Early Thursday morning, the Denver Classroom Teachers Assocation and Denver Public School system came to an agreement which ended the three day teacher strike. According to the Denver Post, more than 2,600 teachers participated in the strike. ULC is very happy to see that an agreement was reached, as we recognize the low salaries many teachers must accept in order to educate our youth. To read more about the aftermath of the strike, and the accepted agreement, visit the Denver Post here.

ULC wanted to recognize an additional perspective to the Denver teacher strike, in an option piece written by Landon Mascareñaz, a senior partner for advocacy and alliances for the educational advocacy group A+ Colorado. In the article, Mascareñaz highlights the “educational equity” at stake for Denver’s Black and Latino students.

From Mascareñaz, “Ironically, they are channeling more than a decade of mistrust and frustration at the first educator superintendent in years willing to give them a dramatic raise. The union has many real complaints about the system, but it needs to also answer for why, over the past 25 years, it has voted to strike only under female superintendents of color, letting white male leaders off the hook for the consequences of a strike. The union’s majority-white membership deciding to strike has direct consequences for our majority-black and -brown student population. These facts are not reassuring to the diverse families or community leaders of Denver.”

You can read Mascareñaz’s opinion piece here.