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HOW PORTLAND TEACHERS LED THE LONGEST K–12 STRIKE IN DECADES  
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Melissa Blount and Matt Reed; Illustrator: Joe Brusky
April 15, 2024
Rethinking Schools
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_ The seeds of our strike were sown 10 years ago. In the 2013–2014
school year, school district leaders demanded more than 75
concessions, including bigger class sizes, fewer workload protections,
and cuts to healthcare benefits. _

Thousands rally in front of Portland Public Schools headquarters on
the second day of the strike., Credit: Joe Brusky // Rethinking
Schools

 

We’ll never forget the day when we knew that we would win. It was
8:30 a.m. on Nov. 21, more than three weeks into the first-ever
Portland, Oregon, teachers strike. We were rally marshals, tasked with
walking ahead of the march to troubleshoot potential issues.
Accompanied by the dull hum of a nearby freeway and the caws of
seagulls above the Willamette River, we stood on the sidewalk waiting
— hoping that a parade of educators would soon join us.

They had every reason not to. As frustration mounted with district
leaders and their refusal to address our demands for safe, equitable,
and sustainable schools, so did skepticism of our union’s strategy.
Educators started to openly question our bargaining team. Others felt
concerned about the use of civil disobedience. Some worried that if
the strike continued, they would lose health care or not meet rent
payments. Trying not to let the doubt in colleagues’ minds creep
into our own, we made ourselves look busy, checking in with the other
marshals using our walkie-talkies, rubbing our hands together to stay
warm.

Then suddenly, we heard the chants. “Education is a right! That is
why we have to fight!” and the call-and-response “Whose schools?
Our schools!” building in volume as nearly 3,000 educators and
supporters, marching shoulder to shoulder, drew nearer. The crowd
finally reached the apex, where together we sat and occupied the
six-lane Burnside Bridge, at the peak of morning rush hour, for
several minutes of silence. We wanted to send a message to our school
leaders that their refusal to budge at the bargaining table not only
affects us. It harms our students and our whole city.  Looking at the
determined faces surrounding us, it was clear that despite doubts, we
were not giving up our fight for the schools our students deserve.

Two Visions for Public Education

The seeds of our strike were sown 10 years ago. In the 2013–2014
school year, school district leaders demanded more than 75
concessions
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including bigger class sizes, fewer workload protections, and cuts to
healthcare benefits. Inspired by the historic 2012 Chicago Teachers
Union strike, our union launched the Schools Portland Students
Deserve campaign
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We built a coalition
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educators, students, and community leaders ready to protect public
schools. Two days before educators were set to strike, school district
leaders caved. Many believed this victory represented the start of a
new movement for the 49,000 students and their families that our union
of 4,000 educators served. But in the wake of this campaign, our
union’s organizing infrastructure withered.

Then in 2017, with the hiring of Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero,
school district leaders laid out a vision for how Portland schools
should be “reImagined.” This corporate rebranding campaign,
wrapped in the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion, pulled
answers from the national corporate education (de)form playbook: blame
educators while cutting staff at schools, standardize curriculum, and
increase testing. School leaders began hiring more administrators and
cutting direct student-support positions, especially special education
teachers, school psychologists, and social workers. In the name of
equity, school leaders pushed for a standardized curriculum that would
keep all students at the same grade level using the same materials at
the same time. To ensure the new curriculum was being implemented,
elementary school educators were forced to administer more
standardized tests and submit weekly lesson plans to administrators.

The pandemic, distance learning, and the rush to return to
“normal” intensified this crisis. Many educators reached their
breaking point.  By late 2021, more than 80 percent
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their workload was excessive and more than a quarter were considering
quitting. At the end of the 2021–2022 school year, district
leaders announced plans
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cut more than 96 elementary and middle school teaching positions and
more special education positions. 

 
PAT President Angela Bonilla, NEA President Becky Pringle, and PAT
Vice President Jacque Dixon celebrate at a strike rally.  (Credit:
Joe Brusky  //  Rethinking Schools)
A Commitment to Listening

Educators’ frustration led to new union leadership in 2022. Angela
Bonilla became president after serving as her building representative
and being appointed to the bargaining team the previous year. An
Afro-Caribbean Spanish immersion teacher at a high-poverty elementary
school, Bonilla ran on a platform of revitalizing the fight for the
schools our students deserve through classroom-to-classroom, bottom-up
organizing. Bonilla’s running mate was Jacque Dixon, a Latina high
school English educator — a longtime building rep with deep roots in
racial and social justice communities. Dixon brought grassroots
connections with local activists and student artists and performers
through her work outside of the classroom. 

