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As a proud teacher in Denver Public Schools, I’d like to take issue with the Rocky Mountain News editorial “Overheated tactics/Denver teachers union bent on discrediting reform efforts” (Aug. 29).

First, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association has supporteed the reforms that Superintendent Michael Bennet has implemented. Reforms take time and money and asking teachers to work more will require more money. DCTA proposed adding days to our contract; DPS doesn’t want to fund those days.

Yes, overall the increase the district is offering is 6.2 percent, with 3.6 percent of that a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). And yes, that 6.2 percent includes career “steps” for teachers who are on the traditional salary schedule. However, the total package does not cover the increase in our benefit costs, which would mean many teachers would be bringing home less money this year than next year! I am in that category.

Moreover, those “steps” are only for teachers on the traditional salary schedule. If you have taught for more than 13 years you have exhausted your steps and those “step raises” don’t happen.

Under the proposed contract, most teachers would get a 3.6 percent COLA, pay more for benefits, and end up taking home less.

Other districts are giving anywhere from 3.6 percent to nearly 5.0 percent COLAs; plus they are increasing benefit allowances so teachers don’t have to pay out of pocket for insurance. The other districts are truly giving teachers a raise.

Many veteran DPS teachers would make more money in any other Denver metro area school district. We, as teachers, do realize things need to change in Denver. We are behind reform and we do support Bennet’s Denver Plan. However, we are professionals and need time and money to be professionals!

Jenny Price is a resident of Broomfield.

READER COMMENTS

thats right all professionals on the taxpayers dime should demand more money as money will make you more professional.
if you are such professionals why is there tenur? I am not aware of any other professional who demands an agreement that no matter how bad they are they can not be fired with out some stuipd show like churchill had.
if you want more money go to the other district and get it. that argument is really showing how childish a teaching professional can be. they make more and we want the same.
COLA is something the government gets as the private sector gave that up years ago.
so you believe that us tax payers owe you more money and we should pay for all of your benefits, which your retirement is one everyone would like, so you dont loose any money.
this is a well written union letter. we are professionals and we will demand that we get everything we want or we will go on strike and show our dedication and professionalism in our demand for more to do less.
jenny here is a shock and an eye opener for you. you dont have an anchor in your butt to stay at dps so move on to get the more money and time. why did you need more time to be professional anyway?

Jenny, you are right. It says more about the author that the post above is so clueless. Teachers are easy targets for people who dont know what it takes to stand in a classroom and teach to the often unwilling. Go after DPS and get what you need.

Those who can Do, those who can't ...Teach

And, those who don't want to learn, won't; but they will always be quickest to criticize.

Jenny, thanks for your comments.
What I get out of your post is:
#1 You don't live in Denver. Why not? Did you buy in Broomfield instead, so that your kids could attend Broomfield schools?
#2 You can't leave DPS because your pension is not "portable" to PERA and you won't get Social Security either. That means, when you signed up to work at DPS you were essentially agreeing to spend your entire working life there, like the mill in a one-mill town. Now you realize you're stuck in position for your entire career and seeing admins rise to the top, buy years of service in the Plan, and split after only a few years. Many of these people brown-nosed their way to success, or knew Somebody Who Knew Somebody, while you are a dedicated professional worker hoping to be rewarded for your real contributions. You're bitter about that and wishing you could leave, but you can't, so -- along with everybody else in your situation -- you think a few percentage points of $$ will resolve how you feel about the unfairness of your circumstance.

Nobody in Colorado really understands how uniquely segregated DPS workers are from the rest of the state and country. No social security. No PERA. No fairness. No options, except to start completely over on a life career. When people say they've given their LIVES to the District, they really aren't just kidding around.
My husband served DPS as a classified worker for TWENTY THREE YEARS and got shafted. Your teachers' union didn't represent him. He and his fellow workers didn't even get to ELECT their supposed union. At the last go-round before my husband quit and filed suit against DPS, the President of his "union" secretly signed an extension of a labor contract and was immediately promoted to a nice admin position. At the time, the workers were actively trying to get a REAL union to represent them and DPS wanted to make sure that agent wasn't let in. Workers were even told point-blank that they could have any representative except the one they wanted. Are you following this?--real live American citizens being "exclusively represented" by a "labor union" they never elected.

