More than 200 educators gathered Saturday afternoon in Judkins Park to prepare for a strike that could delay the first day of classes at Seattle Public Schools.
Teachers, paraeducators and instructional aides organized, made signs and practiced picket lines and chants in the event the district doesn’t reach a tentative agreement with members of the Seattle Education Association by the end of Tuesday. SEA is the union representing about 6,000 SPS teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, counselors and other staff.
At the park, educators stapled 6,000 red-and-white poster boards reading “On Strike!” to wooden handles, duct-taping the ends to prevent splinters. Then they loaded them into cars that would ultimately drive the signs to each of the 106 public schools in Seattle and the district’s headquarters in Sodo.
Union leaders and district negotiators also met Saturday, seeking to make progress toward a new contract. If they don’t reach a tentative agreement by Tuesday night, educators will be picketing outside schools starting Wednesday, Sept. 2 — scheduled to be the first day of the school year for the public school district’s nearly 50,000 students.
Educators squeezed the gathering into a week that most spent in their classrooms, preparing the spaces for the coming school year. Many teachers will be in their classrooms Monday and Tuesday, too — all the while wondering when and what the district and their union representatives will decide.
“I’m feeling both frustrated and sad,” said Alex Kramer, a special education instructional assistant at Salmon Bay K-8 in Ballard. “I’m trying to balance both things.” Kramer said he and his colleagues don’t want to strike, but they feel passionately about making sure special education students get the help they need.
Aside from wages and class sizes, one of the main sticking points in negotiations is the district’s proposed changes to the special education program. Educators said they fear the changes will result in fewer adults in the classroom to help special education students.
Seattle Public Schools did not provide comment about its proposed changes to special education on Saturday evening.
While both sides have declined to provide specifics of the proposals, several educators who spoke to The Seattle Times anonymously said the district wants to reduce the number of special education pathways," which distinguish what kinds of special education services students receive.
“My job is to go into classrooms and help individual students through a moment where they are dysregulated, Kramer said. “If I’m there, I can help the student. The less I’m there, the more often those moments of dysregulation can turn into big moments and harm — not only for the student but the students around them. It can have a cascading effect.”
“I deeply believe in inclusion; that is why I do the work that I do,” Kramer added, referring to the principle that students receiving special education services should remain in the same classroom alongside their peers. Providing specialized support for these students in a general education setting usually means they receive individual support from an adult, often called instructional assistants or paraeducators.
In addition to the changes to special education, educators and the district are still trying to hammer out an agreement on decreasing class sizes, which is part of an overall ask to ease the workload on teachers, especially outside school hours.
Ashley Burchett is a school psychologist at Franklin High School in Mount Baker. She said the lion's share of her time is spent completing evaluations to determine whether students are eligible for an Individualized Education Plan, often called an IEP, because they have a learning disability.
The National Association of School Psychologists recommends one psychologist for every 500 students — and the current union contract prescribes one school psychologist for every 1,050 students, Burchett said. That’s why educators want to make that ratio smaller in the new contract.
“It is extremely exhausting and overwhelming because every evaluation is comprehensive in nature,” Burchett said. “You aren’t going to say ‘I’m sorry, I’m full, I’m too busy’ — because these are students. We serve whoever shows up.”
Burchett said she often works nights and weekends to keep up with the workload, meaning less time for herself and her family. “I got into this job to help people, not to pretend to help people,” Burchett said. “I’m not going to reduce the services I provide to students, but it absolutely takes a toll, and it's untenable.”
After the union voted late Wednesday night to authorize a strike, representatives for the union and the district returned to the bargaining table Thursday, Friday and Saturday, trying to reach consensus on a new contract that they’ve been negotiating since late June.
They made some progress — a total of 12 items have been agreed upon, out of 57 that would result in a complete tentative contract. That’s five more items ticked off the list since Wednesday night’s vote, including several agreements pertaining to classified staff — meaning those who do not hold a state certification, such as paraeducators, instructional aides and secretaries. The newest agreements include a mentorship committee and referral and screening protocols for classified staff, and updates to representation rights, including access to personnel files and arbitration rights for terminated staff.
Last week, the union and district reached agreements on American Sign Language interpreters, employees’ right to return after being reassigned to a different building, timekeeping, artificial intelligence and school safety, including protocols to protect immigrant students in the district.
Public employees like teachers have the right to organize and bargain collectively in Washington but do not have a legally protected right to strike. That hasn’t stopped them, however.
Seattle teachers last went on strike in September 2022, pushing back the start of school by five days. The membership vote to authorize that strike was 95%. The union also went on strike in 2015, the first time Seattle educators had gone on strike in 30 years.
The 2022 strike ended when educators won a three-year contract with annual pay increases of 7%, 4%, and 3%, respectively. Last year, a one-year contract was agreed upon with a 2.5% pay increase.
This year, the union is seeking a 1% to 3% increase in wages for certificated staff, which includes teachers and counselors who hold a state certification. For classified staff, the union is seeking a 3% to 5% increase. Both increases would be in addition to a 2.6% cost-of-living adjustment set by the state.
© 2026 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
