DPS TEACHERS STRIKE IS ON FOR MONDAY
Leaders of the union representing Denver Public Schools’ educators ended contract negotiations with the school district Saturday night after more than six hours of last-ditch talks, announcing they will go through with plans for the city’s first teachers strike in 25 years on Monday.
District officials, who have hired hundreds of substitute teachers, have said they intend to keep Denver’s schools open during a strike, though they will cancel preschool classes. Yet they have acknowledged that if they can’t put enough teachers in place, they may have to consider closing some schools. If that happens, DPS officials say they will alert parents the night before.
The eleventh-hour bargaining session grew more contentious as the evening went on, finally unraveling shortly after 7 p.m. Emotions swirled as representatives of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association responded to a new proposal that district leaders put forth that they said moved DPS closer to the union financially — but which the union decried as “deceptive.”
The night ended with DPS general counsel Michelle Berge wiping tears from her eyes as upset teachers in her district aired their grievances at Berge and Superintendent Susana Cordova, who remained at the negotiating table after the union shut down talks and walked out.
The union’s decision to end negotiations came after DPS quickly rejected its counteroffer to the district’s proposal, which had called for the elimination of 150 positions in the district’s central office in an effort to help fund teacher pay over the next two years, freeing up $20 million.
The union rejected that proposal, making its counteroffer with small technical changes that Cordova said did not move the two sides any closer — and, in fact, put them further apart.
Rob Gould, the union’s lead negotiator, grew red in the face as Cordova spoke.
“I think we’re at this point
where you keep asking teachers to compromise over and over,” Gould said in front of a room full of teachers and district officials. “What else do you want from us, Susana? We give you our lives. What are you willing to give us?”
Cordova responded that she wanted time to continue negotiations, prompting Gould to jump to his feet and announce that the district could have more time on Tuesday — and that the union was done talking.
As teachers and members of the union’s bargaining team flooded out of the room — leaving district officials seated at the table alone — fifth-grade teacher Chelsea Teutsch approached Cordova and accosted the superintendent with a trembling voice.
“Please listen, Susana,” Teutsch said as she explained that she came into teaching from the business world and didn’t want to leave the profession she loves, yet can’t afford to stay.
“We didn’t come into this profession to get rich, but we should be able to make a living wage,” Teutsch said afterward. “I told Susana those things because I feel like they’re so removed, and we’re painted as these bad guys who just want money. I love my kids. It was really hard leaving yesterday.”
After union members had cleared out, Cordova shared her displeasure on the evening’s result in a news conference.
“Obviously, I’m incredibly disappointed,” Cordova said. “We are ready, willing and able to continue working. It’s not even 8 p.m. We have all day tomorrow.”
Gould said the bargaining team and Denver teachers will not engage in negotiations Sunday or Monday as they prepare for and carry out the first DPS walkout since 1994. But, he said, teachers could be back in their classrooms as early as Wednesday if the district and the union can strike a deal Tuesday.
“If they really wanted to make a deal, why didn’t they come back with this proposal on Friday so we could have talked about it for two days instead of spending two days talking about professional development units, that they then completely changed?” Gould said. “It just goes back to their deception tactics.”
Cordova said there was no reason to wait until Tuesday to try to broker another deal when one could be settled beforehand.
Three hours into Saturday’s talks, DPS came back to the bargaining table with a new proposal that kicked in $2 million in teacher base pay in the upcoming school year and committed more money toward bumping up incentives for educators working in high-priority schools from a $2,500 annual bonus to $3,000. By the 2021 school year, the plan commits $3 million more toward educators’ base pay, according to DPS chief financial officer Mark Ferrandino.
DPS’S latest starting salary matches the union at $45,800.
After digesting the proposal, union president Henry Roman updated the room full of teachers waiting to hear their fate.
“We have significant concerns with their proposal,” Roman said. “We feel they have deliberately constructed the proposal to make it look like they are moving when they are not. We are extremely, extremely disappointed.”
The added money in DPS’S plan comes from cuts made to the district’s central administration office, which has been criticized for being bloated.
An analysis by the education website Chalkbeat found that, compared with the statewide average, DPS is top-heavy with administration, having one administrator for every 7.5 instructional members, including teachers, librarians, nurses and others.
To fund the district’s new proposal, Cordova said the district would make $20 million worth of cuts to the central office made over two years — a reduction of about 150 positions. DPS is also eliminating performance bonuses for the central administration staff, Cordova said, eliciting cheers from the audience of teachers listening to the plan.
The plan also completely revamped how professional development units — the issue in focus during Friday night and most of Saturday’s bargaining discussion — would work.
Professional development units are a Denver school district program to advance teachers’ education through free collegelike courses on many topics. The union wants teachers’ pay to increase when educators complete a PDU. The district said it was willing to consider this but had concerns about creating a system to do so in a financially sustainable way. District officials wanted guardrails in place that would limit the amount of money a teacher could make off earning their professional development units.
DPS’S new PDU iteration, called professional development credits, says every 15 hours of districtapproved professional development outside of the work day equals one credit. The credits can be used to move across a pay scale. Those at a starting salary of $45,800 would need 20 credits of professional development or college credits to move into the next pay category of $47,500. Educators could also move across the pay scale by staying with the district for 10 years or earning a national board and advanced license.
“We are incredibly disappointed that on the last day of bargaining and less than two days before a strike, they doubled down on onetime incentives teachers do not want,” Roman said. “The bizarre proposal proves what we have said during this entire process, that DPS is not interested in listening to the concerns and needs of its teachers and special service providers. We will strike Monday for our students and for our profession, and perhaps then DPS will get the message and return to the bargaining table with a serious proposal aimed at solving the teacher turnover crisis in Denver.”
It was evident Saturday that members from the teachers union and district were frustrated and exhausted after marathon negotiating that’s been consuming everyone involved for the past month.