By John William Howard
Kirkland Reporter
BOTHELL — A far lower percentage of Northshore School District support staff are eligible for benefits than in surrounding districts, according to an analysis by The Kirkland Reporter.
Support staff, including educational assistants, are a central issue in labor negotiations with the district this summer. The union claims the district is shortchanging assistants in salary and benefits.
The district says teachers and other staff are properly compensated and that it has been working to extend benefits.
More bargaining talks are scheduled later this month.
The assistants’ union has about 500 members. Of those, 178 are not eligible for benefits, though the number used to be higher. A large percentage work 20 hours a week.
By contrast, the Lake Washington School District — which covers Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish — has fewer support staff without benefits.
A majority of the 277 members of Lake Washington’s Trades Bargaining union, representing aides, assistants and some secretaries, have benefits. Only three percent are ineligible.
Numbers from the Shoreline School District also differ from Northshore. Shoreline has 169 employees in that category, and 12 percent are not eligible for benefits.
The Northshore teachers and support staff merged unions earlier this year, with more than 1,800 members. The district denied them joint bargaining, however, which has been one of the most contentious issues in the negotiations.
The denial led to a union vote of no-confidence in the human resources director, Jeff Sherwood, who is representing the district in bargaining talks. The district said it supports Sherwood.
Kraig Peck, a union negotiator, says the teachers and support staff are fighting for many of the same ideals and it doesn’t make sense to argue the same point twice.
But it goes deeper. With a large portion of support staff working part-time, teachers have to spend more time checking in with classroom aides, many of whom assist students with special needs.
That means time away from the rest of the class, the union says. The union and the school district also disagree about salaries. In June the district said its pay scale remains competitive.
The two sides are supposed to come to an agreement by the end of August.
John Howard: jhoward@kirklandreporter.com; 425-242-4361.
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