Despite district threats, educators strike in Colorado Springs

Members of the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA) have a lot of things they’d like to talk about. At the top of their list: lowering class sizes, bringing in more school counselors and social workers, and adding special education support staff so they can better support the needs of all students.

Educators also want to put an end to the ugly “culture war” battles that they say have compromised their autonomy and dulled the curriculum.  

But the people they need to hear them the most—the leaders of Colorado Springs School District 11—have so far refused to listen. In fact, the district has actively tried to silence them.

“Last year, our school district refused to bargain with us,” explains CSEA President Kevin Coughlin. That came as a shock, he says, because the local and the district had a master agreement and a collaborative working relationship for the past 56 years.

“The district gave us a handbook instead of a contract, and that handbook has no backbone when it comes to giving educators a way to speak up,” says Coughlin. “We have to have a voice in order to keep the best possible learning conditions for our students.”

That’s why CSEA’s members voted in favor of a one-day strike to protest unfair labor practices on the part of the district. After the strike was announced in mid-September, the district sent emails to educators threatening disciplinary action and even termination if they chose to participate. But those threats of retaliation did not weaken the union's resolve.

On Oct. 8, for the first time since 1975, the Colorado Springs Education Association went on strike. 

Thousands of educators, parents, and other community members carried signs, marched on the picket line, and rallied in support of restoring collective bargaining and getting the district to focus on the issues that matter for students and educators. 

Growing Tensions

The relationship between the District 11 school board and the Colorado Springs Education Association has deteriorated over the past several years.

Candidates with more extreme, anti-labor viewpoints have dominated the past few school board election cycles. Those wins in 2021 and 2023 were fueled with streams of money from conservative outside interest groups. A group called Colorado Dawn, for example, poured more than $400,000 into the 2023 D11 school board races in support of candidates who, once elected, would drag culture war issues to the forefront.

Since 2023, the board has enacted restrictions on what educators can hang in their classrooms (Pride flags are banned), limited sports participation for transgender students, and banned library books with LGBTQ+ characters. A chapter in a new high school health textbook that covered gender and sexual identity was ripped out, despite previous board approval. 

Meanwhile, teachers’ concerns about staffing, facilities, and classroom resources took a backseat. 

“The district can’t sit on $120 million in reserves when we have a middle school building that has been condemned and educators with no contract, and hundreds of unfilled teaching positions,” says Coughlin.

It's all too familiar to first-grade teacher Molly Till, who spoke at the rally following the morning picket.

“I have seen this exact playbook before,” Till told the crowd of thousands. “I previously worked in a district that was taken over by the very same people and ideologies that are now in control of D11. I saw firsthand how their policies hollowed out support for students and silenced educators. I am living it again, now, as both an educator and a parent in this district.”

“[T]hey are not operating in the best interest of public education,” Till went on to say. “Their actions, culminating in their attempt to dismantle the 50-year partnership with CSEA, have one goal: to have educators who are scared and silent.”

Taking a Stand for Students

Ali Eustace is affected by the District 11 school board’s actions both as a worker and as a parent.

“We purposefully chose to move to this district so our son, Ian, could go to a more diverse school and be exposed to different ideologies, but now that’s being stripped away,” says Eustace, who teaches Spanish at Palmer High School.

She hopes that the upcoming school board elections in November will help to restore balance so the board will focus on the pressing needs that affect students and educators every day. 

That’s precisely why CSEA held a neighborhood canvass between the morning picket and the late afternoon rally. Educators knocked on doors to have face-to-face conversations with voters about three pro-public education candidates who are running.

Kevin Coughlin is always proud to canvass for candidate Charles Johnson—his former student. Like Coughlin, Johnson grew up in Colorado Springs and attended D11 schools.

“We need people like Charles on our board—candidates who respect educators and want to make sure that all students get to experience learning in the best way possible,” Coughlin says.

CSEA members have been working on the school board race for the past several months to make sure voters are aware of what’s at stake for public schools.

Eustace says many community members “get it,” and showed their support for CSEA the day of the strike. 

“First of all there were folks who came out to picket and rally with us and cars that honked when they saw us,” Eustace says. “We had a short break to get some lunch and when we passed by the outdoor tables people just started clapping and cheering for us out of nowhere.”

“That tells me we’re getting our message out and that people understand the link between educators having a seat at the table and how our students experience their education.”