Oklahoma’s teachers are going back to school.
The Oklahoma Education Association called on its members to return to class, saying their strike was over. Oklahoma Education Association President Alicia Priest told reporters Thursday afternoon that “we need to face reality” and that the teachers weren’t going to get any more concessions from the state government.
“We have seen no significant legislative movement since last Friday,” Priest said in a press conference Thursday afternoon. “While the walkout is ending today and we are going back to school, we are not just giving up and going home. We are moving on to the next phase in our ongoing efforts.” The next phase, she said, would come during the fall elections.
Public schools for more than two-thirds of Oklahoma’s 700,000 students closed for as many as nine days as teachers walked out and protested at the state capitol, despite the legislature agreeing last week to pay raises averaging more than $6,000 annually per teacher. The union argued that wasn’t enough to make up for years of underfunding education and demanded an additional $4,000 in raises, along with additional funding for schools’ support staff.
State lawmakers didn’t budge, however, saying they had done all they could do, many noting nearly $479 million in new taxes and revenue to help fund teachers’ pay and education since March. On Saturday, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin retweeted a newspaper op-ed that called the teachers “intoxicated by their own demands,” adding her own comment that “the facts are important in this ongoing situation.”
By the end of the week, the union’s rank and file was no longer as fired up as it had been, with 70 percent saying in an internal poll that they didn’t think further strikes would get them anything more.
