Below is a post we wrote in 2013 about Douglas County. The reason we are reposting it is because it is actually a story that could be written today about Jeffco Schools (and was by Nelson Garcia at 9News), which might be due to the fact that the same slingers of smut, Strategies 360, handle both unions in Jeffco and Dougco. Did Nelson Garcia literally take the same story and copy and paste it with a new date and new names?
A TALE OF SOUR GRAPES: Former Union Officer Runs to the Media
It was the last day of school for the Douglas County School District Jeffco Schools and kids were looking forward to summer vacation, but two teacher union hacks were looking forward to their own time in the sun with 9News‘ education reporter, Nelson Garcia. In his latest piece of union smut camouflaged as legit coverage, Garcia did a segment on the departure of some teachers from the award-winning school district, taking the word of two disgruntled union members that all was not rosy in the District.
Douglas County School Board President John Carson explained the issue to Garcia: “What’s really at issue here is that we took money away from unions and gave it directly to teachers.”
This year, the district stopped paying teachers union salaries, which totaled over $1.2 million since 2007.
One of the quoted teachers is Carlye Holladay Barb Aswege, who plans to leave the school district after this year. While Holladay Aswege paints herself as a dedicated teacher (citing that she’s a “nationally certified” teacher) she conveniently leaves out that she was an officer in the teachers union. But, she wasn’t just an officer, according to Garcia:
“[Carlye]
HolladayAswege and [John]KissingfordFord fully admit that they are members of the teachers union and, in fact, Holladay was even part of a negotiations team trying to get the district to sign a new collective bargaining agreement, which was dissolved.”
Holladay and Kissingford also assert that teachers have no say in the school district, particularly as it related to the district’s new performance measurements, a notion that Carson puts to rest: “We’ve had hundreds of teachers working to put this new evaluation system together….”
…Union leader Holladay Aswege also tried to assert that the number of teachers leaving the district this year is abnormally high. Again, it’s not true. It’s at 10%, which is no different than previous years, and as 9News pointed out briefly, average for other large school districts.
What’s notable is what Garcia and 9News haven’t covered. Cherry Creek Schools Denver Public Schools have an even higher amount of teacher vacancies (22%), but we haven’t seen any planted stories about that because Cherry Creek Schools DPS is union-cozy.
Does Nelson Garcia only serve what teachers unions prepare or can we expect a story soon on teachers fleeing Cherry Creek DPS?