For the Denver Discovery School (DDS) community, the end of the first round of SchoolChoice brought worrisome news. DPS adjusted the school’s 2019-20 enrollment projections downward, from 181 to 136 students.
The lead negotiator for the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, Rob Gould, shares his story with the Front Porch: how his years as a teacher-coach helping others become better teachers contributed to his knowledge and passion about the union’s causes; and what went on behind the scenes during the negotiations with DPS.
The teachers’ strike started at 7am, Monday, Feb. 11. Here’s a photographic look at the day and what the teachers and DPS were saying.
In 1970, 12 dynamite bombs destroyed 24 school buses and damaged an additional 15 at a DPS bus depot; the New York Times referred to this as a “massive and skillful demolition job.”
MLK, Kids March from Steve Larson on Vimeo.
In 1954, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court determined that segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment, in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The following year, the Supreme Court, in what became known as Brown II, instructed states to begin desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”
DPS’s pay structure, ProComp, which offers incentives and bonuses in areas of particular concern to DPS, is a fundamental area of disagreement between the two sides. ProComp was initially negotiated in 1999, says Laura Lekowits, who was a DPS Board member at that time.
Why not just rely on the School Performance Framework (SPF) to choose a school? Four neighbors representing Park Hill and Stapleton education committees sat down together to talk about that question and reflect on the upcoming SchoolChoice process.
The unanimous DPS Board vote was a testament to Susana Cordova’s presentation of herself and her values to the community.
Lacking a natural outdoor play area, and with changing property management and increasing rents, Rachel Baumel and her husband, Dan Mitzner, co-owners of the school, decided it was time to build a place of their own.
