Despite the pouring rain, hundreds of people attended Portland Association of Teachers rally held at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Ore., Nov. 1, 2023.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Jefferson High School junior Azaysha is bored.
“I like breaks off of school, but when it’s like a forced break, I don’t like it,” she said.
Azaysha is one of the students in OPB’s Class of 2025. Like the other students OPB has followed since first grade, she started school in the David Douglas School District. But she’s been in the Portland Public Schools district for years now.
Over the last month, Azaysha and more than 40,000 other students in the district have been out of school. They’ve missed classes, homework assignments and extracurricular activities. They’ve missed hanging out with their friends.
Azaysha still gets to go to cheerleading practice and spends two days a week at Self Enhancement, Inc., where she sees some of her classmates. But the daily uncertainty of when school will return reminds her of when the COVID-19 pandemic first began.
“It feels weird because I know, around this time of the year I should be in school,” she said. “It’s just odd being at home all the time.”
As another week without school comes to a close, negotiations continue between Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers. Late Friday, both sides indicated they are very close to a deal, though it remains unclear when the strike, which has closed schools since Nov. 1, will end.
In a press release early Saturday morning, the teachers union indicated that the final outstanding issue is whether teachers will be compensated for an additional day that has been added to the academic calendar starting in the 2024-25 school year. The union said they’d reached an agreement over the role parents should play in discussions over class size limits, which had been a sticking point, though labor leaders did not say what the conclusion of those conversations were.
Late Friday night, district leaders said in a statement that they’re still working. They also noted that the two sides need to work out an agreement on how to make up for lost instructional time, but that students can go back to class before that detail is settled.
The two parties took a break from negotiating over Thanksgiving but returned to the table Friday and planned to negotiate through the weekend.
Class of 2025 student Azaysha is old enough that she doesn’t need her mom to supervise her throughout the day, unlike parents of younger students. But she recognizes both the pressure on families at this time and why the teachers are striking.
“I stand with them, so I get it,” she said. “However, I’m ready for them to come to an agreement and get back to work so the kids can get back into their programming as soon as possible.”