Picketing Denver Teachers: 'They Need Our Labor'

DENVER, CO – Originally posted on Chalkbeat by Erica Meltzer on February 11, 2019 Undeterred by frigid conditions, sign-wielding Denver teachers gathered in the pre-dawn darkness Monday to take their message to the public.

“It’s about pay but it’s also about respect,” said Ryan Marini, a social studies teacher and football coach at South High School. “We lose great teachers every year.”

Marini’s dog Ollie carried a sign that read, “Hey DPS, throw us a bone.”

In Denver’s first teacher strike in 25 years, teachers are demanding across-the-board raises, while Denver Public Schools wants to keep a larger share of teacher compensation in bonuses, including for teachers working in challenging schools where most students live in poverty.

Overall, about 56 percent of Denver teachers did not show up Monday, according to the district. But in 30 “highest priority” schools — those mostly serving students from low-income families — just 44 percent of teachers weren’t at their jobs.

The strike is expected to last at least one more day. Negotiations will resume at 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to Superintendent Susana Cordova. The union broke off bargaining late Saturday, although the district had wanted to keep talking.

Monday morning, union lead negotiator Rob Gould said, “it’s important that DPS see and understand what it’s like to not have teachers in the classroom.” In addressing more than 100 picketing educators outside South High, Gould said, “they need our labor, and they need our talent.”

At East High, the district’s largest campus, the union appeared to be achieving its strike goal of disrupting business as usual.

A line of students snaked outside the auditorium, where officials were handing out individualized schedules for sophomores. But at about 8 a.m. sophomore Quinn Biannucci emerged from campus. She said she’d been waiting in line for 20 minutes and had moved just 5 feet in line.

“It’s a hot mess,” she said.

Around 9 a.m. huge numbers of students streamed out of East High’s front doors. Some of them joined the picket line, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, these unfair wages got to go!” Others walked off campus. One zipped by on a pay-as-you-go electric scooter.

Junior Jhoni Palmer stood in solidarity with teachers, holding a sign that said, “My teacher is my Uber driver too.”

She described a chaotic and disorganized morning inside the school. “They told us to to to the gym, then they told us to go to the auditorium, then the fourth floor, and then the gym,” she said.

She said she hadn’t attended a single academic class. “There’s no classes,” said Palmer, who came to school because she wanted to support her teachers and their fight for pay. “Just kids walking around confused.”

Across town at Lincoln High, 15-year-old Adrina Trejo said she walked because she was disappointed in how her school day was going. In a packed room with 34 other students, a health instructor in charge of class and handed out packets of work. But, Trejo said, “it didn’t even relate to what we’ve been working on.

“We would rather be learning with our teachers,” she said.

Classmate Johnathan Reynoso, 16, also walked out getting assigned a science packet even though he doesn’t have a science class this year. He wasn’t happy about the overheated classroom, rearranged to accommodate up to 40 students.

Reflecting the rising teacher activism and frustration across the county, National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García appeared at South High to lend support to striking teachers and raise the profile of the strike.

“We’re looking at a completely different issue here than anywhere else in the country,” she said. The district is willing to put more money into compensation — though not as much as the teachers union wants — “but instead of giving everybody a decent raise, a reliable raise they can count on, it’s let’s keep doing this thing that is causing chaos, where you pop up these bonuses.”

The labor dispute has focused on ProComp, Denver’s complex system of bonuses and incentives. Many teachers say the ProComp system has made their pay too unpredictable, with bonuses and incentives changing from year to year as school demographics change or with minor changes in test scores.

Cordova agrees that the system needs to be more predictable and that base pay needs to go up, but has insisted the bonuses express the district’s pursuit of educational equity for low-income children.

On the picket line, teachers said ProComp has failed them. Outside East, striking math teacher Aaron Lowenkron said the only reason he can live in Denver, at 40 years old, is because he gets financial help from his parents.

“I used to feel shame about that,” Lowenkron said. “But how many teachers in Denver say the same thing?”

Paul Kirschling, a French teacher at East who’s taught 24 years the district, said ProComp hasn’t delivered on its promises.

In between high-fiving shivering students who hustled past pickets, he called the pay system “bait and switch.”

The strike has parents worried about what will happen in the classroom without regular teachers in place. When Maria Claustro dropped off her granddaughter early Monday at Schmitt Elementary in southwest Denver, she made a point of walking into the office — even though district employees stood outside school greeting students.

“I asked them to call me if anything changes or if they’re not having classes,” Claustro said. She’s not happy about the strike, but said, “it’s their right to ask for a fair wage. I think they are asking what’s fair.”

Jennifer Nguyen, a mother of four, also expressed concern. At Schmitt, she said, “the original teachers know how the kids are learning, know if students are misbehaving or need extra help on math. The new people today don’t necessarily know all of that.”

It’s not clear yet how many Denver teachers ended up striking. The district had recorded more than 2,000 anticipated absences Sunday, out of more than 5,300 teachers, counselors, school psychologists, and other special service providers who are covered by the contract. The union estimates its membership at around 3,800. Not all striking teachers reported their absence in advance.

The teacher retention data from Denver’s “highest priority” schools show a mixed record. In the district’s latest offer, Cordova actually increased the amount of money those teachers would get.

“I don’t believe it’s in our city’s best interest to take money out of the hands of teachers working in higher poverty places to spread around the city so everyone gets an increase,” Cordova said Sunday.

Teachers say the unpredictability of their salaries under the ProComp system creates problems throughout the district.

School nurse Sean McFarland took a $16,000 pay cut when he left the hospital where he was working to come to Denver Public Schools because he was passionate about providing more holistic care to children.

He was on the picket Monday representing the “specialized service providers,” such as nurses, counselors, and physical therapists, who are also part of the union. Many specialists can make more money working in other settings, which is why McFarland said it’s critical that the district raise pay to attract them.

McFarland now works at East High. Although he still qualifies for the “hard-to-staff” incentive, when he moved from a high-poverty high school to East, he lost the “hard-to-serve” incentive, even though he’s now caring for more students.

“I work harder and have more responsibility at this school,” McFarland said. At his other school, he said, “I would have had fewer students and more money.”

Melanie Asmar, Yesenia Robles, and Ann Schimke contributed reporting to this story.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.