The teachers of the Kent Education Association are a passionate group of professionals who care about creating the best learning environments for students in the Kent School District. The KEA has been working tirelessly to try to come to an agreement with the Kent School District over the past month. Originally the KEA wanted to start meeting with the district in May, but the district put off meeting until July 12th; giving just over a month for an agreement to be finalized. Since then, every proposal that the KEA has brought to the district has been declined, with no counter-proposals presented. 

The bargaining proposals of the KEA are necessary to support student learning, safety, and mental health, and to help secure a workforce that will remain in Kent for years to come. 

Here are the top priorities of the Kent Education Association:

     1. Increased mental health supports for students. The covid-19 pandemic brought to light an increased need for counselors, social workers, nurses and other mental health supports to help our students who are still struggling with the trauma of 2+ years of living through a pandemic.

     2. Reduce adult to student ratios in every classroom. Many classrooms in our district are filled to the hard cap; which means in elementary school, some classrooms have up to 29 students. In middle and high school, those numbers go up. In order to work effectively with students and offer differentiated instruction, these numbers need to be reduced.

     3. Improve retention of high quality staff through competitive salaries. Our closest neighboring districts have already completed bargaining and are getting approximately 12% over the next 3 years. The Kent School District will need to offer competitive salaries to keep our quality teachers in Kent.

Please join us in asking the Kent School Board to prioritize that the district come to the bargaining table with fair proposals for our teachers. We hope to start the school year on time, but need the district to bargain in good faith to complete a fair contract.