Talks resume in Denver teacher strike

DENVER – Striking Denver teachers wearing red packed a meeting room Tuesday for a negotiating session with district leaders on the second day of a strike over pay. The meeting, facilitated by a federal mediator, was the first time the sides met since talks broke down over the weekend.

Red is the color teachers in states across the country have donned in the past year amid similar strikes and protests for better pay and working conditions.

All schools remained open and staffed by administrators, substitutes and teachers not participating in the strike. At the start of the talks, Superintendent Susana Cordova acknowledged that students were not getting the kind of instruction they normally would and said she was committed to reaching a deal to end the strike.

Lead union negotiator Rob Gould interrupted to tell her “You can’t do the job without us.”

Preliminary reports from the school district showed 58 percent of teachers did not report to work Tuesday, slightly more than on the first day of the strike Monday.