PORTLAND, Ore. — Friday marks the 17th calendar day of the Portland teacher strike, meaning the already longer-than-typical educator work stoppage has now surpassed the 16-day length of a 2014 teacher strike in the Medford School District, which was previously the longest school strike seen in Oregon in the past two decades.
Leaders in the Medford Education Association have been watching from afar as the contract dispute between the Portland Association of Teachers and Portland Public Schools continues, and they say the current strike parallels many of the sticking points that prompted the 2014 Medford labor action — issues like teacher pay, planning time and class sizes.
"Prep time was another big one, asking to do more and more with less and less time," said Medford 2nd grade teacher Lisa North, who served on her union's organizing team in 2014 and currently serves on the bargaining team. "Certainly, there was a financial piece back then — that ended up being one of the final things, and there were several facets to that."
North said it's all too easy for her to understand how Portland teachers are feeling overwhelmed because it's how teachers everywhere have been feeling after years of pandemic-related challenges in classrooms and inflation pressure on their salaries.
"Student needs are just skyrocketing like nobody's business," she said. "If you are not in a classroom or in the school building seeing it on a daily basis, it's really hard to understand how heightened everything is for teachers across the country."
The Portland teachers have enjoyed strong community support so far, but as the strike has dragged on, one of the open questions has been whether some of that support may start to wane as frustrated parents watch the school days slip by. But if the Medford strike is any indication, many parents will be there for the long haul.
"I feel like our support stayed strong the entire time," said Medford union president Jessica Fitzsimmons. "We had people every day coming down to stand with us or to bring us supplies on the line. I mean, you're always going to have some that probably go the other way because it's stretched on too long for them. But I would say that our support stayed strong and maybe even got stronger."
Part of that extra strength came from parents who got a look at the classroom conditions during the strike, North added. The Medford district brought in substitute teachers to keep schools open part time during the work stoppage, but when parents got a look at how that strategy was playing out, they didn't like what they saw.
"They had classified personnel that were watching 40, 50 kids in one classroom, and they weren't doing any work. They were coloring at best," North said. "And so, the parents actually started to get more rallied up as we went, and there was just this huge rush of energy."
PPS didn't bring in substitutes for the current strike; all of the district's schools have been shuttered since Nov. 1. But while there have been vocal parent groups urging the teachers to get back in the classrooms, there have also been large numbers of parents marching with Portland teachers on the picket lines, and Fitzsimmons said that kind of support was essential for Medford teachers in 2014.
"I know Portland's weather — on the days where it's cold or it's rainy, all of those people coming down to stand with them or to honk and support, those things are all super important and they help keep morale up," she said.
Thinking back to the Medford union's experience, North said her advice to Portland teachers at the current stage of the strike would be to keep finding new ways to keep people energized.
"Is this worth it? That's probably a common question going through a lot of people's heads," she said. "If you're believing in the things you want in your contract to make schools safe, to make classrooms healthy — it sounds like there's a lot of health and safety issues in the Portland situation right now — then yes, it is absolutely worth doing that. It seems like such a big, harsh action to take, but something has to happen. We can't have kids in unsafe classrooms."
The 2014 strike is also on the minds of Medford educators because the union is back in bargaining and currently working without a contract. But Fitzsimmons said for the moment, the union is just focusing on meeting with the district as often as possible to try to reach a deal.
"We are working really hard to bargain and to get a fair contract for our teachers and to work with the district to get there before any of that happens," she said.