The DCTA bargaining team negotiated with the district all day today. We utilized the interest based bargaining (IBB) model to facilitate today’s conversations. The IBB approach is different from traditional bargaining. It is meant to replace traditional positional bargaining with a process of joint problem-solving between us and the district. Learn about IBB here.
During today’s session, we had many conversations centered around educator voice, professional standards, LEAP evaluations and compensation. We generated and evaluated many options that would meet the needs of educators so educators can meet the needs of our students.
Here are some of the main takeaways from today’s session:
- In May we proposed a 12% cost of living adjustment (COLA) to the district. The district countered our 12% COLA with a 3.5% COLA.
- We proposed doubling our benefit credit. DPS wants to remove the benefit credit for those who opt out of district health insurance (this affects 1,100 of our members).
- We made some progress around Article 10 including:
- Addressing implicit bias by requiring evaluators to take yearly anti-bias training.
- Added educator voice for SSPs and special educators within the evaluation system.
- Promoting equity in everything that we do including removing the word “master” from our agreement so that we can refer to it as the Collective Bargaining agreement.
Our goal is to complete negotiations by our contract expiration date, August 31st. We have three bargaining sessions scheduled for next week (one has been added since this morning) in order to make progress. Please notice that all of next week’s sessions are scheduled from 5 PM – 10 PM. Some of the locations are still to be determined. We will communicate updates on locations as soon as possible.
Next week’s bargaining schedule:
- Tuesday, August 23rd from 5 PM – 10 PM – Location is TBD
- Bargaining topics (all IBB):
- Article 10 – Evaluations
- Article 5 – Teacher Voice, Joint Activities, and School Leadership Teams
- Article 8 – Professional Standards – This includes class size, caseloads, workloads, planning time and the 40-hour work week.
- Bargaining topics (all IBB):
- Wednesday, August 24th from 5 PM – 10 PM – DPS Emily Griffith Campus (1817 Lincoln Street, Denver, CO 80203)
- Compensation will be our only topic of discussion (IBB)
- Thursday, August 25th from 5 PM – 10 PM – Location is TBD
- Bargaining Topics (all traditional bargaining):
- Article 7 – Grievance Procedures
- Article 15 – Educator Facilities
- Article 16 – Personal Injury, Benefits and Property Damage
- Article 23 – Professional Behavior
- Bargaining Topics (all traditional bargaining):
We are all directly impacted by the discussions taking place at bargaining next week. Our voice and presence is essential when making decisions that directly impact our students’ achievement. Remember a strong contract allows us to build strong schools. Your presence makes a difference and our combined presence sends a message! That is why we invite you to join us for in-person bargaining next week. If you cannot join us in-person, tune in virtually at: https://vimeo.com/event/561744.