It's back to school for Seattle's 53,000 students as the teacher's strike ends and kids can finally hit the classrooms on Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal. The delayed teacher's deal cost students and teachers a week out of their school year.
"We've negotiated a pro-student, pro-parent, pro-educator agreement," Jonathan Knapp, president of the union, said in a statement Tuesday night.
"These issues are about...giving our children what they need," said Phyllis Campano, Seattle Education Association (SEA) vice president and chair of the bargaining team.
Teacher's union officials voted to end the strike once a three-year agreement was reached, Raw Story reported. Highlights of the deal include a 9.5 percent pay raise (over a three-year period), a 4.8 percent state-approved cost-of-living adjustment, compensation for adding time to the school day, and removing the correlation of teacher's evaluations based on test scores.
"Both teams have worked long hours for months, to make this happen," union spokesman Rich Wood said.
The strike left working parents having to find daycare options, although thankfully this is actually the first class interruption in more than three decades that was labor related. Considering that Seattle is the largest public school system in the Pacific Northwest, that is quite a feat.
The city also pitched in and opened up 21 community centers to help 3,000 students during the strike, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Many families had turned to local boy's and girl's clubs to help with their children who couldn't stay home, as HNGN previously reported. Most families involved were very worried about their children's education.
