The Denver Board of Education and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association announced today they are seeking parents and other community members interested in serving on a commission that will study the future course of Collaborative Decision-Making in Denver.

In all, four parents will be selected to serve on the 12-member commission alongside four teachers, two principals, one central office administrator, and one member from the Board of Education.

The four parents and community representatives will be jointly selected by the school board and the association. The idea for the creation of the “CDM Commission” grew out of contract talks between the school board and the association.

Interested parents and other community members should submit brief letters of interest along with a brief history of their involvement in the schools and / or community to the Denver Public Schools Office of Community Relations, Room 400, 900 Grant Street, Denver, C0 80203.

Please submit letters by Friday, August 23. The school board and the association plan to announce the final 12-member CDM Commission on Thursday, September 5.

The Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) teams were first organized in 1991 as a way to bring more authority to individual school communities.

The school board and the association agreed during contract talks that it is time to review many fundamental questions about the role and function of Collaborative Decision-Making teams in Denver today.

Among the questions being given to the new Commission are: Because the CDM process involves administrators, teachers, parents, students and classified employees, should it remain part of the Agreement? Should the CDM Committee become a collaborative advisory Committee? If the CDM Committee became advisory in nature, how would the remainder of the Agreement be affected? If shared decision making remains the function of the CDM Committee, what is the system of shared accountability? Since each school is not an independent unit but part of a larger system, which decisions should be made at the school and which decisions should be made centrally in the interest of improving the achievement of all students? What is the appropriate role of the CDM Committee in the selection, evaluation and retention of principals?

Staff assistance and resources for the Commission will be provided by the Office of Community Relations.

The Committee will convene in September. It will be co-chaired by one (1) teacher and one (1) administrator selected by the Committee. It is recommended that the Commission use an Interest Based Problem Solving Model in addressing the above issues.

The Commission will make frequent reports to the Board and the Representative Council of the Association.

The Commission is expected to report their findings and recommendations to the above by the end of the first semester of the 2002-2003 school year.