Hundreds of members of the teachers union at South Western City Schools and their supporters marched to urge a resolution to ongoing contract negotiations and to continue voicing opposition to the school board joining a controversial conservative group.
Members of the South Western Education Association, largely clad in red T-shirts, marched June 9 from a nearby parking lot into the district’s school board meeting, filling it to standing-room only capacity.
With chants of “One, two, three, four, students deserve so much more!” and “Five, six, seven, eight, c’mon board negotiate!” a crowd crossed from the Central Crossing High School parking lot and filed into the board meeting at the South Western Career Academy.
The union represents approximately 1,600 teachers, speech pathologists, psychologists and other staff throughout the district. The current contract expires at the end of June.
South-Western City Schools is the sixth-largest district in the state with over 21,000 students and is the third-largest in central Ohio, trailing Columbus City Schools and Olentangy Local School District.
The school board has recently also come under criticism for joining the National School Board Leadership Council, which advocates for English-only education and segregating students with disabilities.
Board President Chris Boso said at a previous meeting that nothing is changing with how the district administers English-language learning and disability education.
The current contract had already been approved at this point in the year in 2022. The board approved the current contract with SWEA on May 23, 2022, which included a 3% increase in base pay for the first two years and a 2.8% increase in the third year.
Evan Debo, school district spokesperson, told The Dispatch after the meeting that the district is currently negotiating with two other unions representing other district staff. SWCSD needs to do “due diligence to ensure that every voice is heard at the negotiating table,” Debo said.
The negotiations are also happening amid the unclear future for education funding from the state General Assembly.
District leadership has changed since the last contract was negotiated. There’s a new superintendent leading the school district, and three of the five current members were not yet on the board.
When asked why the contract had not been approved yet after the meeting, Boso, who was on the board in 2022, said that they were following a “normal process.” He then left to attend an executive session the board called that included “bargaining sessions with public employees” at the end of the meeting.
Negotiations between SWEA representatives and the board have been ongoing since March, union spokesperson Emmalee Harding told The Dispatch ahead of the board meeting.
Harding said that if a new contract is not approved before the start of the school year, teachers could keep working under the expired contract. It is too early to say if teachers would strike, she said.
Whatever the sticking points are is unclear. Harding said that she is not personally involved in the talks and said she was unable to discuss specifics still under negotiation.
SWCSD spokesperson Debo also declined to comment on specifics after the meeting, citing the pending negotiations in executive session.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers the western suburbs for the Columbus Dispatch. She can be reached at awinfrey@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: ‘Students deserve so much more’: South Western City teachers union rallies for new contract
Reporting by Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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