Hundreds of Oregon teachers rally at Capitol, Republican senators still absent

Hundreds of teachers in Salem and tens of thousands across Oregon cut class Wednesday to demand more money for schools, while Senate Republicans — for the second day in a row — denied Democrats the opportunity to vote on a multi-billion dollar education revenue bill.

Teachers and their supporters gathered at Salem's Riverfront Park about 1:30 p.m. before heading to the Capitol, many wearing red t-shirts with phrases like “Fund our future, fund our schools” and “I stand with students.” 

Schools around the state, including the two biggest districts in Portland and Salem-Keizer, closed for at least part of the day as teachers pushed legislators at statewide rallies to help Oregon schools, which have some of the highest class sizes and lowest graduation rates in the nation. 

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Republicans said it was their support for education that drove their decision to walk out. Before they come back and grant the Senate a quorum, they want to see movement on substantive reform of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System.

Without reform, they said, the money the Legislature is poised to raise and allocate to schools with House Bill 3427 wouldn't effect the needed improvements because paying down the unfunded liability — now exceeding $25 billion —would still eat up large chunks of the budget.

Republicans also warned that it's possible in a time of economic downturn that a future Legislature might raid the school fund to pay for another priority. 

"I would suggest that the Republican position is the right position for all public employees because, if we don’t fix PERS, they are the ones who are ultimately going to be hurt by that, as are the classrooms," said Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend. "We can’t pass a $2 billion tax increase and have the majority of that money end up going to fund PERS and the unfunded liability."

Billion dollar education bill denied

Democrats, meanwhile, said this should not be a concern because the bill is written in such a way that the money will have to go toward classrooms and students. They have called on Republicans to return to the Legislature so they can move forward on this bill that has been more than one year in the making.

“There’s a lot of things that we don’t do in the Legislature because previous Legislature’s have set the tone for that,” said Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay. “This one, we have set the tone and the bar to do anything different than what it is very high.”

Knopp was the sole Republican present for either the morning or afternoon roll calls for the Senate floor session. Two are needed to achieve a quorum of 20 senators; all 18 Democrats were present.

Without a quorum, the Senate cannot conduct business.

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Outside on the Capitol steps, teachers gathered at around 3 p.m.

"I get an instructional assistant for like 30 minutes all day and I have 29 students, so we could really use more help," said Martina Rincon Ochoa, a third grade teacher at Monmouth Elementary School. "When I started teaching I had 23 even, but with those extra bodies, it cramps up the room and they are all over the place developmentally. ... It's really hard to work with such a large amount of kids."  

Marielle Slappe left her job as a dual-language kindergarten teacher at Harritt Elementary School in December because her classroom had no size cap.

"It was such a hard decision," Slappe said. "I loved my kids and I had a great team, but ... I was at the point where I said 'I can't keep doing this.'"

She used to teach in Connecticut where she said there was a cap of around 24 students, and at a school in Florida where there was a cap of 18. Her Salem class had 33 kids.

Anna Michelle Sambuceto, a junior at Dallas High School, was at the Capitol to support her mom, an Amity Elementary School teacher, who she said had to work Wednesday. 

"My mom works hours past the time she gets paid and she puts in everything she has for her students," she said. "I'm just her to try to get her some more funding." 

Ralliers swarmed the Capitol building and continued chanting in the rotunda. 

Divisions over how to help schools

At Riverfront Park before marching to the Capitol, Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland, led a chant of "do your jobs" aimed at Senate Republicans.

But Republican leadership has a different view.

"They’re saying we’re not doing our work and everything. That’s baloney. The quorum rule — that’s a rule, it’s a tool. It’s like anything else,” said Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass. "Now we have all these teachers coming today who are leaving the classroom. Who’s teaching our kids today? Maybe that’s why they’re not doing so good, teachers aren’t there. Hypocrisy. It’s hypocrisy.”

In addition to movement on PERS reform, Republicans said they want to see technical changes to HB 3427 and have a conversation about adding an education funding constitutional amendment.

Republicans also want Democrats to kill a handful of unrelated but prominent bills, including: HB 2020, the greenhouse gas cap-and-invest package; HB 3063, a bill that would remove the non-medical vaccine exemption; and SB 978, the Senate's omnibus gun control proposal.

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he doesn't see the education funding bill going back to committee. Negotiations with between Democratic and Republican leadership so far has been "up and down." 

"One moment I'm thinking 'O.K., O.K., we're moving,' other times, 'no, we're not," Courtney said.

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The Senate's Democratic supermajority was poised Tuesday to approve $1 billion per year in additional funding through a half a percent tax on some of Oregon's most successful businesses.

But all 12 Republican senators were missing, denying the Democrats a quorum and stalling the vote, warning that the tax plan would raise the price of consumer goods without fixing the education system.

Unlike other states, Oregon teachers say they're not pushing for pay raises. Union leaders said they are walking out to draw attention to classroom conditions and how years of lower funding has affected children's learning opportunities.

Anna Reed and Michaela Román of the Statesman Journal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Connor Radnovich at cradnovich@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399-6864, or follow him on Twitter at @CDRadnovich