DPS stinks, Jenny, and I'm sorry you left your years there. Sign up to teach in Broomfield TODAY and start accruing PERA benefits.
Someday soon, Denver taxpayers will be asked to bail out the DPS pension plan and then we will REALLY see the you-know-what hit the fan, because they won't want to do this. Why should they, when many of the retirees living in extended leisure at taxpayer expense never spent a day in the classroom? The District is doomed, get out while you can.

Exactly, Old Grouch!

Denver teachers used to work 190 days out of 365. Now they work 181 days out of 365. That means they work about 1/2 of the year. If you break it down to a hourly rate, Denver teachers earn between $23 - $53 per hour. They need to earn a lot of money so they can afford to go on vacations the rest of the year.

Kathy is absolutely right. DPS is going down. Get out while you can. It is probably no longer noble to hang in

Kathy (I'm bitter as hell) Doomsday's husband got shafted. If he is anything like her, I can understand why. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or whose husband got shafted.

Thanks to Jenny for her informative letter about how DPS is not dealing with teachers in a fair manner. We need reasoned information such as she has provided, not the wild-eyed emotional outbursts from people like Kathy. DPS serves too many children to be abandoned. But then there are some people so mad that they don't seem to realize that, it seems that as far as they are concerned the children are irrelevant.

For all who have posted in disagreement to my opinion I'd like to just add a few comments.
1. I am not bitter at DPS. I actually LOVE my job and love the kids and families of Denver.

2. Leaving DPS means starting over with
retirement since I don't receive social security or PERA, but am rather in a unique retirement system to Denver. Why would I do that?

3. I live in Broomfield because I can afford a house in Broomfield. Denver isn't the most affordable option for teachers!

4. Please, if you have such hateful opinions about teachers or my opinion, be willing to stand up by signing your name! I try to teach my kids to advocate for themselves and stand up in what they believe.

5. DPS needs reforms and teachers know that and are behind the reforms. Sure there are some who aren't, but there will always be some folks who won't change easily.

Dear Jenny,

It's me that "Truth" is calling "bitter," not you, and the shoe fits on my foot like the Cinderella slipper. :-)

The point I was trying to make about your residence in Broomfield was exactly what you stated: teachers at DPS can't afford to live in Denver, anymore than disadvantaged DPS kids can afford to get out of town or to private educational resources, even (in many cases) to schools outside their walking distance.

As for "Truth's" comments -- mine is indeed the voice of bitter betrayal, since twenty-three years at a single workplace is too long to wait for promises made at hiring to be honored -- and 40 years is WAY too long for native citizens to wait for a well-functioning school system in the state's capitol city.

Jenny, my suggestion that you leave DPS was tongue-in-cheek since I know your investment there -- emotionally and financially -- is far too great for you to leave the District, unless you have less than five years in. That's how DPS keeps people trapped there, and explains my husband's 23-year commitment.

I don't think that very many people understand that Colorado is among the very few places where public workers don't get social security....and hardly anybody understands that Denver school workers don't participate in PERA either. When you stir in the facts that there is no civil-service mechanism for school workers, and that Colorado has no statutory mechanism for the recognition of a labor union as the workers' "exclusive representative," you have a one-of-a-kind entity whose workers are in a VERY precarious situation once they have stayed any length of time.

It would be one thing if this entity turned out well-educated kids. But it doesn't.

"Truth" obviously either doesn't understand how many good Colorado citizens have had a devastating working experience at DPS, or simply doesn't care. But the community knows, and has become skeptical that DPS is able & willing to adopt reform no matter how eager teachers (and other workers), parents and children clamor for it.

I send sincere wishes of luck to you and your fellow teachers, Jenny. I know you work very hard and have your hearts in the right place -- and will pray that is enough for you to continue to work, and eventually retire, as your efforts surely warrant.

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