The Denver school board’s four-member majority appears to be reverting to its old ways and preparing to ram through a premature contract extension for Superintendent Alex Marrero.
At its meeting last night (March 20), the board went into executive session to “receive legal advice related to the superintendent’s contract.” Describing the session’s purpose as receiving legal advice is a clever dodge that allowed the board not to record the proceedings.
Marrero is a polarizing figure, beloved by some and disliked by others. Extending his contract before an election that could shift the board’s position on his tenure would be a brazen move to tie a new board’s hands, making it difficult/expensive to remove him.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because the board pulled a similar move back in December 2021, extending Marrero’s contract through 2026 in a hastily called vote that was widely panned at the time.
At last night’s meeting, board President Carrie Olson said the executive session was proposed because Marrero’s “current contract is set to expire on June 30, 2026. By or before January 1, 2026 the board has an obligation to notify the superintendent if it intends to extend this contract for an additional year. If the board does not issue such a notice by January 1, 2026 the superintendent’s contract will renew for additional year.”
In other words, there is plenty of time to renew Marrero’s contract (or not), even after the November election. If the new board needed time to evaluate his performance, then allowing the contract to extend automatically by a year would seem reasonable.
Because the meeting was held privately, and there will be no record of it, there is no way to know what the proposed extension term might be. But based on past performance, it’s likely to be for several years.
Equally if not more disturbing, at least one board member – Scott Esserman – started paving the way to ram through this vote, if it occurs, without any public input. Because the superintendent’s contract is a “personnel matter,” Esserman said, the board could waive public comment on the pending vote.
Now why would they do that? Could it possibly because Esserman doesn’t want to get an angry earful from constituents, which could result in bad sound bites when he’s up for reelection?
Board member Kimberlee Sia gently pushed back against the idea of limiting public input, saying she has already received a few questions about the executive session’s purpose. “I would hope that we would also have that discussion in terms of informing the community…, and being transparent with the decision that needs to be made… to include some public comment,” Sia said.
Esserman dismissed her concerns, saying that those questions came not from “the community” but from “well-funded organizations,” presumably referring to Denver Families for Public Schools. He also said that while some board decisions merit community input, extending the superintendent’s contract is not one of those decisions.
“There are many things that we’ve involved community on in terms of community decisions, and and what we do with the superintendent’s contract is not a community decision, it’s a board decision,” Esserman said.
Apparently Trumpian authoritarianism is contagious, and is spreading across the political spectrum.
