Students in Minnesota’s capital city spent the day at home after teachers in St. Paul started a strike upon failing to negotiate with the district’s administration.
Parents in St. Paul were notified Tuesday morning that classes had been canceled for the 36,000 students in the district because teachers were on strike. The teachers union had been in negotiations with the district to finalize their contracts when they hit a roadblock trying to address staffing shortages.
Teachers demanded the district hire additional mental health counselors, multilingual staff members, and special education teachers. After six days of negotiations, including one session that lasted until 3 a.m. local time, the more than 3,500 teachers in the district announced they would be going on strike for the first time since 1946.
Superintendent Joe Gothard said the district tried “everything” to stop the strike. “I can assure students, families, staff members and our community that the Board of Education, my team and I did absolutely everything we could to avoid a strike by teachers,” Gothard said.
He added, “I want to make it clear: I believe our students need and deserve additional support. That has never been in question. However, we must prioritize our spending because we have limited resources. We need to place new investments where they are needed most. This is what [St. Paul Public Schools] proposed as a responsible way to increase student support and remain accountable.”
Gothard noted that fulfilling the request for mental health teams in each of the 67 public schools in the city would cost $30 million a year.
St. Paul Federation of Educators President Nick Faber claimed the district was unwilling to take the steps necessary to mitigate racial disparities in the district, telling the Associated Press, “We wanted to settle this contract and be in school with our students Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, after more than nine months and marathon bargaining over the weekend, district leaders weren’t willing to move on the issues educators and parents know will help students thrive and break down racial barriers in our schools.”
St. Paul has struggled with racial disparities. Black students make up just 31% of the student population, but received 73% of the suspensions. As a state, Minnesota has one of the worst racial literacy gaps in the nation, with 32% of black fourth graders reading at grade level compared to 66% of white students.
The district announced that students would be able to access academic materials on their school-issued iPads while the strike continues. Starting Thursday, the school will provide supervision to 4,000 elementary-aged students so that parents do not have to pay for additional child care during the strike.
Last year, teachers in Chicago held a strike for 11 days, leaving more than 400,000 students without classes.
