AFT Colorado 901 W. 14th Ave.

Suite 1 Denver, CO 80204

t: 303-698-9150 f: 303-825-1627

www.aftcolorado.org info@aftcolorado.org President:

David Sanger Secretary/Treasurer:

Bernie Jiron Vice Presidents:

Cheryl Heaton John Kness Cindi Leitch

Richard Lloyd Tiffany Osland

Jody Papini Wayne Scott Ellen Slatkin

Brenda Smith Director Field Services:

Mark Belkin Political Organizer:

Billy Husher Office Manager:

Cheryl Reiling Editor:

The 2008 Colorado Legislative Session had generally good news for AFT Colorado members. Bills that would have limited intellectual freedom and union participation in the political process were defeated along with the usual attempts to get private school tax credits. Positive legislation for our members included better funding for K-12 and higher education as well as some improvements in healthcare. Funding (School Finance Act (HB-1388) – The legislature boosted support for K-12 education by the rate of inflation plus the 1% required by Amendment 23 or $182.52 per student; legislators were also able to find funds to provide:

•$19.72 more per student in additional funding •Grants to increase enrollment in preschool by 3800 students •Building a full-day kindergarten program over five years so that at least 42% of Colorado’s students have access to full-day programs •$2,000, 000 for high-cost special education students •$200,000 for the STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) •Grants for charter schools facilities

Build Excellent Schools Today (BEST) (HB-1335)

This bill provides new funding of up to $134 million in 08-09 and up to $259.7 million in 09-10 for school capital construction projects with income from the rents and royalties paid on state public school lands. The money should be sufficient to renovate or replace about 100 crumbling, outdated schools, mostly in rural Colorado. Higher Education Construction (SB-218) By reallocating the state’s share of the federal mineral lease revenues this bill gives the state colleges and universities dedicated revenue for construction and

maintenance. It is anticipated that $25.5 million will be transferred in 2008-09 and $17.8 million will be transferred in 2009-10. Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K) (SB-212) begins a multiyear process of updating state content standards as detailed elsewhere in this newsletter.

A Union of Professionals

Executive Board Meeting Wednesday, August 20, 2008 3:30 PM Last Day to Register to Vote for the Primary July 14, 2008 Colorado Primary August 12, 2008

Colorado Connection 2ndQuarter 2008

2008 Colorado Legislative Wrap-up

Public Employees Win with Colorado WINS

AFT Colorado has worked for state pub-lic employees rights on grievances, on civil service issues, and in the political arena for over fifteen years. Since there is no statutory basis for collective bargaining for public employees in Colorado, the struggle to obtain collective bargaining for public employees has been tremendous. In November, Governor Ritter signed an executive order allowing state em-ployees to elect an exclusive representative to ad-dress such matters. The Colorado WINS Coalition was then formed in November to hopefully be that representative. Colorado WINS is a partnership of AFT, ASCME, and SEIU—the three largest unions representing public employees in Colorado and the nation. Colorado WINS would be a monumental undertaking on the way forward to ensuring bargaining rights for public employees. We need to get a showing of interest from seven occupational groups for seven elections totaling 32,000 workers, proceed to a vote, and then a membership drive. This campaign is the biggest in the country today and the largest ever in the Southwest and Mountain states.

June 11, 2008 will stand in Colorado history as the day ballots were counted for the first five occupational groups’ elections; Colorado WINS was selected as their representative in each case with an average of eighty percent YES votes which is a phenomenal victory! Colorado WINS (AFT Colorado, AFSCME, and SEIU) now represents 21,000 additional employees. However, we have “miles to go before we sleep”. There are two more elections in the next few months and then a major membership drive will ensue. I know that your continued cooperation will be with us in the effort to see that justice is com-pleted for public employees. Each person’s hard work is greatly appreciated! A BIG thank you to AFT Colorado’s leaders and locals, the Colorado Classified Organizing Project Staff/AFT that has worked seven days a week, 12 hours or more a day for months, the AFT National Staff, and the additional fifty AFT’ers who assisted to date –comprised of staff from other states, AFT members, and AFT retirees. In Solidarity, Barbara Pallazzo AFT National Representative

