Kirkland schools closed May 6 as teachers and faculty in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) participated in a walk-out in protest of the state legislature over basic education spending.

After waving signs at intersections throughout Kirkland, members of the Lake Washington Education Association (LWEA) marched from Heritage Park to Marina Park in downtown, culminating in a rally featuring teachers, students and parents from the district. Throughout the state, other teachers unions have also walked out or voted in favor of a walkout in response to the state legislature’s failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, in which Justice Debra Stephens ruled that the legislature had failed to fulfill its paramount duty under the constitution to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…”

Both the House and Senate budget proposals would include $1.3-4 billion for K-12 education to address the McCleary decision.

For organizations like the LWEA, however, neither bill would adequately fund the provisions under Initiative 1351, which narrowly passed by 50.96 percent in the November 2014 election. The initiative requires the legislature to allocate funding toward reducing class sizes and increasing staffing support for students in all K-12 grades. Both proposals reduce the initiative down to K-3.

At the Marina Park rally, Rose Marie Buchanan, a parent with two students at Emily Dickinson Elementary in Redmond, said on top of decreasing class sizes, teacher compensation needs to be increased.

“It’s time to fully fund our schools,” Buchanan said. “I want them (teachers) to have a competitive professional wage. You cannot expect to attract and retain teachers with the status quo.”

Libby Boucher, an office manager at Samantha Smith Elementary in Sammamish and president of the Lake Washington Educational Support Professionals, said support professionals do not make a living wage and often have to take a second, or even third job to make ends meet.

“We all work very hard for our students,” she said. “It is time, it is past time.”

Howard Mawinney, a teacher at Redmond High School, said at the rally that he would rather be in his classroom, but “Unfortunately the legislature has not made it an option for us.”

In a district-wide message sent to parents and students about the walk-out, LWSD Superintendent Traci Pierce wrote “We share the LWEA’s concern that the legislature should fully fund basic education. We also understand and appreciate the disruption that this change in schedule may cause for families.”

While legislators like State Rep. Larry Springer, who is a former Kirkland mayor and represents the area in Olympia, say they are sympathetic to their concerns, practical issues, such as funding sources, cannot be overlooked. A struggling economy and lower tax revenue, he said, has made it difficult for them to come up with the money.

Despite concerns about adequate education funding, he added, it is the first budget in five to six years to make what he believes is real progress towards meeting their constitutional mandate.

As for reducing class sizes under I-1351, Springer said to fully carry out reductions in K-12 it would require the state to come up with an additional $4 billion, which doesn’t include the money that has to be raised at the local level.

“It was one of those feel great initiatives, but it has no funding mechanism,” he said. “We’re skeptical about whether we can get the Senate to just pay for the $1.4 billion. How in the world we would pay an additional $4 billion, almost three times that, is baffling to me.”

Although the LWEA referred to it as a “walkout,” LWEA President Kevin Teeley stated that it was a strike but they used the term “walkout” instead to make it clear to students, parents and the school district that their grievances are with the state legislature for not fulfilling its constitutional obligations.

The legality of teacher strikes has been a contentious issue. Replying to an inquiry in 2006 by then-State Rep. Toby Nixon, now a Kirkland City councilmember, Attorney General Rob McKenna issued a statement that state and local public employees, including teachers, have no legally protected right to strike as articulated under RCW 41.56.120, though he added the state provides no specific penalties for those who do.

Teeley, however, argued that the law is silent on the matter.

“If there is no statute in place that prohibits teachers strikes, we believe it is legal,” he said.

Sen. Andy Hill, who represents Kirkland and is a chief budget writer in the Senate, said the timing of the walk-out is puzzling, as either budget proposal would be “phenomenal for education,” calling it the biggest increase in K-12 education spending in state history.

He said it includes cost of living adjustments for teachers, which were suspended six years ago when the state cut education spending by $340 million, as well as extend all-day kindergarten. The proposed budget, he added, would increase per-pupil spending by 30 percent compared to the 2013 budget.

“This is why I ran five years ago,” Hill said. “It seems I can finally say ‘We’re fixing it.’”