AURORA | Aurora Public Schools and the district union have reached a tentative agreement to increase educator salaries by an average of 8.5% in the upcoming school year, in what both parties say is one of the recent largest raises among Denver metro school districts.
“I am pleased to share that after months of negotiation, we have reached a tentative agreement on compensation,” district superintendent Rico Munn said in a July 6 message to district employees. “The upcoming salary increase for Aurora Public Schools employees will likely end up as one of the highest in the Denver metro area. It is also a testament to the district’s commitment to honor our staff for all of your hard work and dedication to serving our community.”
The Cherry Creek School District gave employees an average raise of 5.25%. Adams 14 gave employees a 3.5% cost of living increase. According to reporting from Chalkbeat Colorado negotiations in some other metro school districts, including JeffCo and DPS, are still ongoing.
Munn told The Sentinel that the increase was a measure of how important teachers and staff are to the district.
Having competitive salaries is “always a priority” for the district but it’s especially urgent this year as a nationwide educator workforce shortage makes recruiting and retaining staff more of a battle for districts, Munn said. Most of the district’s employees will be returning next year but it still has openings it is hoping to fill during the summer.
“We ended the year strong as far as our staff coming back, but every year we need to hire additional staff and finding those has been a challenge,” he said.
The district spent more than 45 hours in negotiations this spring with members of the Aurora Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers.
“We are very pleased that we negotiated the highest salary increase in the metro area,” AEA president Linnea Reed-Ellis told The Sentinel.
Reed-Ellis said that as inflation rises and the cost of living continues to go up, educators were adamant during negotiations about what they needed in order to be able to continue to live and work in the district.
“We are committed to ensuring that teaching is sustainable in Aurora,” she said.
She said that the work “doesn’t stop here” and that the union will continue to advocate for school districts across the state to receive more funding.
The union negotiates salaries with the district every year, but this year renegotiated the entire master agreement as well. This is usually done every five or six years but had been postponed by mutual agreement during the pandemic, Reed-Ellis said.
The full contract will be available to view later this month, and will be voted on for ratification by union members in August. It will then go before the APS school board for final approval, after which point raises and other stipulations of the new agreement will go into effect.
This brings tears to my eyes. Some validation, support and respect for the incredibly difficult job of teaching.
Will City Council follow suit for city employees, other than the police, of course, who got their obscene bonuses to not leave the force but who have been doing so regardless.
Teachers can never be paid enough, but this is an affirmative step. Thank you, teachers and thank you APS board. There are few people who could do the job that teachers are expected to do.
I applaud this action if indeed the money goes to teachers and not the byzantine support staff of administrators and principals. I am tired of seeing teachers treated poorly but the constant construction of new or remodeled schools being a priority, Also with lots of loser teachers with seniority not doing their job while new teachers become disillusioned quickly. This is a start. Hopefu)ly it continues.y and are paid poorly.