Continued from page 1 Innovation Schools (SB-130) – Senate President Peter Groff’s proposal allows schools, groups of schools, or districts to adopt innovative plans for delivering instruction. The original bill would have allowed the elimination of teacher contracts. AFT worked hard to get this bill to an acceptable place. Under the bill as passed, to waive por-

tions of the agreement these waivers must be approved by at least 60 percent of the employees covered by the agreement, and all bargaining groups affected must be included. Several bills established grant programs. HB-1384 provides incentives for nationally certified teachers to teach in low achieving schools. HB-1386 established a leadership institute to provide training for principals. HB-370 provides grants to

add 70 counselors to the schools with the highest dropout rates, and SB-001 establishes a school safety resource center. SB-133 provides $500,000 in grants for college students who plan to teach in high-demand subjects, including math, science, special education and English language training. Some gains were made in healthcare. SB-160 Increases funding for the Child Healthcare Plan to provide healthcare for 50,000 additional kids from low income families. SB-161 makes Medicaid registration easier and increases the payment rates to doctors who serve Medicaid patients, and HB-1072 substantially increases services to the

Anti-worker groups are out in full force throughout Colorado; they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars circulating petitions. In response to this anti-union coalition and their campaign to hurt working families, union members have joined with the progressive community to stop Amendment 47 and Initiatives 53 and 59. These three amendments are an attempt to cut the lifeblood out of employee organizations. On April 29 and 30, Protect Colorado’s Future, along with over 100 volunteers from the community and various unions in Colorado, assembled at the IBEW 68 hall in Denver. Together we accomplished what the Secretary of State’s office called the most sophisti-cated petition-scanning campaign they have ever seen. Volunteers scanned over 4200 petitions consisting of 136,608 signatures in just two days! Before the scanning process began, the Secretary of State’s office reported that approximately thirty percent of the signatures are not valid based on a 5% sample. However, it is our belief that the amendment should be removed from the ballot, because we believe that there is a significant percent of these signatures that are invalid and/or fraudulent. Soon after the petition scanning was finished, Protect Colorado’s Future and volunteers began a line-by-line signature verification process. This allowed us to shine a light on the shady practices of the signature firms hired by proponents of Initiative 47 that also have a record of fraud in several other states. What did we find?? We found a pattern of violation of Colorado state laws detailed below in an excerpt from the legal challenge:

• Evading residency requirements, deceiving Voters – Under Colorado initiative law, circula-tors have to read and understand the rules for gathering signatures, including the fact that you must be a registered voter of Colorado to sign and you cannot sign twice. Protect Colorado’s Future presented transcripts of Amendment 47 signature gatherers suggesting that signers could sign multiple times and they did not need to be registered.

• Duplicate signatures – Deceiving voters about the

law led to thousands of duplicate signatures that Protect Colorado’s Future identified – and more than 50,000 signatures of non-registered voters.

• Phony notaries – The proponents of Amendment

47 had their signatures “notarized” by people who were not actually registered notaries. This could invalidate full sheets of signatures.

We are currently waiting on a statement from the Secretary of State saying as to whether or not there is a sufficient number of valid signatures to keep Amendment 47 on the ballot.

Working to Protect Colorado’s Future

We would like to give a special thanks to all of the staff and volunteers who have helped us in

our efforts. You are an awesome bunch of people, and we could never have accomplished

this much without your help.

Jan Blatchford, Rebekka Struick, Sandra Gudmundsen,

Vincent C.deBaca, Rosario C.deBaca, Frank Queen, Sharon Queen,

Bridget Lesperance, Anthony Abeyta, Cheryl Reiling, Ily Reiling, Nic Reiling,

Dawn Mathews, Karen Sanger, Michael Gardner, Laura Huerta,

Macky Lee, Billy Kemp and Champee Kemp.

