Pueblo City Schools District 60 on Thursday made a third offer to the teachers’ union in attempt to end a week-long strike and the offer had not been refused as of Friday morning.
“I think this is the first offer we’ve made that wasn’t turned down immediately,” district spokesman Dalton Sprouse said. “The other offers were within a matter of hours we’ve heard back that they were turned down, so I think this shows some progress on the horizon.”
The strike — the first teachers’ strike in Colorado in 24 years — centers around educators asking for a 2 percent pay increase.
The district and the Pueblo teachers’ union have a tentative meeting scheduled for Saturday to further discuss the offer, Sprouse said.
A union representative could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
The strike began Monday and has stretched throughout the week as educators marched around the city and district administration building.
Teachers had been advocating for a pay raise for a while and are looking for a retroactive 2 percent cost-of-living raise to apply to the 2017-18 school year.
A third-party fact-finder found that the district had the funds and recommended the raise.
The district disagreed with the finding, saying the fact-finders only pointed to reserve funds as a way to cover the cost. The district said the raise would cost it roughly $1.2 million annually. It already has a $3.6 million deficit this year.
Pueblo teachers were paid an average of $47,617 in the 2017-18 school year, below the Colorado average of $52,728, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
If an agreement between the district and union is reached on Saturday, Sprouse said the goal would be to get students and educators back in the classroom by Monday.
“Hopefully, we can reach a resolution soon,” he said.