The Waynesboro Education Association has begun collecting cards from Waynesboro Schools teachers and staff in its work to bring collective bargaining to the River City.
WEA President Kathryn Brown, a 2nd-grade teacher at Wenonah Elementary School, said the association’s card campaign will continue for the next two to four weeks and if teachers and staff approve, then the association can take the proposal of a resolution to Waynesboro School Board. The school board will then have 120 days to vote on whether to permit collective bargaining for the city’s teachers and staff.
“Signing a card means that we are showing our support for collective bargaining,” Brown said. “And, when we have 51 percent or more from an employee group signed, once we submit that to the school board, they have to hold a vote to decide if they’re going to pass a collective bargaining resolution.”
WEA kicked off its card campaign at Waynesboro High School Monday afternoon and gathered 22 cards.
“We’re expecting that it’s pretty likely we’re going to get a majority on this,” WEA Collective Bargaining Committee Chair Ed McNett, an English teacher, said.
Each card submitted will have its employee ID number confirmed and “if we get to 51 percent it just means that, by current state law, the school board is required to hold a vote on whether or not they want to accept, basically, the employees’ request for collective bargaining.”
A lot of nearby school districts, including western Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville, have adopted resolutions for collective bargaining, McNett said. He said WEA hopes Waynesboro School Board will consider that fact.
“It’s trending,” McNett said. Potential new teachers to the city school system often inquire about collective bargaining, which has been proven to help with teacher and staff retention and recruitment. Collective bargaining gives teachers and staff a seat at the table when decisions that affect them are considered by a school board. The ultimate decision is still left up to school board members, but teachers and staff would have input on topics such as class size and aid-to-student ratio.
And the WEA is pretty confident that Waynesboro Schools teachers and staff will also want collective bargaining because last semester in a structure test of interest, the association found that 82 percent of just the high school’s staff was interested.
Brown said that collective bargaining is known for strengthening outcomes for students.
Virginia Education Association Organizing and Communications Specialist Olivia Geho said that “more and more” teachers are becoming aware of the option for collective bargaining in the Commonwealth. Some localities are close to bargaining successor agreements. Richmond adopted collective bargaining three years ago, and Arlington and Falls Church are expected to return to the bargaining table in 2026.
Some school boards have, however, voted no to collective bargaining, such as Lynchburg, where bus drivers wanted the option.
The Petersburg Education Association collected cards from 90 percent of school system staff in support of the resolution.
“It was incredible,” Geho said.
However, when it came to the school board, they wanted only teachers to participate, not also bus drivers and other school system staff.
“The goal is not to have that happen,” Geho said.
VEA’s goal is for all teachers and staff to benefit from collective bargaining and school systems that have adopted the resolution come to have a better mutual understanding of school board for staff and vice versa.
“I would love to see every single school division in Virginia have a union,” Geho said.
Experience has shown, according to Geho, that when individuals with expertise are involved in decisions about the workplace, their workplace sees improvements.
“We’re really excited for this moving forward,” Geho said of Waynesboro Schools. “We’re hoping that the school board looks at the proposed bargaining resolution that we’ve created and that they’ll take a look at it and work with us on it so that we can make it work for everybody.”
The WEA has been “unbelievably organized” in their effort to bring collective bargaining.
“They’re so eager and ready to go,” Geho said.
Across the Commonwealth she has seen that teacher and staff retention rates are low and turnover rates are high in areas of Virginia and states that have not adopted collective bargaining. Geho said she is surprised by the high turnover rate in Waynesboro.
If a resolution to adopt is approved by Waynesboro School Board, the WEA must agree that it meets the needs of teachers and staff in the school system. Then, with a resolution, the WEA would hold an election among teachers and staff to vote for bargaining representation.
McNett said that local VEA organizations usually become the union representation for school systems.
Brown, and other WEA members, have spoken at school board meetings for the last three years. Brown said she has not seen or heard of any other group interested in representing Waynesboro Schools teachers and staff in a union.
“We’re very excited. We’ve worked really hard to get to this point, so it’s exciting for us actually watching our card campaign. We just want to work with the district to have a say because we are the ones with students every day and know their needs and we just want that seat at the table and to advocate for the best interest of the employees and students,” Brown said.
A neutral third party not with WEA or the school board or the school system will verify the cards.
“We hope to succeed in this,” McNett said. “And we also hope that, if there’s anything we can do, that the board will vote to support the choices of their employees to have advocacy.”
A QR code is available for teachers and staff to sign an online form. Anyone interested should contact Brown at [email protected].
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Rebecca Barnabi
