At 5:30 p.m. on September 1, the Seattle Education Association and Seattle Public Schools were still bargaining under a state mediator, with the union's contract expired and a strike authorized to begin Wednesday morning, September 2, the scheduled first day of school for grades 1–12. Union members were rallying outside district headquarters while the bargaining teams worked inside. The union represents about 6,000 teachers, paraeducators, office professionals, counselors, nurses and other staff. Its members voted 91.2 percent on August 26 to authorize a strike if there is no tentative agreement by 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. At a 3 p.m. briefing, Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said he was 'optimistic', that proposals were moving 'at such a quick speed' that both sides clearly wanted a deal, and that he hoped to announce whether schools open 'way before midnight' — but that the call could come as late as 5 a.m., when buses roll. Board President Gina Topp asked for an agreement 'by the end of the day, so kids can start classes tomorrow.'
Both sides have put their positions in writing: the union in a set of conceptual proposals dated June 25 and in daily bargaining updates, the district in a proposal summary of its August 28 comprehensive offer and in the superintendent's August 30 newsletter. Here is what each is asking for, side by side, and what the public record says about the gap.
Pay: the district's offer tracks inflation; the union wants more on top
The district's offer guarantees raises of 2.6 percent in 2026-27, 3.6 percent in 2027-28 and 2.6 percent in 2028-29 for all three SEA bargaining units — 8.8 percent over three years. The first-year number is the state's inflation adjustment for 2026-27, the implicit price deflator (IPD) that Olympia applies to its salary allocations. The district describes the next two years as its expectation of the IPD, with the raise adjusting upward if inflation comes in higher. These sit on top of step increases for employees still moving up the salary schedule, which the district says average about 4 percent a year over the first 15 years of a career.
The union's June proposals ask for the state inflation adjustment as a baseline and additional raises on top of it: 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 percent for certificated staff (teachers, counselors, psychologists, nurses and other specialists), and 4 percent a year for paraeducators and for the school office professionals in the SAEOP unit. Over three years that is the inflation factor plus 6 points for teachers, and plus 12 points for the two classified units, whose members are the lowest paid. By late August, the Spokesman-Review reported the ask as 1 to 3 percent above the state adjustment for certificated staff and 3 to 5 percent for classified staff. The union's framing of the district's offer is 'inflation only' — not a raise.
| Item | SEA asks (June 25 proposals) | SPS offers (Aug. 28 proposal) |
|---|---|---|
| Teachers, counselors, other certificated staff | State inflation factor (IPD) plus 1.5% / 2.0% / 2.5% | 2.6% / 3.6% / 2.6%, guaranteed; adjusts up if the IPD exceeds it |
| Paraeducators | IPD plus 4% / 4% / 4% | Same 2.6% / 3.6% / 2.6% |
| Office professionals (SAEOP) | IPD plus 4% / 4% / 4%; remove the bottom two salary steps and add two 5% steps at the top | Same 2.6% / 3.6% / 2.6% |
| Retiree health account (VEBA) | $25 per month per employee | $10 per month in 2027-28, $15 in 2028-29 |
| Paraeducator and SAEOP work year | 203 → 205 days, added before school starts | Training plans beginning 2027-28 |
| IEP case management | Annual stipend $2,500 → $3,000; pay for IEPs over caseload $75 → $225 each | — |
| Teacher Leader Cadre stipend | — | $3,471 → $5,000 |
| Transit | District-paid ORCA pass for benefit-eligible staff | — |
The district's 2026-27 figure equals the state's IPD adjustment for that year. Step increases apply under both proposals. The union's figures are its June opening proposals; both sides say later packages moved, and neither the union's August 24 comprehensive proposal nor the district's counter has been published in full.
SEA conceptual proposals (June 25, 2026); SPS comprehensive proposal (Aug. 28, 2026), as summarized on the district's bargaining page.
What those percentages apply to: the district says the most common cell on its teacher salary schedule, occupied by about 1,060 teachers, pays $118,716 in base salary for 180 days, and $142,584 once five extra contract days, four technology days and the locally funded 'TRI' days are included. Averaged across all teachers, including part-time, the figure is about $96,170; for full-time teachers, about $117,000. Classified staff average about $67,858. The district also points out that its non-union managers received 1.73 percent for 2026-27 with two furlough days, which it calls a net raise of under 1 percent.
