A proposal to require Oregon school districts to bargain over class sizes with their local teacher unions has resurfaced in the Legislature, just two years after a similar bill died due to equity concerns.
The proposed legislation, House Bill 2703, is backed by the Oregon Education Association, the teacher’s union that represents more than 40,000 educators and is a major donor to Democrats, who control both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office.
When a similar idea surfaced in the 2021 session, it floundered over concerns that it would dilute the ability of Oregon’s 197 districts to target extra resources to schools that serve the highest concentrations of students in need, including low-income students, students of color and students with disabilities. The reasoning: If class sizes at schools serving the highest concentrations of wealthy white students, which normally have the largest class sizes, must be made smaller, districts have to grow class sizes at higher needs schools.
Eventually, then-Speaker Tina Kotek, now the state’s governor, helped broker a compromise, requiring that class size be a mandatory subject of bargaining only in schools that receive money from the federal Title I program for low-income students.
Now the idea — which would also give educators the right to strike over class size thresholds — is back. And the educators who spoke in its favor before the House Education Committee on Monday said the acute needs of all post-pandemic students and families have thrown the importance of class size into sharper relief.
Not having mandatory bargaining on class sizes, “severely limits our ability to make sure we have great public schools for all of our students—and we have students living in poverty in all of our schools,” said Angela Bonilla, the president of the Portland Association Teachers and a dual language immersion teacher at Scott Elementary in Northeast Portland. “Student needs after COVID closures have only increased. Longtime educators tell me that a class of 30 now is not the same as a class of 30 years ago.”
Sara Schmitt, former president of the Beaverton Education Association and an elementary educator in that district, said having a requirement to bargain over class size — potentially leaving educators with more manageable rosters — could help keep current teachers from retiring early, seeking new jobs or taking leaves of absence, all due to burn-out and exhaustion.
“Some people might say that it was enough to expand the bargaining rights to meet our most vulnerable students,” Schmitt said Monday. “But House Bill 2703 is also about giving educators a voice and strengthening our collective bargaining rights.”
The proposal comes at a moment when enrollment in Oregon public schools has dipped precipitously since fall of 2019. Oregon schools now serve 30,000 fewer children than just four years ago, thanks mainly to a rise in private schooling and home-schooling during the pandemic, plus declining birth rates and rising home prices that have pushed some families out of the state entirely.
But with an infusion of federal pandemic relief funds, there are currently more educators in Oregon schools than ever before, led by an increase in mental health counselors.
Currently, there is no prohibition against districts and teacher unions voluntarily including class sizes in contract negotiations, said Richard Donovan, a lobbyist for the Oregon School Boards Association. Portland Public Schools has done so in the past, with a contract that purportedly capped kindergarten class sizes at 24, grades one to three at 26 and grades four and five at 28, while middle and high school teachers were supposed to teach no more than 150 and 160 students, respectively.
But there was a loophole: If class sizes exceeded those thresholds, the district could choose to either hire another teacher, hire an educational assistant or give teachers 3% of their base salary in “overage pay” per student. That final option —the least expensive — has been the most frequent course of action, Bonilla said.
Morgan Allen, a lobbyist for the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, said the proposed bill would “make it harder for districts to invest resources in the schools that need them the most.” His organization’s support for the scaled-back 2021 version that focus on Title I schools was “contingent on smaller class sizes targeted where it will be most beneficial for students.”
And he warned that if class sizes are built into bargaining, districts would be left exposed during future recessions, with no choice but to hack days or weeks off the school year in order to balance their budgets, as opposed to laying off some staff.
Nationally, the prioritization of class size is up for debate. Teachers and families are traditionally big fans of smaller classes, but some policy experts say that improving teacher quality should be first in line if resources are scarce.
—Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com
