MARYSVILLE — Shakara Heaton finally got to wear her prized new ensemble — a 1970s-ish blue, hot pink and tan suede hat, bell-bottom jeans and black velvet boots.
Still, she didn’t want to look conspicuous.
"Don’t give me a kiss," Shakara told her mother Wednesday morning. "The boys are looking. I better get in line now."
Before she left, the fourth-grader gave her mother, Judy Heaton, a big hug outside Liberty Elementary School.
Shakara was one of roughly 11,000 Marysville School District students to finally enter the classroom Wednesday after the longest teachers strike in state history. The strike lasted 49 days, and school started 51 days late as a result.
Heaton walked her daughter to class, thankful that the weeks of waiting were over.
"I can go back to work now," she said, adding that she and her family support the teachers and hope three new school board members are elected in the Nov. 4 general election.
Children are back in class, but the struggle in Marysville is far from over.
As of Wednesday afternoon, no school board meetings had been scheduled. The board has not had a public meeting since declaring an emergency during the strike and suspending its policies and regular school board meetings, granting superintendent Linda Whitehead all decision-making powers.
School board president Helen Mount said Wednesday that the board could have a special meeting to address specific issues as early as Monday. Those issues could include lifting the emergency strike procedures, but that meeting would not include public comment, she said.
The next board meeting at which public comments would be taken could be on Nov. 3, she said.
It may still be a while before parents and students know what the school calendar will look like and when school will end in 2004.
The calendar is among the items that need to be negotiated between the school district and the teachers union.
School board member Erik Olson on Wednesday said he wants to open that discussion to all parties — teachers, nonteaching school employees, parents, students, taxpayers and the business community — because of the unusual circumstances of the late start.
Ideally, he said, the discussion would take place in a public meeting as a part of "the healing process."
The district said Wednesday that it could not immediately provide an accounting of all the strike-related costs, such as legal fees, security costs and overtime. However, it has established an accounting code to track strike-related costs, said Judy Parker, a school district spokeswoman.
"We made a point of using one accounting code so we could account for our citizens just how much of their money has been spent," Parker said. "We just can’t do it until we get school going. That’s just our priority right now."
No new contract negotiations have been set between the 650-member Marysville Education Association and the district. Both sides have not met since Sunday, when they clocked out on their 32-hour court-ordered "good faith" negotiation requirement.
The roots of the strike can be found in the long-strained relationship between the teachers, Whitehead and the five board members. The district and the teachers are at a stalemate in the three-year contract negotiations over what each side views as big philosophical differences. The teachers are now working under their old contract.
Teachers oppose the district’s proposal to switch from a locally bargained salary schedule to a state salary model. They also want the salary range for the part of their pay that comes from local tax dollars to remain the same, and they argue that the district is trying to increase the number of days of district-led training without additional pay.
The district wants to convert to a state salary schedule and get more training for teachers. It says the 7.5 percent pay increase teachers are seeking over three years would take too much money away from other programs and could cut jobs of nonteaching employees.
It was billed as a showdown — "High Noon in Marysville" — but one of the gunslingers didn’t show up.
An Olympia-based conservative policy group, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, intended to host a debate during a forum on the Marysville labor dispute Wednesday night. Instead, it was largely a like-minded audience of 100 people.
Darci Becker, a member of Accountability and Integrity for Marysville Schools, or AIMS, was billed as a panelist to debate school board member Mark Johnson.
Instead, she stood outside the forum in the rain with a few other protesters. Becker said she thought she would merely be a speaker. The forum format was changed, and she pulled out when told she would be involved in a debate.
The group chose not to participate, co-founder Teri Tyo said, because it believed the deck would be too stacked against them at the political group’s event.
"The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is known to be anti-union and to support the privatization of our schools," she said.
AIMS members are mostly parents, with some teachers, who have aligned themselves with the teachers during the strike. Many members of AIMS support the three challengers seeking to replace the incumbent school board members.
Challengers Carol Jason, Vicki Gates and Michael Kundu hope to unseat incumbents Mark Johnson, Cary Peterson and Olson.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation supports public schools, said Marsha Richards, a spokeswoman for the group. It also wants more education options, such as charter schools or vouchers that would allow parents to use public money to send their children to a private school.
The group supports collective bargaining but believes teachers should have the right to choose between letting unions or professional organizations negotiate their contracts, or to negotiate them individually, Richards said.
It chose to enter the Marysville fray because the issues represent a good example of the high-stakes relationships between school districts and teachers unions.
"In this case, the outcome of this dispute will definitely have a statewide impact," Richards said.
Bob Williams, president of the foundation, said he has reviewed the district’s finances. He pointed to a reserve fund that is well below a consultant’s recommendation, similar school districts and the Marysville’s board’s goals.
Whatever the composition of the board after the election, school board members will face the same problem, he said.
"The money is not there," he said.
School board members Johnson, Olson and Peterson said the money is tight.
"We can no longer afford the (teacher) raises to come out of local tax dollars," Olson said.
Also during the presentations, state Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, made a pitch for binding interest arbitration as a way of avoiding teacher strikes.
The Marysville Education Association did not attend the forum. Its president, Elaine Hanson, said the foundation is an organization "out to dismantle public education" and "they have no reason to be in Marysville."
The foundation would not disclose whether any Marysville School Board members are donors to their organization. As a volunteer organization, it protects the confidentiality of its members who don’t agree to have their names used, Richards said.
School board members Johnson, Olson, Mount and Peterson said they are not members of the group. School board member Ron Young, who is quoted in a story on the foundation’s Web site, is in Haiti on a medical social work mission and could not be reached for comment.
The district was monitoring first-day enrollment Wednesday. Although kindergarten students were not in school and no counts of vocational students were available, the district said it was near its projection of 11,000 students.
Many families were relieved to see their children back in school.
Andrew Carrillo had been disappointed when the strike started. The Liberty second-grader had been looking forward to being in Nina Shelly’s class and following in the footsteps of his two older siblings, who previously had the same teacher.
On Wednesday, he was all smiles.
He was less concerned about math, reading and writing than making up for lost time with friends.
"I get to see Alex, my best friend," he said.
Sheryl Ramos, who has a first-grader and fourth-grader at Liberty, was considering trying to home-school them if the strike lasted much longer.
"I think 90 percent of us parents figured we don’t want to lose our summer," she said. "We all have plans, and now they’re up in the air."
Although thankful that teachers are back in school, parent Joe Darlington said he recognized that the dispute leading to the strike had not been resolved.
"It’s like you have two big bullies on the same playground, and neither one is going to budge."
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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