The district's argument for stopping at inflation is money. The board adopted a $1.34 billion budget on August 26 that closed an $87 million gap; the superintendent has said the district could be insolvent by 2028-29; and the district says the state's inflation adjustment covers only about two-thirds of what a Seattle raise actually costs, because the state's salary allocation is lower than the salaries Seattle pays. The union's answer, from lead bargainer Davina Diaz, is that the difference between the two positions is 'a drop in the bucket' of a $1.3 billion budget, and that the district's shortfall is a state funding problem it should not solve at the bargaining table.
Special education: 'a service, not a place'
Both sides say pay is not the hardest issue. The district has proposed reorganizing how it serves students with disabilities, and the union has made keeping the current structure its first priority. In 2025-26 Seattle enrolls 9,486 students with an individualized education program (IEP), 18.6 percent of its students, compared with 16.9 percent statewide.
Today SPS assigns students who need more than Resource-level support to a service 'pathway': Resource, Extended Resource, Focus and Distinct, plus smaller programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing, blind and visually impaired, medically fragile and 18–21 transition students. Not every pathway exists at every school, so some students are assigned to a school across the city that runs theirs. The district's proposal, in Superintendent Ben Shuldiner's words, treats special education 'as a service, not a place': it folds the four main pathways into two and offers both at every school, so that most students with disabilities stay in their neighborhood school.
The district says its plan improves staff-to-student ratios for 'almost 70 percent' of students with IEPs; creates 40 paraprofessional and certificated positions for a districtwide program supporting academic, behavioral and social-emotional needs; creates another 70 paraprofessional and 20 certificated positions deployed regionally; adds six school psychologists; lowers the instructional-assistant ratio from 35 students per assistant to 33 while holding teacher ratios; and funds a full-time counselor or social worker at every elementary school with more than 350 students. It has revised the plan four times during bargaining.
The union's objection is arithmetic. Its estimate of the district's original special education proposal was a net loss of 145 paraeducators and 61 teachers, and it says the district could not tell it how many positions the later version creates; the union's own estimate is about seven. Members told reporters that combining pathways would, for some classrooms, double the number of students with the same staffing. The union said it 'could not find a way to accommodate their plans without undermining the supports and learning our students need,' and that the district refused to bargain other topics until special education was settled. School psychologist Vaughan Amare described the current load as 60 psychologists spread across 106 sites.
The union's own special education asks are about caseloads and time rather than structure: a maximum of 14 students in modified secondary classes where half or more of the students have IEPs; a second planning period for secondary special education teachers to do case management; ten special-education-endorsed teachers on supplemental contracts to fill vacancies; raising the Special Education Relief Committee fund from $520,000 to $800,000; and lowering the school psychologist ratio from one per 1,050 students to one per 800, with $500 in quarterly overage pay to psychologists, nurses, counselors and social workers for every 20 students over their target.
This is the same ground the 2022 strike was fought on. That year the district sought to remove the contract's special education staffing ratios; the settlement that ended a five-day walkout kept and improved them.
Class size and workload
The union's third priority is what it calls 'pressurization': class sizes, caseloads and the tasks added to the workday. Its proposal sets class-size targets of 20 students in K–3, 26 in grades 4–5 and 30 in grades 6–12, with a daily secondary load of 140 students on a six-period day or 170 on a seven-period day. Teachers one to five students over target would get overage pay; beyond five, the teacher, union, principal and executive director would have to agree on a remedy, such as a new classroom, a full-time paraeducator, or overage pay plus three substitute days a quarter for planning. It also proposes staffing formulas: one K–3 teacher for every 17 students at very-high-poverty schools, 18 at high-poverty schools and 20 elsewhere, and one teacher per 29.5 students in grades 6–12.
The district's published offer does not include class-size targets, and its budget moves the other direction. The 2026-27 budget solutions the district presented in May raised the staffing ratio for grades 6–12 to 32 students per teacher and for grades 4–5 to 28, about 57 classroom positions and $9.6 million a year; the board adopted the budget on August 26. The union's proposed 29.5 divisor for secondary grades would undo that change.
