It says something when more than 4,000 educators and their supporters rallied outside an empty Capitol building in Olympia last Saturday, April 25, to protest legislators who have yet to fully fund education.
Members of the state House of Representatives and the Senate had ended their regular session on Friday and likely returned home for the weekend. While they won’t be back in Olympia until Wednesday, April 29, for the start of their special session, educators spent their weekend gathered on the statehouse steps.
Teachers from 11 school districts in Western Washington staged walkouts two days last week, prompting legislators to introduce a bill to dock teachers’ pay for canceling classes and inconveniencing students, according to KIRO-TV.
Yet, state lawmakers seem to have no compunction when it comes to not fulfilling their job responsibilities of coming up with a budget that fully funds K-12 education, as mandated by the state Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary order. In fact, Washington State Democrats accused Senate Republicans of dodging committee work and floor action by taking three-day weekends at least three times this legislative session.
Now, this upcoming special session will cost taxpayers an extra several hundred thousand dollars.
The McCleary-mandated billions of dollars needed for materials and operating expenses, all-day kindergarten and smaller K-3 classes will likely not be fully funded again as legislators will need to compromise on many fronts to come up with a budget by July 1. This is on top of teacher cost-of-living pay raises and the voter-approved measure from last November to reduce K-12 classes sizes that would cost $5 billion through 2019.
As such, educators have no choice but to protest through the only means they have without further jeopardizing students’ in-class learning: walkouts that show their dedication to them outside the classroom.