Union leaders today will ask Denver teachers their thoughts about what steps to take in the wake of contract talks breaking down last week.
The bargaining information meetings will be at five high schools beginning at 4:30 p.m., when union members will be briefed on the labor impasse over the 2007-08 contract.
“We’re just going to do a straw poll, a survey, what it would take to settle,” said Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, which represents about 3,000 teachers.
Denver Public Schools administration is offering a 3.6 percent cost-of-living increase, while the union is seeking 4.47 percent raise.
The union also wants improved health benefits and more time for teachers to implement the district’s reforms.
Contract talks began in the spring but fell apart before resuming last week with a federal mediator. The two sides met for two days before the mediator called off negotiations early Wednesday.
On Thursday, union leaders submitted a petition to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, asking for the state to assert jurisdiction over the disagreement – an initial step before a strike could be called.
Ursetta said she doesn’t want a strike, which has not happened in DPS since a five-day strike in 1994. The last time the union filed a petition with the state was over a labor dispute in 2005.
“We don’t want people to think that because we filed with the department of labor that we are going to strike,” Ursetta said. “We hope to get back to the table.”
District officials have said their offer plus the yearly step increases that eligible teachers receive amount to an average increase of 6.2 percent.
“Combined with the settlements (from contracts) over the past three years, Denver’s teachers would have received average salary increases of approximately 21.3 percent between 2004 and 2008 under the offer,” Superintendent Michael Bennet said in a statement released by DPS last week.
During that same period, Bennet said in the release, “district revenue has increased by only 13 percent.”
The teachers union this week is expected to release its own academic initiative.
“It’s the teachers’ voice on how to improve academic achievement and to successfully implement the Denver Plan,” Ursetta said.
Among other things, the district’s 2-year-old reform, called the Denver Plan, strengthened graduation requirements and required more class time for middle schoolers and freshmen struggling in reading and math.
Teachers have said they were not given adequate time to implement the reforms. This year’s annual test scores fell, and district officials blamed an “implementation dip” that occurs after the introduction of reforms.
The union’s initiative was crafted by teachers over the summer and is child-centered and focused on “personal responsibility, student motivation as well as partnership among teachers, parents and students,” Ursetta said in a letter to union members.
“There are a lot of experts out there saying how to improve schools, but Denver teachers felt it was time they weighed in on the debate as experts in their own field,” Ursetta said.
Staff writer Jeremy P. Meyer can be reached at 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
