Model Plan of Merit Pay in Ferment

Superintendent Michael Bennet, center, Rudy Andras, left, an A-Plus Denver member, and Alan Gottlieb, a business coalition member, stay after a June ProComp meeting.
—Photo by Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News/Polaris Images

Union Objects to Proposal to Modify Pact in Denver

Denver’s performance-pay system for teachers has long been hailed as a model, in good part because it was jointly conceived and implemented by the school district and the local teachers’ union. But that collaborative spirit is now in jeopardy, with union and district leaders engaged in a protracted battle over proposed changes to the system.

The two sides are expected to go to the negotiating table Aug. 20 to sort out their differences, and have been meeting separately with mediators in the interim. But the rift is wide enough that the union, in a recent newsletter, called on teachers to prepare for a strike if negotiations fall through.

The district says the time is right for a change: ProComp , or the Professional Compensation Plan for teachers, as it is formally known, was ushered in by Denver voters in 2004, and the agreement calls for negotiations every three...

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