Leaders of teachers unions in Denver and Jefferson counties say they are losing access to talking with new teachers at welcome events this week — including one where the district called police.

Many metro area school districts held welcome and training events for hundreds of new teachers this week, but union officials said Denver Public Schools and Jefferson County Public Schools made changes to how the union was allowed to participate.

This comes as union officials in DPS and Jeffco are in contentious contract negotiations with the districts over teacher pay changes.

The Jefferson County Education Association has in years past hosted a breakfast or lunch during the welcome events, but this year they were uninvited, association communications director Scott Kwasny said.

“They kicked us out completely,” Kwasny said. Instead, the union set up and planned a social event in the evening after events at a nearby park.

On Tuesday, he said they had a couple dozen veteran teachers in the parking lot of Green Mountain High School, where training was being held, “just cheering and welcoming new teachers, really building that sense of community,” he said. “They called the police first and threatened teachers with trespassing violations if we didn’t move off the school property.”

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