Striking teachers in Kent threatened with $200-a-day fine

Published 10:54 pm Thursday, September 10, 2009

KENT — Striking teachers have until Monday to get back to the classroom in Washington state’s fourth-largest school district or be fined $200 day, a judge ruled Thursday.

King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas said the Kent Education Association also will be fined $1,500 a day for defying her order to return to work.

Darvas suspended the fines until Monday. If teachers are still on strike then, the fines will date back to the first day teachers defied the judge’s order, which was this past Monday.

“Even if they were absolutely right in all their demands, they are wrong in their actions. In short, they are breaking the law,” Darvas said during the hearing. “Teachers do not have a right to strike under Washington law. The longer the strike continues, the greater the degree of harm.”

The 2-week-old strike by 1,700 teachers is delaying classes for more than 26,000 students at 40 schools.

The union and district went back to the negotiation table Thursday morning. Kent Education Association president Lisa Brackin Johnson said the two sides were getting closer to a compromise on the class size issue they say is at the heart of the strike.

Strikes may be illegal in Washington, but they happen on a regular basis. It’s also not unusual for a school district to go to court to try to force teachers back into the classroom without a contract and for a judge to threaten fines, said Washington Education Association spokesman Rich Wood.

“As far as I can tell, no Washington teachers have had to pay a fine for being on strike in the past,” Wood said after studying the state teachers union archive.

He remembered fines being levied, but they must have been rescinded later because the teachers were not required to pay any fines.