Bonilla and Dixon wanted to rebuild our union’s organizing culture
by recruiting leaders and using issue fights to organize educators to
achieve small wins. One priority was to address grievances raised by
special education and mental health educators. For years district
leaders brushed off concerns about high workload, chronic
understaffing, and mistreatment from managers. Many educators worked
through lunches and breaks to meet district and federal special
education timelines.

Bonilla, Dixon, and others pulled together an ad hoc special education
organizing committee, drawing on leaders across different job
classifications. They organized a listening session for special
education teachers. Educators across grade levels and classifications
shared issues they experienced and identified two fundamental
problems: persistent understaffing and a lack of support from district
leaders. They set up follow-up meetings around their key issues. This
led to a week of action
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a mass protest at a school board meeting, launching a community
coalition, and teachers and community members delivering
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“class action grievance” to the special education department.

Our union also began to forge wider and deeper relationships with
parents, families, and community organizations. We drew on powerful
examples through the Bargaining for the Common Good network
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unions and community organizations that support these kinds of
campaigns.

In late summer 2022, the union leadership recruited elementary
educators Tiffany Koyama Lane and Sven Gunvalson to lead a renewed
“external” organizing effort. A team of organizers from schools
across the district mapped the largely disconnected parent and
community organizations associated with schools. We hosted a series of
community listening sessions at schools where educators and the
community felt long ignored. 

Shifting from Mobilizing to Organizing

While we worked to expand our relationships with parents and the
community, we rebuilt our membership organizing structure.

With negotiations set to begin in January 2023, in October 2022 we
distributed a bargaining survey through the internal organizing
structure already in place. Using paper surveys allowed organizers to
have conversations within each building. It also allowed us to
identify which sites had a strong internal structure, which did not,
and assess the skills needed in the months ahead. 

The survey results, paired with what we learned from parents and
community members, led to the creation of our bargaining platform
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This vision for transforming schools called for smaller class sizes
and caseloads, additional special education services, expanded mental
health services, safe and healthy schools, less standardized testing,
expanded early learning and preschool, racial equity and restorative
justice, and housing assistance for at-risk families.

Between October 2022 and April 2023, our internal organizing team
designed a series of escalating actions: wearing PAT Blue on Tuesdays,
donning buttons that read “Bargaining Today! Ask me what I’m
fighting for,” and displaying solidarity posters outside classrooms.
Roughly half of our schools had worksite organizing committees. Each
action provided opportunities to identify leaders in schools without
organizers and develop leaders in those that did. During internal
organizing meetings, we charted which schools participated in the
actions and which did not. When a leader in the meeting saw a school
where they had relationships not participating, they “adopted” the
school, reached out to friends, identified leaders, and recruited them
to take part in the next meeting or action. Every meeting, we taught
organizing skills like mapping your worksite or answering tough
questions.

By early May, there was little progress at the bargaining table.
District leaders proposed minimal cost of living adjustments and
virtually no improvement on workload or special education staffing.
They refused to discuss early childhood education, standardized
testing, and housing. They claimed they had no money, citing
misleading data about school enrollment and a lack of new state
funding. 

We decided to hold a mass rally at a school board meeting. More than
600 educators attended, the largest rally our union hosted in years,
forcing district leaders to stop the meeting due to fire code
restrictions. A week later, more than 200 educators crammed into a
small district meeting room to attend the bargaining session. District
leaders were visibly shaken; more importantly, educators felt a sense
of their own power.

With the school year ending and district leaders refusing to budge, it
became clear that only a strike would lead to the contract our
community deserved. Drawing on examples from the Chicago Teachers
Union and United Teachers Los Angeles, we established a Contract
Action Team — fusing internal and external organizing committees and
our existing building representative structure. Over summer break and
the first months of the 2023–2024 school year, we met frequently to
shore up our organizing structure and deepen community support. We
recruited additional leaders to our Contract Action Team; made phone
calls and visits to schools without strong union participation; hired
new experienced organizers; drafted plans for the possibility of a
strike; and as the strike neared, hosted a three-day art build where
hundreds of educators, their families, and community supporters
gathered to create beautiful picket signs, banners, and street
parachutes. 

A coalition of parents, grandparents, and community supporters started
the Portland Strike-Ready Teachers Solidarity Campaign. This coalition
recruited supporters who distributed leaflets about our key demands
and updates about negotiations to families outside elementary and
middle schools. They also organized phone banks and door-knocking to
distribute “Great Public Schools for All” lawn signs and organize
local business support. 

