by the kids. I love the kids here ... I spend the extra gas money, I make less money, I have worse benefits, because I love your kids and it would be nice to be validated for that instead of penalized for it."

"I guess the phrase that just keeps coming back to mind is just because a teacher can be replaced doesn't mean that they should be replaced," said Lisa Hanley, who identified herself as a teacher new to the Warden School District. "I have worked in several schools, have never been more impressed by the dedication and the hours that are put in by my colleagues at this school, at the high school. A tremendous, tremendous amount of effort and energy and love goes into these kids. Could you find another teacher to replace them? Absolutely, you probably could, but I don't think you're going to get the quality that you've got right now. Because as a teacher, again, who's taught in a lot of schools over the years, they don't come much better than this."

Several people said they had heard that Sheldon had called Warden's teachers replaceable during negotiations.

"Sometimes words are taken out of context, but I've never used the word ... replaceable," Warden School District Superintendent Sandra Sheldon told the Columbia Basin Herald. "I've never used that term, I've never thought that. Our teachers are amazing. They work miracles every single day and I've told them that many, many times. In fact, one of the things that I've told our teachers more than anything is we're so fortunate to be working here as a family, as a cougar pride. We use that term to mean family and no one here is replaceable. People work very hard. They're dedicated and I respect them highly."

"In looking at the number of people that were at the school board meeting the other night, I think that maybe it is showing the school board that we need to settle this thing," said Lindholm. "We are going to continue preparing and organizing ... The longer contract negotiations carry on, the more caustic they can become and we don't want to see that happen. ... I'm pretty optimistic that, in just my conversations with a couple of the board members afterward, I think they took it to heart what was said, what community members said, what teachers said."

"My hope is that cooler heads will prevail and they'll try to meet halfway," said Dagnon. "We've totally tried to eliminate things off of our list, we've given them four settlement proposals that they've not responded to favorably. And they have yet to really come back with anything of substance. I'm hoping that they'll come through in a good faith effort. That's my biggest hope."