SEA Bargaining Team Update

The SEA Bargaining Team met with the state mediator and the Shoreline School Board’s bargaining team Thursday evening, all day Friday and on Saturday from 8 a.m. until 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Despite our hard work and your support, the Shoreline School Board still refuses to offer a tentative contract agreement our Team can bring to the membership on Tuesday.

Late Saturday night, the teams exchanged new proposals. In the spirit of problem-solving and creative thinking, we will be meeting with the mediator and the district again on Monday to discuss them.

SESPA is bargaining today (Sunday).

SEA and SESPA members voted to strike Sept. 5 if we do not have a tentative agreement by 6 a.m. Sept. 4. While everyone wants a settlement by Tuesday, we must prepare for a strike.

You can download and read a lot of material on the SEA Web page at http://www.shorelineea.org. We have community flyers, a Q & A and a copy of the full-page ad we ran in 23,000 copies of the Friday edition of The Shoreline Enterprise.

Please talk to all of your Shoreline friends, family and neighbors and encourage them to contact the Shoreline School Board and urge the board to settle our contract so school can start on time.

As we contemplate a strike, our WEA colleagues in the Bethel School District have been on strike since Aug. 30. As in Bethel, the contract settlement we seek in Shoreline is reasonable and realistic. We are doing the right thing for ourselves, our students and our schools.