Education

Negotiators for Jeffco Public Schools and the teachers union last Thursday evening preliminarily agreed to a 10-month contract after a three-week stalemate over the agreement’s duration.

Bargaining team members for the Jefferson County Education Association, who had originally said they would hold out for a three-year contract, said they agreed to the shorter pact in the interest of teachers, who return to schools Monday. 

Two Evergreen businessmen have revived a building trades program for high school students that flourished more than a decade ago.

“We’re going to teach them a trade,” said builder David Graham, who is coordinating the program with Phil Shanley of Evergreen Fine Art. “At the very least, they’re going to learn to do something with their hands.”

The program will teach students a trade while also meeting a need for skilled labor, Shanley said.

The Jeffco school district’s 2015-16 budget, which has proved to be the latest dividing line for the fractured school board, was approved last Thursday with the votes of the board’s three conservative members.

The conservative majority was pleased that the financial plan avoided added expenses, but the board’s two liberal members say the budget shortchanges teachers on pay, and could have met pressing facilities needs responsibly through an alternative financing method.

A Jeffco district judge ruled Friday that the school district should not be prevented from releasing the names of teachers who were absent during “sick-outs” last fall, rejecting the teachers union's claim that sick days should be protected as personnel data.