Aurora Public Schools teachers remain exasperated as they continue to teach students without a current contract. The contract that was offered was not up to par with teachers’ demands and they wanted further investigation. As a result of this, the fact finding process commenced in early October.
Due to teachers’ contracts in the past, teachers can not strike in this situation. No progress has been made in terms of reaching a deal during their most recent bargaining on Tuesday, September 26th, but the Union has gained many supporters from staff, students and teachers all over the district.
The district proposed a new salary schedule and a subsequent survey from the AEA revealed the majority of the teachers wanted to proceed with the Fact Finding process instead of accepting the new deal.
During the meeting, the union showed the district representatives that the contract was rejected by the caucus and they left without any further comments regarding upcoming steps.
This new offer would have benefited new APS teachers the most however, new teachers still rejected this offer. APS suggested a 2% school budget reduction in order to pay the teachers. Superintendent Michael Giles, Jr. says ”With a remaining funding gap of $8.9 million, if we increase licensed compensation above the budgeted amount of $21.5 million, we would be forced to reduce school budgets this year in order to pay for the licensed salary increase”.
The AEA did not accept it due to the potential of a 2% of budget cut affecting students and staff.
According to Rangeview High School Principal Lisa Grosz, a “2% budget cut would ultimately mean that somewhere depending on the school, something may not be as funded as it is now.”
So where does this money go? Who controls the money within APS?
“You’re blaming teachers for not accepting a deal when a budget you put together doesn’t put the money into the classrooms.” said Rangeview social studies teacher and AEA representative Stephanie Walsh.
On the other hand, Superintendent Michael Giles, Jr. says “I lack confidence that a salary increase for licensed staff will come this calendar year. We will now need to await the fact finding process”.
The fact finding process is a part of the union agreements where they bring in AEA lawyers and APS lawyers to present evidence from their school budget to a neutral judge. The APS budget is open source so then the neutral judge has 30 days to look at all the facts and present what has been found to the board of what the budget shows and what it doesn’t show.
This is a non-binding process meaning APS doesn’t have to respect what they found within finding and still rule in favor of the district. The district has started this process but will not get the proof until November.
Does the district have enough money to increase pay to licensed staff? Do teachers have a right to feel undervalued for not having a raise or should they put the school needs above themselves?
Teachers are only required to work from 7:30 to 3:30 but the problem is the teachers are being overworked and have to work on their own time. However, teachers are busy planning lessons, helping and tutoring kids so they find themselves having to spend almost 14 hours outside of their payroll grading papers and providing feedback.
The APS district has still left teachers in the dark and can only wait to find out the results in November. APS students will continue to get burned by the heat as time ticks longer and controversy rises.
