Teachers in Colorado Springs School District 11 took part in a one-day strike yesterday, picketing at 34 schools in the city’s third-largest school district and ending with a rally in Acacia Park. The strike comes in response to last year’s decision by the majority-conservative board not to renew the district’s longstanding contract with the teachers union, the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA), and in response to recent decisions by the board, including adoption of policies targeting transgender students and the decision to spend $500,000 on an outside marketing consultant.
“They’re spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on outside consultants while cutting school counselors and trying to silence teachers,” said CSEA President Kevin Coughlin during the rally. “They’re hoarding millions of dollars in reserves instead of investing in our classrooms and pushing out hundreds of our colleagues. They’re leaving our students without the supports that they deserve. This strike is about saying enough is enough. It’s time for this board and our superintendent to put our students first. It’s about protecting their learning and well-being. Our students deserve safer schools and classrooms where they can grow without political agendas. They need great educators who feel valued and respected and listened to.”
Angel Givler-Viers, a teacher at McAuliffe Elementary School, expressed her frustration with the current board. “I work hard to make sure all my students have access to a better tomorrow,” she said. “That’s the future we are all here to protect. But lately, especially for those of us who grew up on dystopian fiction, the state of our district is starting to feel all too familiar. It feels this way because some leaders are letting extreme politics get in the way of our students’ needs. They are prioritizing divisive culture wars, and our children are paying the price. This isn’t coming from our community. It’s being pushed by outside groups trying to turn our neighbor against neighbor.”
Liz Waddick, vice president of CSEA’s parent chapter, the Colorado Education Association, also discussed the influence of outside groups on the district. “This is a part of a national playbook designed to privatize education,” she said. “They send actors like Ryan Walters to demonize teachers. They create deceptive front groups with their names like Teacher Freedom Alliance or Advance Colorado. Funded by the same corporate interests that want to bleed our public schools dry for private profit. Their goal is to break our unity from the inside out, turn our schools into businesses, and divest from our children’s future.”
Walters, the former Oklahoma Superintendent of schools, resigned that job ten days ago to become CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an offshoot of the Koch-funded Freedom Foundation. Currently under investigation regarding conflict of interest rules related to his previous public position, he made an appearance at the picket lines outside of Palmer High School.
“They need to get back to work, okay,” said Walters, flanked by members of D11 Momentum, a conservative activist group. “They need to all get back in the classroom and teach these kids. There’s plenty of ways to talk about salaries and things like that. That’s not what this strike is about. They want money for their union bosses. They want control. They want to force all the teachers in the building to join their union.”
Jason Dudash, the Oregon-based West Coast Director of the Freedom Foundation, noted that some of the picketers weren’t local. “I’d also encourage you to go across the street and ask these people on the picket line where they’re from, because most of them are not from Colorado Springs,” he said. “CSEA had to bus people in from around the state to be at the picket line this morning. And we know that because most teachers are still in the classrooms. They’re happy with this new arrangement, not being any longer holding to the union.”
The district offered incentives to teachers and substitutes who chose to work on Oct. 8, increasing rates for licensed staff covering classes during off periods from $31.16 to $55 for the day, and increasing substitute teacher pay from $170 a day to $300 a day, according to a photo of a district communication that a source, who asked not to be identified due to concerns over retaliation, claimed D11 “disabled downloading, saving a copy, or copy-and-paste so that we couldn’t save the document.”
Among the substitutes taking advantage of the strike were conservative candidates for D11’s board. “Michelle Ruehl, who’s also running for the D11 school board on a slate of three very like-minded people, she proudly announced that she would be crossing picket lines today to take the $300 bounty of subbing at Mitchell High School,” said Michael Carsten, who is running as part of the “Champions for D11” slate of candidates.
The conservative candidates took part in a forum at Church for All Nations on Oct. 7. “I will be teaching a random subject,” said D11 employee and board candidate Jeremiah Johnson. “I have no idea. I’m getting deployed to a middle school tomorrow and I will go wherever I need to go and I’ll teach whatever I need to teach to support our students.”
Joining Johnson and Ruehl was former D11 teacher Bruce Cole. “My thoughts on this strike go back a long way, all the way back to May when the vote was taken to go on strike, and I voted no, that I thought it was a stunt for political gain and has absolutely nothing to do with teachers’ rights,” he said. “Over the years that master agreement kept weaving its way into the administrative principles of the district until it got to a point that the things that the district needs to do to improve our district was no longer possible because the master agreement was being used to stifle any innovations or anything that we wanted to do in the district. It needed to go away and it has and I’m so thankful for our board that courageously chose to let that master agreement expire.”
While Ruehl is willing to teach for D11 and potentially serve on the board, she encouraged the audience at Church for All Nations to utilize private religious schools. “I send my kids to a Christian school,” she said. “And if you have those means, you should be sending your kids to Christian school.”
D11 board member Julie Ott, often the lone dissenting vote during recent meetings, addressed participants during the rally in Acacia Park. “Investing in our students is an investment in the thoughtful and engaged citizens of our future,” she said. “One of the greatest forces behind public education is teachers. Teaching is a profession that shapes our students and it shapes, therefore, our world, and I, for one, am constantly and continually in awe of the difference that our [teachers] make in the lives of our students. Teachers deserve support, professional development, and great pay. They deserve a voice in education and above all they deserve our respect. As many of you know, too often now education has come under attack. Supposed neutral learning environments are seen as a goal for glossing over the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or learning the truth about those sometimes dark moments in our nation’s history. Policy has been weaponized against LGBTQ and immigrant students. And ignorance is chosen over learning. Teachers have been criticized and punished for wanting to protect their rights. And accountability measures are being choked back. Nationally, dissent itself is being criminalized. Unfortunately, that may feel a little too close to home, so let’s go back to remembering that education is an investment in our students and their future, and that investing in teachers and our other fabulous staff is investing in our students.”
Ballots in El Paso County will be mailed out Oct. 10, and must be received by 7 p.m. on Nov. 4.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to more accurately characterize Ruehl’s statements during the candidate forum.
