News

JeffCo CSEA members voted during the week of January 25 on the issue of affiliating with CEA-NEA. When ballots were counted Friday afternoon, 94 percent of CSEA members had voted and 93 percent of those voting had approved the affiliation.

We welcome the 1,400+ member CSEA into our Association Family.

About two years ago, CSEA began seriously considering whether to affiliate with a larger organization. We asked ourselves an important question: How do we ensure CSEA’s future? An important question because we are experiencing a slow, steady decline in membership and fewer members interested in replacing retiring leaders.

We knew that we must guarantee a voice for Jefferson County classified employees in decisions about our jobs and working conditions because, over the last decade, our working relationship with the district has become more difficult. We realized that our organization was at a stage where it needed to evolve, needed to be able to offer our members greater opportunities that CSEA alone could not provide.

At about this same time, the Colorado Education Association (CEA) and its teacher local association, the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA), approached us about affiliating with its state-national organization. In the past, we had rejected this idea. But this time, we were more interested.

We began to think that affiliating with CEA and its parent group, the National Education Association (NEA), opened up many possibilities for CSEA members. CEA is, for example, actively organizing and recruiting classified school employees (CEA’s term is “education support professionals”) across Colorado. This interested us and made affiliation more attractive than before.

Before the end of January 2010, when we will take an all-CSEA-member vote on affiliating with CEA-NEA, we will provide a lot of information about why CSEA leaders believe affiliation is the right way to go for CSEA’s future. CSEA representatives will distribute flyers and meet with members across the district about the question: Why affiliate? We hope you will take the time to read and learn, talk to your fellow CSEA members, and ask questions about the possibilities.

Come to Our CSEA Affiliation Expo: January 9 and 23

- An "open house" for CSEA members to meet CEA-NEA leaders and ask questions about the proposed affiliation prior to the vote January 25-29 -

January 9
9:00-11:00 a.m., Manning Options School or 1:30-3:30 p.m., Deer Creek Middle School

January 23

9:00-11:00 a.m., Arvada West High or 1:30-3:30 p.m., Creighton Middle School

Q. Why do CSEA leaders think this is a good idea?
A. CSEA leaders believe that affiliation with CEA-NEA will make CSEA stronger as we continue to encounter new challenges in maintaining our relationship with the district.

Q. Aren’t you asking us to join a teachers’ association?
A. No, we’re asking you to affiliate with a state-national organization of public school employees: classified employees, teachers, retired school employees, and students learning to be teachers. Across the U.S., more than 500,000 classified employees are NEA members, of which 3,700 are Colorado members. In all, about 3.2 million public school employees belong to NEA, with 39,000 in Colorado.

Q. How will this help us?
A. CSEA members will join a powerful state-national organization and get the opportunity to take advantage of new membership services and programs as benefits of belonging to a much larger organization. CSEA members will have access to workshops and training in grievances, organizing, and leadership development. We’ll get help building a stronger CSEA.

Q. Won’t we lose something?
A. We don’t think we’ll lose anything. We’ll keep our autonomy, our role as exclusive bargaining agent for classified employees in JeffCo, and our right to make decisions about CSEA, our office and staff, our structure, and our dues.

Q. How will it help CEA-NEA if we affiliate?
A. By joining CEA-NEA, we will strengthen the classified employee voice, helping CEA-NEA become an even stronger advocate for all public education employees.

JeffCo Classified Employee Association Members Say "Yes!" to Affiliation