Teacher pay has become a business issue

On a recent Saturday morning, Douglas County Schools Superintendent Erin Kane stopped at a Parker restaurant for breakfast burritos. e woman working behind the counter instantly recognized her and chatted her up.

e woman was not a parent with a concern, or a teenager who remembered Kane from her days as a school principal. She didn’t recognize Kane from news coverage of the previous year’s school board sta ng and political tumult.

She recognized Kane because she currently works for her – an employee of the Douglas County Schools working the second job she needs to pay rent.

In the 2022 election, Douglas County voters rejected ballot measures 5A and 5B which would have generated more revenue for salaries and top infrastructure

Letters To The Editor

Reformers Redux

On April 6, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) will hold a Denver rally for conservatives supporting “parents’ rights” at the state Capitol. e related legislation in the US House pushed by MAGAs is no coincidence.

CPAN’s practical problem is clear … informed people here in DougCo won’t be sidetracked by the current right-wing triggers — “parents’ rights” and “woke.” We haven’t gotten over the damaging divisiveness of last year’s fake triggers — “critical race theory,” “Marxist teachers unions,” “teaching homosexuality and transgender in public schools” and more. Triggers concocted by the central planning process coming out of the dark-monied “libertarian in name only” think-tanks on the East Coast, with a helping of Bannonista rhetoric.

Our own DCSD has been besieged by the local Reformers mix since 2007 and before. Back then, there was a direct line from Reformers politics to the Koch-funded Tea Party and think-tanks Americans for Prosperity, American Enterprise Institute and the Independence Institute, among others.

CPAN is the latest of many darkmonied Reformer committees established to hornswoggle voters in the runup to DCSD and other school board elections in November. During CPAN’s November 2022 evening kicko , multi-layered connections between the current DCSD Board

Norton

FROM PAGE 12 love at the end of the tunnel? I would love to hear your story at gotonorton@gmail.com, and when we can prepare our hearts and minds for our own season of new begin- priorities. Frankly, the timing was terrible. In ation and interest rates were surging, and asking for a tax increase from economicallystressed homeowners was predictably doomed to fail. e bond request for school construction failed by more than eight points. e request for a mill levy increase – to retain and attract quality teachers and sta – came closer, falling short by a mere 2,495 votes.

So here we are in 2023. Douglas County is now the only school district in the metro area where starting pay for a teacher is below $50,000 per year. A teacher commuting to Parker from Aurora will likely pass several Cherry Creek schools where the average teacher makes $18,000 more per year.

Anecdotally, the Douglas County teachers who can a ord to stay teaching are those with economically-secure partners. Young teachers are hard to recruit, and those who do take jobs quickly move to better-paying jobs in nearby districts after a year or two.

It is likely that the school district will try again in the upcoming majority and the host of Trumpist/ anti-minority organizations were in plain sight. e proof is in the bitter pudding of the same cast of roving anti-minority activists who continue to show-up for false-fronted nonpro ts like CPAN. e DCSD community has already seen how quickly the current DCSD Board majority (aka Reformers Redux) stripped away the institution’s standing, energizing a new era of mistrust and disappointment. It behooves each of us to stay informed about school board politics and demand good faith candidates we can comfortably support in November. And it is time to pass the MLO and bond measures despite heavy reservations.

“Stripping back the layers of the onion” shows the same worn-out ideological players: current “CPAN award winning” DCSD Superintendent Kane and her four board members; CO and DougCo GOP; old-timey Reformers/Tea Partiers; billionaire funded local think tanks (Independence Institute et al.), Clarity (Anschutz) Media and radio KNUS, Foundation Against Intolerance and Fascism, some churches and grifting election deniers. Among others.

So, the question for DCSD taxpayers — isn’t it time we demand good choices among local school board candidates, people who have the intellectual and decision-making o -year election. ey have to – or Douglas County teachers will only fall farther behind. Meanwhile, the surging county population is screaming for new schools. ey have that going for them.

We won’t know until the school board authorizes the ballot initiatives this summer, but Kane and her team are already gearing up. is time, the outcome will hinge on voter turnout. In o -year elections, voters tend to be whiter, older, and more conservative – not exactly the ideal demographic mix for a successful public education funding initiative. To pass, the new measures will require strong turnout from DCSD parents to counteract those dependable Douglas County voters who re exively say NO to anything resembling a public funding increase.

