Arizona schools to shut Monday

PHOENIX — Arizona teachers’ walkout over pay and education funding appears headed into a second week as major school districts say schools will remain closed Monday.

The unprecedented statewide job action began Thursday and continued Friday, resulting in closures of schools that educate the vast majority of the state’s 1.1 million public school students.

Recent teacher protests in Arizona and Colorado have followed similar job actions in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Arizona districts whose websites on Saturday displayed notices saying schools will be closed include several in Phoenix and its suburbs and others in cities across the state, including Tucson, Flagstaff and Sierra Vista.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP legislative leaders said Friday they had reached a budget agreement to boost teacher pay by 20 percent by 2020.

“This plan benefits our children’s education across the state, and we are working through the weekend to introduce a budget early next week and pass it shortly thereafter,” Ducey said in the statement with Senate President Steve Yarbrough and Speaker J.D. Mesnard.

Leaders of teacher groups said Saturday the announced agreement at this point is only a press release and that their other concerns remain unaddressed.

“We have no bill. We have no deal. The devil is in the details,” Joe Thomas, Arizona Education Association president and Noah Karvelis, Arizona Educators United organizer, said in a joint statement.