At the end of September, we held a “strike school” — a two-day
retreat to prepare for a possible strike. More than 150 educators
attended, including every future building “strike captain.” We
learned how to organize picket lines and talk with the press. During
one workshop, NEA organizer Nate Gunderson reminded us that strikes
can be messy and that to win we would need to “embrace the chaos.”
Many educators felt nervous, knowing that we were on the precipice of
something our union had never done before, but it was clear that the
fruitless negotiations and false promises of future funds needed to
end. 

Our union published “A Manufactured Crisis,” a report that
rebutted district leaders’ insistence that they could not afford our
key demands. Our researchers found that district leaders held more
than $100 million that could be spent. Between Oct. 16 and 18,
organizers led strike votes in each building. With 93 percent of
members participating, 98.9 percent voted to authorize our strike.
Three days before our strike was set to begin, more than 4,000
educators and community members led a March for Our Students and Great
Public Schools, filling the Burnside Bridge in downtown Portland.

The day before the strike, educators across the district organized
walkouts, chanting “For our students! For our schools! For our
community!” 

 
Portland teachers on the picket line.  (Credit: Joe Brusky  //
 Rethinking Schools)
Embracing the Chaos

On Nov. 1, educators built picket lines at more than 90 worksites. In
the lead-up to the strike, we encouraged educators to think of picket
lines as community potlucks — places that welcomed students,
families, and supporters and allowed us to educate the community about
our key issues. We wanted strike captains to organize picket lines
that made the most sense for the community they worked in. Picket
lines became mini teach-ins led by students and teachers about
conditions in schools. They became dance parties, where educators
learned the hidden DJ talents of co-workers. The entrances of schools
became art galleries, featuring student creations about what they
believed great public schools should be. Some high school picket lines
turned into student-led marches distributing “I Love Portland
Teachers” window hangs and stickers. Maybe most importantly, picket
lines became places to rebuild relationships lost or frayed by the
pandemic and the crushing workload. Educators at nearly every picket
line commented on how they felt like this was the first time they got
to know one another and rekindle relationships with colleagues. A
common refrain on the picket line was “This is the best PD I’ve
had in years!”

In addition to encouraging creativity and joy on our picket lines, we
organized three consecutive days of citywide rallies. Thousands of
educators and supporters rallied at high schools, at school district
headquarters, and at City Hall. In the pouring rain we chanted “Rain
or Shine, We Walk the Line,” “Beep Beep, Toot Toot, Get Up Off of
That Loot,” and “Rats, Mold, Hot, Cold, This Is Getting Really
Old!” Lawns, businesses, and cars displayed signs of support. Dozens
of businesses offered striking teachers meal and drink discounts.
Parents, PTAs, and community supporters flooded district leaders with
thousands of emails and phone calls urging them to meet our demands.
State lawmakers called on school leaders to stop hiding behind claims
that they did not have enough money, urging them to meet teachers’
demands. 

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Division

We hoped that a powerful showing of educators and community support in
the first days of the strike would force district leaders to cave to
our demands. However, they instead dug in, opening the door to fear,
uncertainty, doubt, and division. The biggest question was whether the
district had the money to meet our demands. Despite our union’s
research and the findings of Oregon’s chief financial officer that
school leaders had more than $12 million more to spend for just the
next fiscal year, district leaders continued to claim they had no
additional money. 

Local media ran anti-educator editorials that tried to poke holes in
our demands. Many rank-and-file educators also began questioning our
tactics. This came to a head after our union held a rally and march
inside the Oregon Convention Center, where one school board leader was
in daylong meetings. District leaders described our union’s actions
as “violent” and “terrorist,” threatening to file an unfair
labor practice (which they never did). Press about the event picked up
district leaders’ false narrative. The combination of a lack of
progress at the bargaining table and the negative press put stress on
educators. Strike captains and member leaders quickly pivoted from the
highs of the first week of our strike to answering tough questions
about our tactics and plan to win. Educators worried about their next
paycheck. And district leaders spread rumors that they would cut our
health insurance if we did not return to work before Thanksgiving. 

But rank-and-file leaders showed incredible resilience. Educators
organized daily regional rallies so those at smaller schools felt
buoyed. They organized neighborhood jogs in between morning pickets
and afternoon rallies to boost camaraderie. Bargaining team members
visited sites to share updates. Students and parents hosted pancake
breakfasts and talent shows. Most buildings organized strike
resilience funds to help educators pinched by rent and mortgage
payments and ongoing medical bills. We adopted an old union chant:
“One Day Longer, One Day Stronger.” Daily sign-ins to our picket
lines by educators remained steady and the number of community
supporter sign-ins continued to grow. 