OSPI Report Card, Student-to-Teacher Ratio, 2017-18 through 2024-25 (data.wa.gov, gks4-v7ka).
OSPI's staffing data explains why the class-size fight has teeth. Seattle counted 3,523 classroom teachers in 2024-25, down 333 from 3,856 in 2020-21 — an 8.6 percent decline against a 5.2 percent drop in students over the same years. The district still has fewer students per teacher than the state, 14.5 against 16.4, but the ratio has climbed for three straight years. OSPI's figure counts all students against all teachers, so it is not a class size; both sides' proposals are about individual classrooms.
The rest of the workload package is smaller items with the same shape: faculty meetings outside the workday limited to one per month of 60 minutes (the district offers three a month, down from weekly); two of each month's four early-release Wednesdays reserved for educator-directed planning (the district proposes targeting that time to district and school goals, which the union reads as taking planning time away); cutting district-directed extra days from five to four; and a full-time counselor or social worker in every K–5 and K–8 school (the district's counter covers schools over 350 students; the union then proposed 250).
What is settled, and what isn't
By August 25 the union counted seven tentative agreements and more than 50 open items — seven of 57 issues, by KING 5's count — and a handful of smaller agreements followed that week. The district's summary lists the settled articles:
- Right to return for displaced employees
- Building access and security procedures
- State certification for ASL interpreters
- Artificial intelligence guidelines (the union's proposal bars AI in evaluation and discipline)
- Laptops for paraprofessionals
- Time and attendance tracking
- Safe school zones and protections for immigrant and LGBTQIA+ students and staff
- Voluntary transfer for paraprofessional and SAEOP employees
- Personnel files, representation rights, due process and arbitration
- Classified hiring referrals and screening; a classified mentorship committee
The three items that remain are the three each side names: special education, pay and class size.
How the last week went
- March 6 → June 25. The district says it asked to open bargaining on March 6; the first session was June 25, when the union tabled its conceptual proposals. The two sides met about 25 times over the summer, in sessions that ran up to 12 hours.
- Aug. 24–25. The union delivers a comprehensive proposal; the district counters within 24 hours. The union says the counter showed 'little if any movement' on its three priorities.
- Aug. 26. About 2,000 members vote at the Seattle Convention Center; 91.2 percent authorize a strike.
- Aug. 29 (Saturday). After the district's counter, the union presents a new package that, by the district's account, adds positions, pay, days and compensated time costing 'millions of dollars more' than its previous one. The district calls that regressive bargaining, leaves the table after 7 p.m. and asks the state Public Employment Relations Commission for a mediator. The union's account: 'SPS walked away from the table.'
- Aug. 30 (Sunday). The mediator joins; face-to-face talks resume around 7:30 p.m., with special education teachers and instructional assistants in the room.
- Aug. 31. The contract expires at 11:59 p.m. At an afternoon press conference the superintendent says: 'It's difficult because we're broke. If we had money, I would love to give it to everybody.'
- Sept. 1. The union reports 'promising progress' after bargaining past 1 a.m. and returns to the table in the morning; the district briefs reporters at 3 p.m., says talks are moving quickly, and promises updates every two hours from 5:30 p.m.; members rally at district headquarters at 5 p.m., 14 hours before what is either the first day of school or the first day of a strike. Deadline: 11:59 p.m.
What happens Wednesday
If there is no agreement, the district says it will announce a closure by 5:30 a.m. Grades 1–12 would not have classes; schools would hand out breakfast and lunch bags from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the district is working with school-based nonprofits on before- and after-school care. Kindergarten and preschool were not due to start until September 8 in any case. The superintendent has said the district will not lock out staff who want to work. If there is a tentative agreement, union members vote to ratify it at a general membership meeting before returning.
Seattle's two previous strikes, in 2015 and 2022, each lasted five school days. The 2022 settlement gave 7 percent in year one (5.5 points of it the state inflation adjustment), then 4 and 3 percent, plus a $1,500 bonus for lower-paid hourly staff, and preserved the special education ratios. That is the contract that expired August 31.