Denver teachers, school district reach deal to end strike
DENVER (Reuters) - Denver teachers and school district officials reached an agreement early on Thursday after an all-night bargaining session to end a strike that has disrupted classes for 92,000 students this week, the union said.
Although the agreement must be ratified by a majority of its members to become effective, teachers may return to classes as early as Thursday, the union said in a prepared statement issued before the start of the school day.
“This agreement is a win, plain and simple: for our students; for our educators; and for our communities,” Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Henry Roman, an elementary school teacher, said in a statement.
The marathon negotiating session, which began Wednesday morning, ended with a deal that overhauls a pay system that both sides had criticized as unpredictable, the union said.
The walkout, the first teachers’ strike in Colorado’s largest city since 1994, began on Monday after negotiations broke down on Saturday.
Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York and Keith Coffman in Denver; additional writing and reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Larry King and Bernadette Baum
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