’18 strike seemed like a victory for teachers in W.Va.

But a year later, movement returns to where it started

DELBARTON, W.Va. – The coal miner’s son had studied his county’s rough-and-tumble labor history, written his dissertation on it, taught his high school students about it.

Now Eric Starr, who knew history never repeats itself, felt history doing just that. And he was part of it.

Standing at a secret meeting like those held by striking miners a century ago, dressed in black except for a red bandanna like the ones those miners wore, he exhorted his fellow public school teachers to defy the governor and their own unions and stay out on strike.

“I’m not going back,” he said. “We’ve been sold out!”

That was last winter. Mingo County teachers – with no legal right to strike and no encouragement from their union – became the first in West Virginia to vote to walk out over their health plan and their pay.

On Feb. 22, 2018, teachers across West Virginia went on strike, sparking a teacher movement that spread to other red states, including Oklahoma and Arizona, and then, this year, to Los Angeles and Denver. On Thursday, teachers plan to strike in Oakland, California.

But the 2018 West Virginia teacher strike, which changed so much nationally, didn’t change that much back where it started. And on Tuesday, West Virginia teachers again staged a walkout – just to maintain the status quo. Starr sees the irony.

“I love seeing what’s going on elsewhere,’’ he says. “But West Virginia can be a slow place to change.’’

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When the 2018 West Virginia strike ended March 7, it seemed like a great victory for public school teachers, who for years had been blamed widely for the failures of American schools.

“I love seeing what’s going on elsewhere. But West Virginia can be a slow place to change.” Eric Starr, West Virginia teacher

But the strike’s legacy is still in doubt.

❚ The state’s promise of a dedicated funding source for public employees’ health insurance – the main issue in the strike – remains unfulfilled.

❚ Despite a 5 percent raise, teacher pay remains far behind neighboring states’.

❚ The settlement did not increase the number of school specialists, like counselors and nurses, to help families scarred by the state’s opioid epidemic.

❚ The teachers’ vow during the strike to “remember in November’’ produced only mixed results. This year Republicans revived proposals that helped prompt the 2018 strike. Teachers and service personnel went on strike again.

The walkout on Tuesday closed schools in nearly every West Virginia county, and lawmakers sidelined the education legislation teachers were protesting. That’s a victory for teachers. But, teachers say, they are still waiting for the kinds of policies that would show them respect.

‘Any talks of striking’?

If the strike wasn’t revolutionary, it was remarkable.

At a time when organized labor seems in terminal decline, a national public school teachers’ movement emerged from the coalfields of southern West Virginia.

Children here are raised on stories of battles between miners and mine companies. Many of the teachers who walked out were first on picket lines when they were in diapers.

On Jan. 6, 2018, a teacher posted an innocent query on a Facebook page: “Just curious if there are any talks of striking.’’

Soon, there was talk of little else. Jay O’Neal is a middle school social studies teacher who moved to West Virginia in 2015. After his first year, he realized that because of increasing health insurance costs, he’d take home $450 less than the previous year.

West Virginia ranked 48th in teacher pay before the strike, according to the National Education Association.

Yet teaching in West Virginia has gotten harder as students have gotten needier, partly because of the opioid crisis. One of O’Neal’s students found his father with a needle sticking out of his arm, dead of an overdose.

In October 2017, O’Neal started a Facebook group page to unite members of the state’s two main teacher unions.

The state’s public employee health insurance agency had announced a new round of cost-saving measures. One based premiums for family coverage on the household’s total income, rather than just the teacher’s. Another was a wellness program that would effectively penalize those who didn’t do things like provide personal biometric data, go to the gym or wear an activity tracker like a Fitbit.

O’Neal heard plenty of grumbling in the teachers’ lounge, but little in public.

It was as if “strike’’ was a dirty word. “Everyone was thinking about it,’’ recalls Eric Starr. “Then someone worked up the guts to say it.’’

That someone was Rachel Kittle, a 32-year-old special education teacher from – no surprise – the coalfields.

CRAIG HUDSON VIA AP From right, Jacob Davis and Cabell County schoolteachers Ginny Noble and Kayla Massie demonstrate outside of Hurricane High School in Putnam County, W.Va., during the first day of a statewide strike by teachers and school personnel on Tuesday.

JARRAD HENDERSON/USA TODAY Tugg Valley High School teacher Eric Starr is one of the many teachers who helped lead the strikes out of Mingo County in West Virginia. A year later, not much has changed.