Denver Teachers Union Asked For Charter School Employee Data

DENVER, CO – By Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado. The Denver teachers union used state law to make a public records request for the names, email addresses, and salaries of every charter school teacher in the school district — and Denver Public Schools complied and turned over the information.

The request could signal that the union plans to try to get charter school teachers to join. Currently, only teachers at district-run schools belong to the Denver union. Given that more than a quarter of Denver’s 200 schools are charters, recruiting charter school teachers could significantly swell the union’s ranks and increase its political power.

Some charter leaders, though, see unions — and the teacher contracts they negotiate — as a threat to the flexibility they say makes charter schools successful.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association declined to say how it plans to use the charter teachers’ contact and salary information. Denver Public Schools officials recently sent an email to charter school leaders in the district giving them a heads-up about the request.

Colorado doesn’t have unionized charter schools, though they do exist in other states. In Chicago, teachers at two charter networks recently voted to authorize strikes if negotiations break down; these strikes would be the first of their kind in the nation.

A study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found that 781 charter schools nationwide participated in collective bargaining agreements with teachers unions in 2016-17, which represented about 11 percent of charter schools nationwide. However, a majority of those were required by state law or district policy to be part of the contract.

The country’s two largest teachers unions — the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — have welcomed charter school educators.

READ MORE at The Colorado Independent

Photo credit: Thomas Meier, Creative Commons, Flickr