Colorado Springs District 11 highlights what’s wrong with the monopoly bargaining scheme that predominates most of the state’s larger school districts. One organization with vast wealth and clout behind it, the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA), is deemed the “exclusive bargaining agent” and negotiates the rules for everyone. The entrenchment runs so deep that union officials and their school district enablers can sometimes act in ridiculous ways.

Sometimes it really (I mean REALLY) goes to their heads.

Case in point: CSU-Pueblo and the Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE), a non-union professional alternative for teachers, are co-sponsoring a professional development workshop to be held in the Springs. District 11 advertised the workshop by distributing a flyer to all teachers last Friday. But that’s before the sinister presence of PACE was detected. This morning a follow-up email co-signed by Ronda Schimpf, director of professional development, and CSEA president Kevin Marshall was sent out to all teachers:

Please disregard the flyer that was sent Friday, November 21 advertising the set of courses entitled “It’s All About M.E” offered through CSU Pueblo.  This course is co-sponsored by the Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE) with whom the Colorado Springs Education Association and School District 11 do not have a working relationship.  CSEA is the exclusive bargaining agent in D-11.  At the time the flyer was sent, the Professional Development Department inadvertently overlooked this situation and did not intend to imply that there was any relationship with PACE.  We apologize for this oversight and will be very closely reviewing future advertisements from CSU in an effort to avoid issues such as this.

I’m glad that’s cleared up! PACE isn’t a bargaining union looking to displace CSEA’s petty tyranny with its own. Union officials appear to protest too much, methinks. But you can understand why CSEA might feel a bit threatened, having its own less-than-distinguished record of managing professional development for the district.

One District 11 teacher-who wrote under condition of anonymity because of “what a STRONG influence CSEA has on our district”-described the email from Schimpf and Marshall as “a form of censorship”. Yes, and strong evidence of petty private tyranny run amok in our public school system. In case you’re insufficiently upset, here are a few of the officially-recognized ways District 11 bends over to accommodate CSEA:

• Collecting not only CSEA dues but equivalent fees worth more than $700 a year from each teacher who fails to opt out before a September deadline
• Paying a portion of the CSEA president’s salary while he’s on full-time leave from classroom duties (PDF)
• Granting CSEA exclusive access to communicate through school mailboxes, bulletin boards, and formal district announcements

Tell me again: Who is this all supposed to benefit?

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