Join the DCF today!
Join the Douglas County Federation today and join a growing movement of educators in Douglas County Schools united in providing a top quality education for the children we serve!
This NEW Civics PD is PERFECT for Your Classroom Right NOW
AFT is offering an all-expenses-paid professional development course on incorporating Civics into the classroom. In today’s divisive political climate where teachers are caught in the middle, there’s no better time than now to learn strategies to help you navigate controversial topics in the classroom. Knowledge is power: walk away with a toolkit of resources to empower students by infusing civics throughout the curriculum starting in Kindergarten. Confidently prepare your students to get engaged in their school communities and learn how to debate and disagree in a civil way. Questions?
What unions do
In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.
A torrent of censorship
Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.
A Message from New DCF President Lucy Squire
Dear Members,
I’m so honored to be serving as your President. I am currently a 3rd grade teacher at Copper Mesa Elementary, and this is my 18th year teaching; 3rd and 4th grade are my jam! I think it’s vital that we have a current teacher in this role, and one who has been in the district. I am a passionate advocate for students and for this profession, and I do wholeheartedly believe in DCSD and see this as an opportunity to help the district move in the right direction.
Voting for democracy and a better life
In the leadup to the midterm elections, pundits predicted a red wave, even a tsunami, based on polls, historical precedent, and steep gas and grocery prices. But I had my doubts. I spent the weeks before the elections talking to voters and traveling on the AFT Votes bus, rolling through a dozen states with more than 50 stops. In a year when kitchen table issues, democracy and our freedoms were on the ballot, many people told me that the elections came down to a choice between, on the one side, election deniers and extremists stoking fear, and on the other, problem-solvers working to help the country move forward. Many races were close, but Americans turned the tide from a red wave to a swell of support for progress and problem-solvers. Read the full column here.
Sharing more pathways to student debt relief
As the landscape of student debt shifts, and more and more opportunities allow borrowers to have their debt relieved, the AFT is using every avenue to ensure that the word is out. In affiliate meetings, telephone town halls, media coverage and social media, the union is spreading the news, and at a student debt clinic at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 31, AFT President Randi Weingarten vowed to reach as many people as possible with information that could save them tens—and sometimes hundreds—of thousands of dollars.