Feb. 19 (UPI) — West Virginia teachers will strike for the second time within a year, this time to protest a state bill that would usher in charter schools using public funds dedicated for public schools.
All but one of the state’s 55 county public school districts canceled classes Tuesday in anticipation of the strike that was called by West Virginia’s three major school employee unions Monday night, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
While Senate Bill 451 gives teachers pay raises and increases funding for public education, it also allows for charter schools to be created in West Virginia for the first time. The bill will allow for public money to be used for private, online and home schools through newly created “educational savings accounts.”
“We have worked patiently,” Fred Albert, president of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, said in a statement, The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register reported. “We are taking action. We are left with no other choice … we are calling a statewide strike. We are left no other choice – our voice has been shut out.”
West Virginia teachers won a 5 percent pay raise after a two-week strike a year ago, the largest increase for educators in state history.
The state Senate and House originally passed competing versions of the bill before the Senate updated its version and returned it to the lower chamber Monday, sparking the teacher’s strike. That version cemented the statewide charter school program with a seven-school maximum and a limited education savings account program with 1,000 first-come first-serve accounts for parents of special needs students and victims of bullying.
West Virginia’s strike last year sparked national activism among educators that saw other walkouts in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona and Washington state. This year, Los Angeles and Denver teachers mounted strikes while another has been authorized in Oakland.
Union leaders for Oakland’s public school teachers rejected calls from administrators Monday to continue contract negotiations, and said school officials are not taking concerns about pay and student resources seriously.
Oakland teachers are campaigning for smaller class sizes, more counselors and nurses and a 12 percent retroactive raise from 2017 to 2020. The district countered with a 5 percent raise over the same period.
The union has already authorized a strike, and Monday’s impasse makes it more likely the teachers from 87 schools will walk out of classrooms this week.