By NATALIE PATE/Oregon Public Broadcasting
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.
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.”
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.
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.”