By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado Teachers in the Park County Re-2 district based in Fairplay are returning to work Thursday with neither the professional agreement nor the pay raises they sought when they started their strike on Oct. 14. This marks the end of the longest teacher strike in Colorado in decades and the first in recent […]
teacher pay
Posted inEducation, News
Park County teacher strike enters its second week, even as classes resume
By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado A teacher strike in Colorado’s high country is entering its second week with no sign of how or when the labor dispute will be resolved and even as classes resume in the district. Teachers in Park County went on strike Oct. 14. Roughly 40 teachers serve some 600 students in […]
Posted inEducation
Teachers’ strike continues for second day in Park County
FAIRPLAY — Classes are canceled for a second day in a central Colorado district because of a strike by teachers. Teachers in the Park County School District RE-2 were picketing again Tuesday over wages and other issues. District officials have offered a $2,000 raise. A member of the South Park Education Association, Doug Freeman, told KOA-AM that […]
Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government
Park County teachers plan to strike Monday after negotiations break down
By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado Teachers in the Park County school district are poised to strike Monday after negotiations with the district failed to yield an agreement. If members of the South Park Education Association walk off the job, it will be the third teacher strike in Colorado in less than 18 months. This is the latest […]
Posted inEducation, News
Park County teachers set one-week strike deadline
By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado Educators in the Park County Re-2 school district have set a strike date of Oct. 14. Teachers in the Fairplay-based district have had legal permission to strike since late September, but they initially put off a decision on a date to see if negotiations between the district and union representatives […]
Posted inEducation, News
On the verge of Colorado’s third teacher strike, one mountain district waits in limbo
By Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat Colorado Teachers in the Park County district in Colorado’s high country are poised to strike after months of unresolved salary disputes with the district — but no date as been set as both sides hope last-minute talks will yield common ground. Teachers in this small district in the high valley of […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Carman: Colorado has run out of excuses for its decades-long failure to support education
The kids are heading back to school across Colorado, some with bulletproof backpacks along with their No. 2 pencils and spiral notebooks, and once again we face the challenge of educating children on a shoestring. Colorado has a long history of starving schools. Since voters passed the TABOR amendment in 1992, per-pupil spending for K-12 […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Politics and Government
What PERA’s bad year means for public workers, retirees and taxpayers in Colorado, explained in charts
A bad investment year at a precarious time for Colorado’s public workers’ pension will mean more sacrifices than state lawmakers expected when they approved a sweeping deal to stabilize the retirement system’s finances in 2018. The good news: Unlike the legislature’s prior attempts to fix the Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s funding woes, safeguards are kicking […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Politics and Government
Low pay. Cuts to PERA. For some state workers in Colorado, it’s like the recession never ended.
When Colorado state workers took a temporary 2.5% pay cut in 2011 to shore up the state’s pension plan, Jane Wilson didn’t like it, but she understood. The country was in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And the stock market’s 2008 freefall had put the Public Employees’ Retirement Association […]
Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government
Think teacher pay is low in Colorado? Try teaching preschool.
By Anne Schimke, Chalkbeat Colorado Last year’s statewide teacher rallies and this year’s Denver teacher strike shined a bright light on Colorado’s lower-than-average teacher pay. But less well-known is the wide salary gap between public elementary school teachers and their preschool counterparts. Last year, lead preschool teachers in district-run schools made $30,500 on average, nearly $22,000 less […]