Fortunately, the economic outlook is better this year than last.

Public education has no shortage of critics and skeptics (frequently, I am one). However, Parker’s economic and workforce competitiveness cannot be separated from the issue of public school funding. is year, public school funding will need to be a priority issue for businesses. e Parker Chamber of Commerce’s Government A airs Committee met with Kane’s team recently to discuss the anticipated 2023 ballot request. All agreed that, this time, an endorsement will not be enough. A uni ed message is needed, and chambers, major employers, and concerned parents will need to make clear that investment our community’s teachers is an urgent business priority. e schools in Douglas County are academically competitive with every other district in the area, but the deterioration of teachers, sta , and infrastructure chips away from success potential every year that funding falls dramatically short of need.

You simply can’t attract primary employers and top-notch talent to a place where special education teachers wrap burritos and re ll salsa stations to a ord groceries.

T.J. Sullivan is the CEO of the Parker Chamber of Commerce. Find him on Instagram at @ParkerChamberCEO nings, it really will be a better than good life.

Michael Norton is an author, a personal and professional coach, consultant, trainer, encourager and motivator of individuals and businesses, working with organizations and associations across multiple industries.

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

An tiques might seem like a eld that’s struggling to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the local scene in Elizabeth — and elsewhere in Colorado — suggests a renaissance of sorts might be occurring in the industry.

Randy Wallace owns Randy’s Antiques and Art on Main Street in Elizabeth. e bustling scene in town — featuring e Prickly Pear Antiques, e Carriage Shoppes and 1897 House of Antiques, among others — breeds community, not competition, he said.

“ e more stores in town, the better,” Wallace said. “People love to come antique shopping when there are multiple stores. Each one of our shops has a di erent niche, each one has just a little bit di erent style; I think customers enjoy having a di erent variety when they come to Elizabeth.”

Wallace said that while his shop specializes in antique art and furniture, others cater to di erent interests, like the Prickly Pear’s tearoom.

Over in Littleton, owner Joe Crawford of Old Crow Antiques had the novel idea to add a root beer bar to his shop, with the eventual goal of making the soda section — which currently carries between 60-90 varieties of vintage soda pop at any given time — the largest root beer bar in the world.

Crawford said Old Crow — which he opened three years ago with his brother — is one of the “new kids on the block” in the local antiquing scene, but said they’ve been welcomed into the scene with open arms.

“I feel like we’re part of a larger community in the metro area,” Wallace said. “ ere are stores throughout the area, and we’ve gotten to know the people who own and work there — some have been here a long time.”

Nostalgia and good, old-fashioned, quality craftsmanship

Antique shops can often sprawl thousands of square feet — Old Crow’s showroom is over 45,000 square feet — packed with items from all eras and purposes. Shopkeepers say that a sense of longing for a di erent time helps people nd what they’re looking for out of the scores of inventories, in addition to the fact that many antiques have stood the test of time for a reason.

“In antique furniture, it’s already lasted 100 years, and — if you take care of it — it’ll last another 100 years,” Wallace said. “A lot of today’s stu is kind of throwaway.”

Julie McCoy, who runs own Unique Treasures Antiques and Collectibles in Wheat Ridge with her parents, echoed Wallace’s sentiment.

“(Antiques are) made so much better,” McCoy said. “ ey’re around 100 years later for a reason. It’s not like Ikea stu that you put together and throw away. It’s good quality stu that’s built to last. It builds a lot of memories with people.”

People also point to childhood nostalgia or family memories as reasons for antique shops’ sustained popularity.

“(People seek out) childhood memories,” McCoy said. “Stu that’ll last, people come in and say, ‘My mom had this,’ they need to have that again to relive their childhood.”

Crawford said his family got into the antiques business because of a love for history and historic items cultivated from time spent with grandparents as kids.

“We tell people it’s a walk down memory lane,” Crawford said. “You’ll see something that reminds you of another time, maybe a simpler time, or childhood. Something you haven’t thought of in maybe 50, 60 years.

“I’ll be reminded of my grandma, my family and that’s what it is for me, the stories and experiences of everything that’s here,” Crawford continued. “We say, ‘ ere are a lot of ghosts under this roof.’”