After three long days of continuous bargaining, bargaining team members were excited and reinvigorated to be able to join YOU, our fellow educators and incredibly supportive community members who were holding the line this morning in front of your schools and participating in regional rallies. 

We started bargaining with PAT President Angela Bonilla meeting directly with Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero.  The conversation was civil but there was a clear disagreement and distance on how resources are used in the District, District finances, and the urgency for settling this contract and getting our kids back in school.  The District continues to show no urgency.  

We are still bargaining for you today.  Yesterday, your bargaining team worked diligently to integrate detailed language to operationalize improvements to two of your top priorities (student support & health & safety) in Article 9. We also presented an updated proposal on Special Education, another top priority of the membership. At around 8pm, we received a partial response on Article 9 in regards to the student support and discipline and were told that we’d receive a response on the safety portion of Article 9 tomorrow morning. Here is a safety side by side so you can see what your bargaining team provided to the district management team yesterday. 

This afternoon we presented detailed proposals to the district bargaining team that included updates to Articles 6 (work year) and 7 (workday), with very clear model schedules that demonstrate how the minimum planning minutes that are needed for workload relief can be achieved this year.  We are impatiently awaiting a response from the district bargaining team that shows they are ready to seriously consider our proposals and produce some type of  response to our demands other than the insultingly dismissive “proposals” we have seen thus far.    

We know you will be picketing at your school sites & knocking on neighborhood doors. Remember, the recent polling OEA conducted found nearly 90 percent of Portlanders support teachers striking for smaller class sizes and recruiting and retaining high quality educators like you!. 

 We will see you at the School Board rally at 5pm.

In Solidarity,

Your Bargaining Team
Steve Lancaster, Chair
Francisca Alvarez
Samara Bockelman
Julia Fogg
Thea Keith
Charity Powell

Ryan Olds, OEA Staff
Angela Bonilla, PAT President