Union president Andrea Missureli said MTI will ask for a collective bargaining contract covering the 2027-28 school year on the first day it is legally able to do so, and that the union already has proposals drafted.

"We're kind of in this waiting game, but I was a beginning teacher when Act 10 happened and when we were at the Capitol protesting for it and trying to keep our rights," Missureli said. "We've worked really hard with flipping the state Supreme Court and getting people voted in who are pro-union and pro-workers."

The high court agreed to take up the case in a 5-to-1 decision. The challenge was filed by the Abbotsford Education Association, and the justices are set to hear arguments 15 years after massive protests filled the state Capitol over the law's passage.

If Act 10 falls, Missureli said bargaining would again be mandatory on a range of issues that directly shape classrooms and school finances: health insurance, pay, terminations, layoffs, surplus, and the school year calendar.

"So there are so many things that the district has to agree with us and come to the table and talk with us on first," she said.

Missureli framed the case as a question of who gets a voice in public education. "We know that our educators, when they're thriving, our schools and students are thriving," she said, describing the union's decades-long push for a mandatory seat at the table.

Supporters of Act 10, including former Gov. Scott Walker, have long argued the law saved taxpayers billions of dollars and gave local governments more control over their budgets. Missureli disputed that framing, pointing to the wave of local school funding referendums that have appeared on ballots across Wisconsin.

"We see referendum after referendum after referendum, and our local community can't take the burden anymore," she said. "It is our state's job to fund our schools and the Constitution says that and they need to live up by it."

The case arrives at a pivotal moment for Wisconsin's public sector unions, which have spent years rebuilding political and legal capacity after Act 10 reshaped their membership and bargaining power. A ruling in favor of the Abbotsford teachers would not automatically restore every prior contract, but it would reopen the bargaining table for districts across the state — and, in Madison, set up an immediate test of how far a newly empowered union and the school district can move together.

For Madison families, the practical stakes are concrete: pay and benefits that affect who stays in the classroom, rules around layoffs and terminations, and the calendar that governs the school year. MTI's preparations signal that the union intends to press those issues as soon as the court clears the way.