'Heart Of A Teacher': Student Asks Negotiating Teachers For Math Help
DENVER (CBS4) - In another marathon bargaining session on Wednesday, officials with Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association moved closer to ending the strike. Teachers and students packed into the Denver Public Library basement starting at 10 a.m. waiting for news on how negotiations were going.
Among them was high school student Samantha Mendoza. She showed up with her school work in hand.
"I just brought some math homework,"she said.
Mendoza says being in a room full of teachers was the perfect place to be when that homework wasn't adding up.
"I just was writing my paper, and I wasn't sure if I was doing something right."
For three days, Denver teachers have spent their mornings on the picket line, their afternoons and evenings in negotiations. But ask anyone of them and they'd tell you they would rather be teaching.
Which is exactly what Jennifer Bacon and Chris Christoff did when Mendoza raised her hand in need of help.
"If a student has enough gumption to come here, support their teachers, we need to support them back. That's at the heart of a teacher always," Bacon said.
Bacon is a member of the Denver school board, and Christoff is a kindergarten teacher. Mendoza, a student they have never met, but a student nonetheless.
"We do what we do because we love it," Christoff said.
And for students like Mendoza they can't wait to have that passion back in the classroom.
"I think it would be so great to have them back hopefully before I finish this math paper," she laughed.
