November 8, 2022
After four hours of negotiations, we were unfortunately unable to reach an agreement with the district around the school consolidation process last night. DCTA Bargaining Team members and staff have spent many hours listening to educators at the schools that will likely be impacted by school consolidations. Most of the impacted educators can agree that job retention and professional respect were most important to them throughout the process. Please review the DCTA Bargaining Team’s latest proposal.
Some of the DCTA Bargaining Team’s proposals that DPS did not accept:
- Providing educators with sufficient time or additional compensation to complete any required trainings to support their students.
- Example: If a fifth grade educator from a closing school is assigned to a third grade teaching position, they should be given 6 days of time or 6 days of pay to complete READ act training.
- Allowing educators who are transferring into welcoming schools two additional days to close classrooms out in the summer. The Bargaining Team also proposed reducing principal directed PD days to ensure educators have time.
- If the decision is made that the actual consolidation of schools won’t happen until the 24-25 school year, then educators in the ten identified schools to close will be paid a retention bonus of $2000. DPS says that the number one retention tool they can provide educators with is a job.
We will continue to engage with educators who will potentially be impacted by school consolidations. Those who currently work at schools recommended for consolidation should take the survey recently sent trough the DCTA Slate.