Denver teachers go on strike in latest educator walkout
DENVER — Striking teachers Monday picketed outside of schools and marched through Denver’s streets as car horns blared in support of the latest U.S. walkout amid a swell of educator activism that has affected at least a half-dozen state over the last year.
Just more than half of the 4,725 teachers working in district-run schools called in absent for Denver’s first strike in 25 years. Some students crossed picket lines to get to class as schools remained open with administrators and substitute teachers in classrooms.
In one school, students danced and chanted in the hallways as they walked out to demonstrate to support their teachers. Other students joined hundreds of teachers and union members in a march past City Hall that held up traffic in downtown Denver.
Science teacher Abraham Cespedes said Denver educators were empowered by recent teacher activism and strikes from Arizona to West Virginia.
“By us doing this we finally became united,” he said, marching with fellow teachers, members of other unions and students.
The strike affecting about 71,000 students in the school district comes about a year after West Virginia teachers launched the national “Red4Ed” movement with a nine-day strike in which they won 5 percent pay raises.
There have since been walkouts in Washington state, Arizona, Kentucky and Oklahoma, as teachers protest low pay, crowded classrooms and staffing shortages.
Most recently, Los Angeles teachers went on strike last month. That walkout ended when teachers received a 6 percent raise and promises of smaller class sizes and the addition of more nurses and counselors.