Educators from Sheridan School District walked off the job instead of into their classrooms early Wednesday morning at five schools, banding together to picket after they say they have waited months for their district and board leaders to begin cooperating again and hammer out a new contract.
“When our schools are under attack what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” close to 20 educators chanted while marching in a circle outside the entrance of Sheridan High School in Englewood and as passing cars honked in support. The group nearly doubled about two hours after the first union members kicked off the strike while at least 75 educators rallied across schools.
The strike follows a day of feverish tensions in the small Denver metro district, where district leaders and school board members who felt threatened by a group of about 40 protesting teachers and community members ahead of a closed board meeting Tuesday evening called Sheridan police.
Law enforcement told demonstrators they would be arrested if they did not move off district property to the sidewalk by the street. Police briefly showed up to Wednesday’s strike outside Sheridan High School to tell protesters, whose demonstration blocked the high school entrance, that they must let traffic through into the parking lot.
Superintendent Gionni Thompson earlier in the day Tuesday announced the district would cancel classes the rest of the week, citing student safety concerns without enough staff to continue operating schools.
Students were not at school Wednesday but teachers were scheduled to work.
The divide between union members and district administration has grown sharper for nearly a year in the district, which serves 924 students including many families living in poverty. About 67% of the district’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, a federal metric of poverty, according to state data.
Embittered educators have been working all school year without a contract, repeatedly saying leadership has not made an attempt to come back together to pick up negotiations since they hit a wall last summer. Thompson has insisted the union is at fault, saying union members were uncommunicative over the summer when presented with the district’s final offer for a master agreement.
The previous contract expired July 31.
The group of picketers became more impassioned Wednesday morning, with one participant beating on an African drum to the backdrop of the chants. Others waved signs, including one depicting a green snake with words of warning: “If provoked we are ready to strike!” Sheridan Education Association President Kate Biester described the atmosphere as “electric.”
“This is amazing,” said Biester, who teaches social studies at Sheridan High School and SOAR Academy. “This is exactly the support we need to be able to achieve the results that our students deserve.”
Picketers continued chanting throughout Wednesday morning in both English and Spanish, at one point crying out, “Hey Gionni, we’re no fools. We won’t let you ruin our schools.”
Union members plan to continue demonstrating all day Wednesday at their schools and the district building. They also plan to continue striking through Friday afternoon, when they will hold a labor rally at the district’s administration building. Biester has been adamant in saying the strike was the union’s last option. She said she had been hopeful to get negotiations moving again Tuesday, when board members met in executive session. But she said she still has not heard from board members about where they stand on returning to the bargaining table.
The union is pursuing three major priorities. Members want the district to reinstate its contract and recognize the union for its collective bargaining power as well as recognize classified staff who work as education support professionals, including bus drivers and janitors, as members of the bargaining unit. The union also wants the district to retract policies that detail how someone would approach forming a union in the district, as well as disciplinary policies that union members say have led to retaliation against union members, including some staff being dismissed.
Nate Skinner, who teaches biology at Sheridan High School, said he joined the picket line because educators are fed up with what he sees as poor decisions from district leadership, including relocating district offices into the building that previously housed the district’s alternative high school and squeezing the alternative high school into Sheridan High School. He said district leaders also have not made an effort to get to know district employees, students and families, and have fired staff and made some quit.
Skinner, also a member of the local union, said he knows at least three teachers and four support staff members who have left the high school this school year, including employees who were forced to quit.
“Some teachers quit because they felt like they had no support from administration,” Skinner said. “There was little to no consequence for student behaviors. The buildings felt unsafe and teachers were blamed for student misconduct. And so a lot of teachers quit because of the simple fact that systems and structures that should be administration’s responsibility were put on teachers. Through stress and burnout and feeling unsupported, many teachers left.”
Skinner added that working without a contract during the school year has been “nerve-racking” and “anti-American.” Educators have still gotten paychecks, he said, but have gone without any kind of framework for their employment.
He and his colleagues could choose to work in other districts, but he said they stay for their students and families.
“We want to keep these schools open and we want to continue teaching and supporting their kids,” Skinner said, “but we have to make this choice in order to get the district to finally listen to our concerns so that teachers can be the best versions of themselves for the students and the community of Sheridan.”
In a statement texted to The Colorado Sun, Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said the state union “is proud to stand in solidarity with Sheridan as they go on strike for fair treatment for all educators.”
“Sheridan educators are continually being asked by their district to do more and more with less and less,” Vick wrote. “Enough is enough.”
Sheridan School District officials had not released a statement or commented on the strike as of Wednesday evening.