Teachers in Denver on Saturday began voting on whether to go on strike regarding their pay. 

The next vote is scheduled for Tuesday, according to Chalkbeat. If they vote to strike, it would be the first teacher strike in Denver in 25 years and would affect 71,000 students and 5,300 teachers, according to Chalkbeat.

{mosads}The Denver Classroom Teachers Association rejected an offer from their district after the two sides were left more than $8 million apart in negotiations, Chalkbeat reported.

Kris Valdez, a physical education teacher at Columbian Elementary, told Chalkbeat that during his 17 years as a teacher in the district, he feels teachers have been “taken advantage of.”

“This is about solidarity of all the workers for the district,” Valdez said. “For as long as I have been in the district, I feel like we have kind of always been taken advantage of. Now we’re coming together and seeing we have a lot of power when we unite.”

District Superintendent Susana Cordova on Saturday called the district’s offer to teachers “compelling,” Chalkbeat reported.

“That’s a very compelling offer to our teachers and it recognizes the very high cost of living in Denver,” Cordova said. “It’s hard for me to understand that we would have teachers who are willing to go out on strike, who will attempt to shut down our schools, who will interrupt the education of the children of Denver because of 10 percent increases on average.”