The following statement can be attributed to Rob Gould, special education teacher and presidentof the Denver Classroom Teachers Association:
Last night, the Denver Public School Board of Education voted 5-2 to extend Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero’s contract through June 2028 despite his contract not being set to expire until June 2026.
This comes during a time when the district is in contract negotiations with DCTA and other employee bargaining units this year, whose contracts all expire well before 2026. Yet educators are still waiting for the same urgency and respect at the bargaining table that the district just showed its superintendent.
For the past three months, your DCTA Bargaining Team has shown up every single week ready to negotiate a contract that respects us, pays us, and values us. But instead of bargaining in good faith, the district has crossed out our proposals and refused to engage in meaningful conversations or counters about the issues that directly shape our students’ learning conditions and our working conditions.
While the district has brought very few proposals of their own, their pay proposal of a 0.47 percent cost-of-living adjustment (roughly $400 increase per bargaining unit member) for next year is nothing but a slap in the face. Many educators are already working multiple jobs just to make ends meet or to afford living in the very communities they serve. And next year, we’re expecting an average 11 percent increase in healthcare costs—even on the lowest-tier plan with high premiums.
To make matters worse, the district has said they are “comfortable” with the current class size caps in the contract, completely ignoring the growing class size crisis that is burning out educators and shortchanging our students.
The district found the time and motivation to extend the contract of one individual who is far removed from the classroom. Yet they continue to stall and delay when it comes to reaching a fair agreement with the thousands of educators who show up for students every single day.
These priorities are deeply misaligned. If DPS truly values its employees and the future of public education, it must come to the table and bargain in good faith with every single employee group, working tirelessly to support our students every single day.
