Jeffco school schedules negotiated

Ongoing Jeffco school district negotiations with the the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) union centered around teacher, school and district scheduling during the April 27 meeting.

“I hope that other schools see that power (around collaboration) and I feel if it’s not reflected in our negotiated agreement it won’t be there –; that’s my fear,” said Barb Aswege, a teacher and member of the association’s negotiating team.

Throughout the meeting the group discussed a draft proposal for teacher schedules, the district calendar, the 40-hour workweek, how schools may utilize noncontact days and administrative, school and teacher planning time.

For the group, major points of the conversation centered around the need to have more collaborative time at the teacher, team and school levels as well as creating a 185-day calendar, and how that might look.

“I’m going to be selfish as an educator here because I think there are somethings in the negotiated agreement that needs to go along with the educator work day,” said JCEA President John Ford, on the importance of planning time for teachers. “And one of those is the planning time that I have … One of the things I’ve always struggled with, as a professional, is `How am I going to get this stuff done?'”

The team will meet again to discuss the proposal and other items in the hiring, induction and mentoring document as well as other topics during their subsequent May meetings.

The next negotiations meeting will be held Saturday, May 9, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Jefferson County Education Center, 1829 Denver West Dr., Golden.