Congratulations to Joanne Slanovich on her recent retirement.

Joanne has served as State Education Issues Coordinator for Colorado; we welcome Cindi Leitch who will be taking over this position and wish her luck. Joanne has been an active member in her local and AFT Colorado, and will continue to be involved.

Since the implementation of the federal government’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, testing has taken center stage in education reform. The tests that are causing the most rumblings are states’ “high stakes” exams required by NCLB. The Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) is of concern to Colorado educators, students, and their parents. The CSAP test should test what the state of Colorado expects students to be able to know and do. However, the AFT found in a recent study that Colorado lacks clear standards for specific grade and subject. During the 2008 Colorado legislative session SB-212, Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K), was passed; it was subsequently signed by Governor Ritter. CAP4K was designed to address concerns about aligning CSAP. This statute establishes a process to mitigate concerns, within the Colorado Education System. It will focus on updating state content standards and will also draft definitions of what students need to be able to do and know for them to successfully enter college or the workforce. One of the main goals of the CAP4K will require that every student that graduates from high school be prepared for college or to enter the workforce without a need for remediation. The bill also outlines ways in which the public can add their input during regional education meetings. These meeting will be convened by the State Board of Education and CCHE and will include education groups, stakeholders and the public.

CAP4K could be a step forward in giving Colo-rado some well-written, grade-by-grade content standards. These standards may also guide cur-riculum content, improved assessment instru-ments and professional development procedures. You can access the full bill and the department of education report on AFT Colorado’s website, http://aftcolorado.org.

Revamping Colorado’s Educational Standards

The Metropolitan State Faculty Federation, AFT Lo-cal 6321 (MSFF) is once again defending the rights of all Colorado college employees against excessive background checks. Last February, the administrators of Metropolitan State College of Denver took steps to implement a new background check policy, which would threaten the constitutionally protected privacy rights of college employees. One alarming issue at stake is the requirement that new employees and those eligible for promotion sign a disclosure and authorization form that, according to the MSFF's Ellen Slatkin and Tim Gould, would allow extensive investigations of employees that are "dangerously open-ended and without meaningful legal con-straints." The college contracted with HireRight to administer background checks of all of its employees. According to the Southern California Better Business Bureau, this company’s rating flutters between a CCC and a B. "We wouldn't hire a plumber with that low a rating from the BBB, and we certainly are concerned that the college is putting background checks into the hands of this company," said Slatkin.

HireRight's proposed investigations include, but are explicitly not limited to, scrutiny of credit records and interviews with neighbors, associates, colleagues, and friends. Employees are required to authorize any and all of HireRight's methods. HireRight will be able to retain the information in their database for an unlimited time, raising fears among college employees about how the data will be used. There are also two other major concerns regarding HireRight: the security of the their data-base and the threat of identity theft.

Concerned about the extent of the proposed investigations, the members of the Metro State Faculty Senate moved on March 5 to ask that the college suspend the background checks until such time as the policy has been amended to protect the rights of employees and to also insure the security of the collected information. The college administration declined to suspend the background checks and is proceeding with a slightly amended form that does not sufficiently address the concerns of faculty and other college employees. In support of the shared governance function of the Metro State Faculty Senate, the Metro State Faculty Federation consulted with its attorney, Joe Goldham-mer. He wrote to college legal counsel to protest the scope of the proposed investigations and warned the administration that "the college will come into possession of controversial information about the applicants which will inevitably influence decision makers at the college, but which does not relate to the merit and qualifications of the applicant." Several committees including faculty, administrative staff and classified staff are working to amend the policy. "Many of our MSFF members serve on the various committees," said Slatkin, "and are working diligently to get this policy changed. For more information, see the MSFF's web site at http://co.aft.org/063210/ or contact the Metro State Faculty Federation at MSFF6321@aol.com

Defending the Rights in Higher Education

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