Wow! What a week in Denver!

Following an exhausting marathon of round the clock negotiations, I had the opportunity to NEA delegates to the DNC on Sunday. Our outgoing national president, Reg Weaver, recognized our entire bargaining team at the NEA caucus lunch. We had the opportunity to share our tentative agreement with leaders of the NEA and AFT during the week, and ended the week with our national officers and staff at Mile High Stadium. It was an incredible opportunity to be a part of history.

3 Year Tentative Agreement Reached

After 3 around the clock days in mediation, we have reached a tentative agreement with DPS. The DCTA team slept about 2 hours a night. Click here to read our joint press release.

Thanks to our members for your support and encouragement.

In soldarity,
Kim

A Very Positive Rep Council Meeting

Thanks to the 90+ Association Reps who attended our meeting Thursday and committed themselves to helping get our story heard among parents and others in the community.
We are gearing up for a city-wide Unity Day on August 20th in an effort to help members, potential members, parents, and everyone understand what is at stake in this negotiation. The district’s bargaining team is depending on everyone being preoccupied with the beginning of school and frustrated at the lack of progress. We'd rather be able to put our full attention into back-to-school activities. For a lot of us, this is our favorite time of year, a time of great possibilities. We're ready, willing, and able to complete a settlement by the end of mediation on August 22nd.
As we discussed at the AR meeting, this is not just another squabble over what the COLA will be. If we are successful, we will make some modest salary gains, but if we accept the caps, quotas, and capricious bonuses DPS is trying to push off, we stand to lose $300,000 in career earnings and about $14,000 a year in retirement. Anyone who looks at the facts can see it's bad for teachers, bad for students, and bad for Denver Public Schools.
In short, we have a little to win, but a lot to lose.
Find out more about Unity Day activities from your Association Rep. Information and materials are posted on DCTA's website.
Let's have a day where the public hears the truth! Help us reach out to parents on August 20th.

Letter to Denver Teachers

Dear Denver Teacher:

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association finds it outrageous that Superintendent Michael Bennett continues to try to directly negotiate with teachers and try to sell the Denver Public Schools' bargaining positions to the public. His characterization of big increases for all teachers and sustained growth in salaries bears little resemblance to what they have advanced at the bargaining table.

First, at various times, they have described their proposal as a $9,000 increase for every teacher, a $7,500 average increase, and a $6,000 average increase. All of these numbers have been used to describe the same proposal – and all of them are wrong.

Second, Mr. Bennett's most recent letter to Denver teachers states that all teachers are eligible for all ProComp incentives throughout their careers. In fact, their proposal would cap participation in a teacher's 13th year. This is part of their goals of increasing salaries at the beginning of teachers' careers and diminishing retirement benefits for career teachers.

Third, Mr. Bennett's letter says that all payments are fully pensionable. But it will be difficult to predict what one's retirement will be in an environment where – as DPS has stated – a teacher's salary could go up or down by as much as $9,000 in a year.

Call your school board members and ask them to get the district to work with the union and the mediator. Tell them to develop an agreement that advances the purposes and programs of ProComp. Tell them it is essential to attract and retain qualified teachers for Denver's children.


Sincerely,

Kim Ursetta
President, Denver Classroom Teachers Association

Get the DCTA Bargaining 411...

We are committed to reaching a fair and equitable settlement with the district in mediation. Our bargaining team has been working hard on our "homework" assigned by the mediator. Get the latest run down of the proposals, and what they mean to Denver teachers by clicking here.

TURN mourns the loss of John Grossman

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/28/grossman.html?sid=101.
Dear Friends:
It is with great sorrow that I share with you my thoughts about our dear friend, colleague and longtime advocate, John Grossman. As you know by now, John died Tuesday, July 28, at his home in Bexley. He had been recovering from a broken ankle and relaxing after a wonderful trip he had just taken to Europe. He was 62.
We will miss John. He was one of the most passionate, outspoken CEA presidents we will ever know. Without his enthusiasm, Columbus teachers would not be able to boast about so many innovations and benefits.
John was the son of educators. In 1969, he followed them into the classroom as a social studies teacher at South High School. But he didn't remain there for long. He was asked to take a union position only a few years after he began teaching; and in 1978, he stepped into the president's office.
John could not refuse. He was a natural leader who recognized the work that needed to be done to improve conditions for Columbus students and teachers. During John's tenure, Columbus schools weathered desegregation and busing, budget crises and long, often-heated contract bartering sessions.
Good things happened, and John was largely responsible. He was a major architect of our Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program and a leader in developing the collaborative process we now use to negotiate our contracts. He led Columbus City Schools to join with The Ohio State University in ground-breaking teacher training initiatives. Other projects that began under his leadership included the Northland Teaching Academy, Site-Based Shared Decision Making, Decentralization, Competency Based Education, Scout Schools, Multicultural Education and Ohio Institute for Urban Teacher Leadership.
John served on the Ohio Governor's Education Management Council and the Columbus Mayor's Educational Advisory Board. He was one of the founders of the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN) and was a co-chair of the Ohio 8, the coalition of Ohio's eight largest urban school districts.
He also was a vice president and board member of the Holmes Partnership, a consortium of universities, public school districts, teachers associations and local and national organizations seeking to improve teacher training.
The reason John could do all this, and do it for 26 years, was his dynamic personality and his sense of humor. Many of us will remember how John could fill a room with his presence and his laughter. John Grossman wasn't afraid to say what he thought, and he did so whenever he thought it would help our cause. Sometimes his words weren't popular with those who read them in the newspaper. But they rang true. In fact, they resonated. And things got done.
I, for one, cannot believe that John is no longer with us. I can hear his voice echo in the stairwell of the CEA office building. I can still hear him arguing his point or encouraging me to take a stand on a tough issue.
The best I can do--that any of us can do--to honor his memory is to carry on his work. He would want us to.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, August 2, at Christ Lutheran Church, 2314 East Main Street, Bexley, Ohio. Calling hours at Schoedinger State Street Chapel, 229 East State Street, will be Thursday, 6-8 p.m., and Friday, 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. or Saturday, 9-10 a.m. at the church.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in John's name to the CEA Members Scholarship Foundation, Capital University or Christ Lutheran Church.
To leave your own remembrances of John, sign our online guest book at
http://news.ohea.org/UM/T.asp?A2919.38560.188.1.134008
In solidarity,
Rhonda Johnson, President