A long-simmering labor dispute between Denver’s teachers union and the school district may conclude today when teachers and school officials learn details of a settlement reached late Friday.
The district and the union announced in a joint news release that they had achieved the first three-year labor agreement in 20 years and that it “resolves all open issues” in the dispute that caught national attention and carried a threat of an impending teachers strike.
Teachers will learn about the agreement from the union’s bargaining team at a meeting this afternoon at South High School.
Denver Public Schools board members learned the details at a special executive-session meeting Saturday afternoon and will vote on whether to support the agreement at a special public session at 11 this morning.
Information on the agreement was a closely guarded secret Saturday.
“We won’t release the details until we can tell our members,” said Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, who on Saturday worked with the bargaining team on the presentation to teachers.
“You might as well spend your time covering the convention today, because you’re not going to get anything from anyone,” Superintendent Mi chael Bennet told one reporter.
The labor dispute centered on two main issues: a contract for the district’s 4,500 teachers to replace the one that expires next Sunday and proposed changes to the district’s nationally recognized alternative teacher-pay system, Professional Compensation System for Teachers, also known as ProComp.
The district wanted to change ProComp, giving more money to teachers earlier in their careers in an effort to stop them from leaving the district so soon.
The union fought the district’s plan, saying the proposal would shift ProComp’s focus away from salary-building elements to an emphasis on bonuses. Union leaders say that would have created an unpredictable salary schedule from year to year.
The issue spawned a fierce battle between the district and the union, with teachers purposefully calling in sick in protest and union leaders telling members to prepare for a strike.
The district responded with letters from Bennet and salary calculators e-mailed to teachers to explain how much money they would make under the new ProComp plan.
National education experts who called ProComp the nation’s best example of teacher merit pay were following the dispute closely. Even in political circles, Sen. Barack Obama lauded ProComp as being a good example of a performance-pay system built by teachers in cooperation with a school district.
In a joint statement released Friday night, the district and the union said the three-year deal will “accomplish our mutual goal of rewarding and retaining our current teachers, attracting new teachers to DPS, and allowing all of us to focus our efforts over the next three years on the continuing progress in our schools and classrooms. We are both pleased with the outcome.”
Union members are expected to vote on the proposed agreement within the next few weeks.
At their meeting today, teachers will be able to ask questions of the negotiation team and learn the details of the negotiated settlement.
“To me, this is a real significant meeting,” said Margaret Bobb, a teacher at East High School who opposed the district’s change to ProComp. “It will be a pivotal day to see where the bulk of the teachers stand. If the bulk of the teachers hate it but aren’t willing to take a stand, then I know I work with a bunch of people who have no backbone.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
