Polis should have stalled Denver teachers’ strike

Now is not the time to rush into a strike that, if prolonged, could shut down Denver’s public schools. Now is the time to get all of the facts on the table in this lengthy and complicated dispute and weigh them.

We are disappointed that Gov. Jared Polis didn’t delay the Denver Classroom Teachers Association strike. We think his agencies could have helped negotiate an agreement that would have benefited everyone in this city, especially the teachers, parents and students.

We understand that Denver teachers are frustrated. Henry Roman, president of the DCTA, has a long list of legitimate concerns: the compensation system has been unreliable and the goalposts keep moving; teachers are not paid a living wage for the high cost of living in Denver; base salaries aren’t keeping up with neighboring districts; and the central office administration has grown too large.

But we also understand that the district has come a long way in its proposal.

Denver Superintendent Susana Cordova has proposed an innovative new salary schedule that combines traditional steps and lanes with the historic (voter approved) professional compensation system that provides bonuses to teachers who are in the most difficult-to-fill positions. Her proposal intuitively makes sense to us and could bring much-needed stability to teacher salaries.

After talking to both sides, we think these negotiations have gotten so close that it’d be a shame for the end result to be a strike. After Polis announced Wednesday that he would not intervene, the union said the strike would begin Monday.

For example, one of the sticking points is that the union would like teachers to be able to get credit toward pay increases for certain professional development activities. Cordova has said she is open to that if appropriate guardrails are put in place.

That’s one place where the governor’s office could have helped.

Joe Barela, executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, noted in his Monday memo to Cordova and Roman that “there appears to have been no substantive discussion between the parties as to what guardrails or restrictions could be implemented that would ensure academic rigor and protect the district from rapid cost growth while still allowing professional development and in-service credits to contribute to lane advancement.”

Let’s have that conversation before teachers walk out.

The other big-ticket question is whether the district should give $2,500 bonuses to teachers in schools designated as high-poverty or high-priority.

The union would like to see that money reduced to $1,750 for highpoverty schools and the additional money put toward base-salary pay.

While the district hasn’t budged on reducing that bonus amount or how it’s awarded, Cordova did propose at the last meeting an additional $3 million toward the base salary and additional cost of living salary increases in coming years.

Roman says the high teacher turnover rate in Denver shows those incentives aren’t working. We’re not ready to give up on them yet, and if $3 million more for base salary and a promised raises for two years aren’t enough, Roman needs to make a counterproposal. Again, we think the state could have helped with drilling down to a workable dollar number.

Polis could have done a world of good by getting involved in this dispute.

He could have prevented students and parents from being displaced during a strike and helped teachers get a good deal at the table.

We think that reward would have far outweighed the political risk of getting crosswise with the teachers’ unions. Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, vice president of circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.