Strike day one: Tacoma teachers begin picketing

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TACOMA, Wash. — Teachers in Washington state's third-largest school district have begun picketing, hours after they overwhelmingly voted to walk away from the classroom.

The strike keeps 28,000 students at home.

Union spokesman Rich Wood says teachers began arriving at Lincoln High School at 6 a.m. Tuesday. The plan is to have teachers at the city's four major high schools demonstrating all day.

Wood says 87 percent of the union's members voted to strike Monday evening.

Issues in dispute include pay, class size and the way the district's teachers are transferred and reassigned.

Spokesman Dan Voelpel says the Tacoma School District will seek an immediate court injunction Tuesday to terminate the strike, which school officials contend is illegal.

On the Web:

• Teachers' union website
• Tacoma Public Schools
• Tacoma YMCA emergency child care
• Tacoma Boys and Girls Club extended hours schedule