West Virginia Teachers’ Strike Causes All But One School District To Shut Down

The West Virginia teachers’ strike caused every school district but one to shutdown Tuesday.

The state has a 55 districts and 265,755 students enrolled in public schools, according to data from the West Virginia Department of Education.

Putnam County Schools (PCS), with 9,536 enrolled students, was the only district that chose to remain open. Many parents decided to have their kids stay home, WOWK reported. 

“We believe that it is important that we make every attempt to keep our schools open for the students we serve,” PCS Communications Coordinator Micah Osborne said, according to WSAZ.

West Virginia teachers are on strike to stop a pro-privatization, anti-union bill. #1u #55strong pic.twitter.com/K8lSBv9x7K

— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) February 19, 2019

West Virginia Education Association, the state’s American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and West Virginia School Service Personnel Association announced the strike at a Monday press conference, according to WTRF.

The strike was over a bill that would establish the state’s first charter schools and give as much as 1,000 education savings accounts for parents to pay for private school, The Associated Press reported. Teachers felt like the bill would eradicate traditional public schools.

The West Virginia House of Delegates voted 53-45 to strike down the bill that started the strikes Tuesday, ABC 8 reported.

It is unclear whether walkouts will end due to the bill getting struck down, however.

About 20,000 teachers in all 55 West Virginia counties were on strike for nine days between February and March of 2018, according to Rethinking Schools.

The teachers won a 5 percent raise in 2018, The AP reported.

PCS did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.