Every day, teachers show up to their classrooms, plan lessons, teach and grade work. Janitors ensure facilities are clean and safe, and bus drivers punctually transport students to school and field trips. It is undeniable that they, and all the other staff that make public education possible, are invaluable members of society. However, it is also undeniable that they do not always receive compensation proportional to their contribution. According to the Economic Policy Institute, teachers earn over 24% less than other employees with the same level of education in 28 states—including Washington, where they earn 29.1% less on average. One way to make sure their rights are protected is through joining a union.
On Mercer Island, teachers and other district employees are represented by the local chapter of the Washington Education Association (WEA), the Mercer Island Education Association (MIEA). While the WEA, which is a subset of the nationwide National Education Association (NEA), advocates for public school employees on a state level through lobbying and pooling resources, the MIEA represents MISD’s employees to the district administration.
Each facility at MISD has designated building representatives who act as spokespeople and bring any possible breaches of contract up with the administration.
“My day-to-day job is I just check in with people, and people know that they can come to me,” English teacher and MIHS Building Representative Creighton Laughary said. “We have a really healthy and collaborative relationship with our building administration. They tell us what they’re doing. I communicate back to the members, and hopefully any issues of contract would get ironed out.”
In addition to representing teachers, who are certificated employees, the MIEA represents classified employees like library clerks, secretaries, security staff, bus drivers and paraeducators.
“A lot of districts have separate unions. We have one big union,” Laughary said.
As a representative for the Transportation Office, bus driver Oscar Kelley voices other drivers’ concerns when necessary.
“If the drivers have, say, a dispute where, what our contract says, the management is not following that,” Kelley said, “then they would come to me, and I would go and talk to my supervisor and bring up the issue.”
Recently, the MISD administration and the MIEA bargaining team, which was made up of representatives from all MISD buildings, including three MIHS teachers and one Transportations representative, ratified the new contract for the 2024-25 school year.
“What that means is we sit across the table from the district, and we work together with the district to find what works best for both of us, because it’s in our best interest that we find a solution together,” Ceramics teacher and three-time member of the bargaining team Chantel Torrey said.
This year’s contract, which will last for three years, was subject to longer-than-usual negotiations. Its terms remain largely the same, which has its benefits—classes are still capped at 33 students per teacher, and each teacher can only be responsible for 150 students total—but also its drawbacks, namely when it comes to salaries.
Every school year, the state of Washington adds a percentage to K-12 schools’ funding to adjust for inflation, which this year was 3.7%. But this percentage, although based on the change to the cost of living, does not directly translate to salaries. As a result, employees can end up being paid less than the previous year, even though their salary technically increased. This year, certified employees received a 1.25% raise, and classified employees received a 1.75% raise.
“Unfortunately, the state of education in Washington is kind of dire. We are not funded very well by our state,” Torrey said. “I would say it is much less a district issue than it is a state issue.”
In an effort to bring change on a state level, the WEA organized a Day of Action on Oct. 26. Union members doorbelled around the state to promote the election of state officials who support their agenda, as well as speak out against Initiative 2109, a measure which, if approved, would decrease funding for public schools by cutting an excise tax on people with an income higher than $250,000.
When asked what they wanted readers to know about the MIEA, all three interviewees responded with gratitude for the representation that unions give them.
“I’ve always been in favor of the union, even growing up on my first job, where there was no union to be a part of,” Kelley said. “I believe unions are good for employee representation … you have more strength in numbers.”
“Unions are great,” Torrey said. “Quite honestly, join a union. If you don’t have a union, you don’t have a voice in your workplace … They fight for you to have a job, to have a work life balance, to have your voice heard, to have equal pay, to have working conditions that aren’t abominable … without unions, your job can do whatever they want, and there’s no one standing in the way.”
