Our Vision

To do this, we will 

1. Ask our members to envision what a school full of joy would look like for them. 

2. Ask our members to compare this to our collective bargaining agreement and identify

   1. Language they can use to remove obstacles

   2. Language that is needed to remove obstacles

3. Provide training in organizing methods ARs and rank-and-file members can use to organize their workplace around these issues

4. Involve members in sharing their stories about what is needed in bargaining, with policy-makers, and at public meetings. 

Some specific areas that members have already expressed we will work on include: 

As we have talked with members on summer home visits and while visiting buildings, we have heard ideas on how we can bring joy back into the classroom. These include: 

1. Cutting out testing that does not support student learning.  Educators should have access to tests that help them support students and tests that do not accomplish this should be ended. 

2. Protecting educator rights to modify curriculum resources to engage students.  

3. Ensuring district initiatives  are not implemented in ways that lead to micromanaging of educators.  

For his entire career in Jeffco, our friend Robert Hawkins worked to address issues of inequity in Jeffco.  One vision he held was to get equity language into our collective bargaining agreement, which we accomplished in 2021, shortly after his death.  This language provides for implicit bias trainings, an ombuds, and dedicated efforts to increase the number of educators of color in Jeffco.  Yet almost 5 years later, and much of this language is still only a promise.  

Working next to our Ethinic Minority Organizing Action Team (EMOAT), we will work to fulfill this promise by: 

1. Analyzing Article 22 to determine what has happened, what has not happened, what needs to be improved upon, and what is missing from the language that we need to put in writing. 

2. Meet with EMOAT and/or the team’s leaders to hear updates, share information, and discuss current concerns.  

3. Identify and share NEA and CEA resources and opportunities with EMOAT and connect members with resources and opportunities the team feels would be helpful. 

4. Create a cadre of JCEA leaders to provide racial justice-based trainings for our own members, and begin hosting regular trainings for our members.

5. Identify and connect with community groups who can support this work.  

It is essential that all of this work be done under the leadership of our EMOAT team since they experience the impacts of racism in Jeffco on a daily basis, both structurally and interpersonally. 

To address this, we will 

1. Research components that lead to physical safety and emotional safety in schools.

2. Collect and elevate stories from our members and their students that show the lack of feelings of safety and explore what they feel is missing. 

3. Create guidelines for elementary, middle, and high school levels that promote physical and psychological safety that members can use to advocate for safer conditions. 

4. Bargain for schools to conduct safety audits and create plans for their specific site.  

5. Strengthen the role of PBST teams in creating and updating their school P&I manual. 

We recognize that we do not have all of the answers for improving safety conditions in our schools.  As this work develops, we will continue to ask for input from our members and share with them what we are learning. 

Key areas we feel this is seen include: 

1. Evaluations. We are seeing evaluations being used to micromanage and control the practices educators use in their classrooms. Evaluations should be used to support educator growth. If our educators are using pedagogically sound methods that are supporting student growth, we should not require them to jump through hoops without cause. 

2. Professional Development. In our CBA, we have already established that we have the right to have input into our professional development. What we are seeing is that more and more professional development time is being dictated by district mandates. These mandates remove our voice in bringing professional development to address what we see are needs for our own development. In addition, too much professional development is one-size-fits-all, not respecting the different strengths and needs of our educators.  

3. Lack of Support.  

4. Community elements of respect

5. Cell Phones. In spite of research showing the harm cell phones are creating for our students in and out of the classroom, district management has shown a lack of will to create strong policies to address this problem.