DPS Teachers Union Asks Colo. Labor Officials To Butt Out

DENVER, CO – By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado. Arguing that intervention would be “futile,” the Denver teachers union has formally asked state labor officials to stay out of a contract dispute between the union and the Denver school district over how to pay the district’s teachers.

Intervening in the matter — which would further delay a teacher strike that was originally set to begin Monday — “would be an endorsement” of the district’s “recent abusive tactics,” the union wrote in a response filed Monday to the district’s request for state intervention.

The district and the union are at odds over how to revamp Denver Public Schools’ teacher pay system, known as ProComp. The union wants to invest significantly more money into teachers’ base salaries. The district has also proposed increasing base salaries, but has pushed to keep sizable bonuses that incentivize teachers to work in hard-to-fill positions and high-poverty schools. The union argues that relying on bonuses makes teachers’ pay unpredictable.

“The philosophical difference behind the salary schedules is preventing the parties, as it has for many months, from reaching agreement on a new compensation scheme,” says the response from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

Also contributing to the stalemate, according to the union: “a broken relationship” between the district and the union that no state officials — not even the governor — can mend.

READ MORE at The Colorado Independent

Denver teachers rally for more pay outside a school board meeting on Jan. 24, 2019. (Photo by Melanie Asmar, Colorado Chalkbeat)