Teachers take autonomy case to union's doorstep

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Nearly two dozen teachers from Denver's Montclair Elementary took a field trip of their own Friday - to their union headquarters to urge a vote on the school's six-week-old request for autonomy.

Montclair is the third Denver Public School, and the first elementary, to seek freedoms from district and union rules in budgeting, hiring and scheduling.

Bruce Randolph School in north Denver paved the way for school autonomy requests earlier this year, and Manual High School soon followed.

"This is a special place, and I want to make sure it continues," said third-grade teacher Kyle Kimmal. "We want to have control of our building at this time."

Montclair teachers voted 22-1 in favor of seeking autonomy, and the staff sent the request to DPS and to the teachers' union on April 18. DPS board members unanimously approved the request on May 15.

But Kimmal and his principal, Shannon Hagerman, say they've had no response from the union. So Friday, the last day for teachers in DPS, Hagerman, four parents and 21 teachers went to union headquarters downtown.

"We don't want to go through the summer without any agreement with them," Kimmal said.

Union leaders, including Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Kim Ursetta, were out, attending a Teachers Union Reform Network conference in Vail. Hagerman said they were told by a staffer that the union would not consider any autonomy requests until the district-union contract is resolved.

"We submitted this before negotiations began," Hagerman said. "Don't use us as your pawn."

Ursetta, from Vail, said she has tried to schedule meetings with Montclair staff, but they've not responded to her e-mails.

"We want to set down and meet with them," she said.

Hagerman, similarly, said the union has not responded to the school.

Typically, schools seek district and union approval for autonomy since they are asking to be freed of contract rules worked out by DPS and the union. But Hagerman said Montclair will move ahead.

"We have the (school) board's unanimous approval, this is the direction we're headed," she said. "I would like to have some conversation and agreement with DCTA because I certainly don't want to be adversarial."

Just fewer than half of Montclair's staff, including Kimmal, are union members.

Montclair has thrived in recent years, with its enrollment nearly doubling. It serves an economically and ethnically diverse enrollment of about 370.

"We have kids from very privileged, very well-to-do, highly educated backgrounds, and we've got kids who have never set foot in a traditional American school," Hagerman said. '

To serve that span of needs, the staff has created unique programs. Hagerman and Kimmal said they fear, without autonomy, the school could be forced to hire teachers who don't buy into the mission. They also want to be able to make decisions about what kind of training teachers receive, and when.

"Who knows better what happens in this building and in this block of this city than we do?" Hagerman asked. "We have this forward momentum, and we just want to keep it going."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245