Squeezing Water Out of a Rock

After three weeks on strike, there was growing optimism that a
settlement was in reach. The last sticking points were class sizes and
cost of living raises, the main issues for most educators. Inflation
over the previous three years had eroded salaries, meaning that most
educators lost an average of $12,000. As housing costs skyrocketed,
stagnant pay made it hard to recruit and retain educators. A 2023
study found that Portland was the second least affordable city for new
educators. But district leaders kept proposing salary increases that
did not keep up with inflation. Class size caps was another key
demand. Earlier contracts set a precedent to pay bonuses to educators
with overloaded classes in elementary schools or large overall student
numbers in middle and high schools. The thinking at the time was that
school leaders would keep class sizes and workloads low and hire more
educators to avoid “overage” payments. Instead, district leaders
continued to cut teaching positions and overload classrooms. 

This time, after three weeks on strike, it seemed like school leaders
were finally open to real class size caps, but there was a catch. The
caps they would agree to were significantly higher than the softer
limits with “overage” payments established in previous contracts.
And to win them, educators would have to accept a significantly lower
cost of living adjustment and drop our proposal to expand mental
health crisis teams. At a standing room only meeting, Angela Bonilla
described to building representatives the hard choices we faced:
“Right now, negotiations are like squeezing water from a rock.
We’ve put as much pressure as we can on these leaders to do the
right thing. But they are refusing to budge.” 

We continued to hold the line. On day 13 of our strike, parents and
grandparents of students occupied the Multnomah County headquarters,
where one school board member worked, while educators rallied outside.
On day 14, more than 3,000 educators and supporters marched again over
the Burnside Bridge. And on day 15 we surrounded City Hall, singing a
reworked version of the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” with the
refrain: “We’re feeling upbeat, we won’t stop! Hey, ho, let’s
go!” 

 
Students, parents, and teachers walk the picket line together.
 (Credit: Joe Brusky  //  Rethinking Schools)
What We Did, and Didn’t, Win

On Sunday, Nov. 26, after holding the line for 15 working days and 26
calendar days, our bargaining team reached an agreement with school
leaders. Described by our bargaining team as a “watershed moment for
Portland students, families, and educators,” we secured wins on key
priorities. School leaders agreed to a 13.75 percent cost of living
adjustment over three years, the largest increase in our union’s
history. We increased special education and mental health supports,
including adding back mental health positions previously cut.
Elementary and middle school educators won more than 90 more minutes
per week of planning time, and high school educators won additional
planning and grading days. We also won novel building safety language
that, for the first time, forces school leaders to act when a
classroom is below 60 degrees or above 80 degrees, and when rodents or
mold are present. 

The same is true for class size. Although we did not win hard class
size caps, we did win the creation of committees that, when a
classroom or educators’ class sizes hit the “overage” threshold,
require school leaders to meet with educators and parents to discuss
class sizes in schools. We also won expanded academic freedom,
including less instructional time spent on standardized testing, and
commitments to improve early childhood education and housing support
for families. 

And yet, many educators are disappointed. We did not win the clear
victory on class size caps that seemed so close. Nor did we win enough
mental health positions given the ongoing crisis in our schools. And
the wins we made are largely deferred. It’ll take months before new
special education and mental health resources become available.
It’ll take a year for the increased planning time to take effect.
Even our wage increases will take time to be fully felt. 

Still, the day after the strike ended, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, who
largely stayed on the sidelines of our fight, announced new task
forces to address the issues we raised, especially mental health and
building conditions. Two weeks after our strike ended, Superintendent
Guadalupe Guerrero and his chief of staff resigned. Our fight is
nowhere near over. In February, school leaders announced a wave of
staffing cuts and implying what we won is to blame. It’s too soon to
know if these proposed cuts will become real, but real or not, they
are not new. School leaders lament budget shortfalls and threaten cuts
every few years. What is new is that more educators are now
participating in our union, readying for another round of state
legislative negotiations, discussing ways they can sustain the
community coalition built through the strike, and of course, fighting
back against this latest round of harmful cuts. It will be up to all
of us to digest the lessons of our three weeks on the picket line to
rebuild our sense of unity and power. It will be up to us to keep
fighting, with our community, for the schools Portland students
deserve.

_[MATT REED ([email protected]) teaches at McDaniel High School in
Portland, Oregon. He was a lead internal organizer and serves as a
Contract Action Team strike captain for the Portland Association of
Teachers._

_MELISSA BLOUNT ([email protected]) teaches at George Middle
School in Portland, Oregon. She is a former building representative
and strike captain who currently serves on the Contract Action Team
for the Portland Association of Teachers.]_

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