Dear Team DPS,
I’m very pleased that we were able to reach a tentative agreement this morning with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association that ends the teacher strike. The last several weeks have been very hard on our community and especially hard on our families, educators and students. I very much appreciate our community’s support and understanding throughout the contract talks — the outpouring of appreciation and kindness for our teachers and the urgings to those of us at the negotiating table to reach an agreement.
I’m so happy to have our schools back at full strength, our teachers back in their classrooms with our students, and brighter days ahead.
Thank you to all of you who reached out to me during the negotiations to encourage and challenge, to share your perspective, and to show how much you care about your children and your schools. That helped ground me and drive me to help us reach an agreement that is good for our students, our families, our teachers, and our city’s future.
We have lived up to our commitment to invest significantly more in our teachers’ base salaries. We also keep our equity focus by ensuring we maximize our taxpayer-supported ProComp incentive pay to close our opportunity gaps by recruiting and retaining teachers to our high-poverty schools. Under the tentative agreement, our teachers will
receive an average base salary increase of 11.7% next year and a cost-of-living increase the following two years.
(
Click here
for details on the salary terms.)
On top of the very solid common ground we reached on the terms that are written down on paper in the tentative agreement, I’m even more heartened and encouraged by the spirit of collaboration that surrounded the table as we finished our work. I am committed to continuing this collaboration as we move forward together.
As difficult as it has been to start my time as superintendent with this challenging work, I couldn’t be more excited about the days — and the work — ahead.
We come through this with the potential for a stronger relationship with our teachers, which will lead us to higher ground and greater power to fulfill the tremendous promise your children bring to our schools every day.
Warm Regards,
Susana
