It’s August and the Denver school board election season is starting to heat up with a number of people having announced their candidacies for the four contested seats.
This election has the potential to cause significant change given the divisions on the board and the lack of public support for Superintendent Alex Marrero.
This year, I’m taking a sabbatical.
I have decided to not participate in this year’s school board election, having followed and/or been involved in some way in more than a dozen such elections over the last 20 years. I will not contribute money to any campaigns, do any fundraising or any other work on any school board races.
Instead, I want to do more observation, learning, and reflection as a grizzled old public education advocate.
My first day on the job as public high school science teacher 37 years ago began with walking with my colleagues in Redwood City, California holding a sign demanding a living wage. I have spent my education career tacking between practice, policy and politics.
This is the first of what will be several commentaries I will write on the DPS races over the next few months.
Why are school board elections so challenging for voters?
There are many reasons, but for the most part school board races rate just above engagement for electing judges and far below city council, mayor, president or most any city or county official. Few people seem to understand the role of a school board and few voters outside of some parents realize they are affected by school board elections. Voter turnout in most school board elections nationwide is in the 5-10 percent range.
Fortunately, in Denver there is far higher turnout, but it rarely exceeds 30%.
There are a host of reasons why Denver voters are still having a hard time caring about, understanding, and making informed decisions in school board elections. They include
- Lack of regular coverage by journalists and media (part-time coverage by Denver Post, and few voters follow online education media)
- Zero incentives for candidates to be direct on policy positions (traditional politics for winning force candidates to be vague and not address critical issues like resources allocation, declining enrollment, superintendent contract, etc).
- Voter general lack of understanding and engagement around school boards (often most candidates barely understand the role, responsibilities of board members or the power they wield)
- Few qualified committed people willing to run for school board because of the time/resources required to run a campaign, and the low/non-existent pay for what can be a nearly full-time job not to mention the hard choices board members will face.
- Fundraising challenges. It now costs a minimum of $100,000 for a city-wide and $30,000 for district races and costs potentially could go much higher.
- Growing and more sophisticated advocacy efforts by 501(c)(4) organizations and their allies to support their candidates. Blizzards of not always honest campaign ‘literature’ and advertising make it more difficult for voters to understand exactly what candidates stand for and propose to if elected.
- Trend of having more money from fewer people in the campaigns.
Denver used to be one of those places where a few thousand dollars sufficed to mount a campaign. Those who declared early often faced little competition to win a seat. This wasn’t necessarily a net positive, but nowadays, a Denver school board races can be more costly than a city council or state representative race.
Is past prologue? The 2023 election
The 2023 Denver school board election featured three seats open, eight candidates vying for them and a total of $2.2 million spent. This was the most money ever spent in Denver or any school board election in Colorado. It was an election marked by strong divisions between candidates wanting to stay the course with Superintendent Marrero and those calling for the school board to make significant policy change including Marrero’s possible removal.
There was also a significant parent movement called Resign DPS Board sparked by the murder of an East High School student and shootings of two East administrators. This movement grew and intensified over the course of the election.
Resign DPS calling out the board on safety and achievement policies had a marked influence on school board candidates and the electorate.
The results in 2023 were a strong rebuke to the teacher-union supported board and Marrero’s agenda, with three new board members winning by from 10 to over 30 percentage-point margins. John Youngquist (city at-large), Kimberlee Sia (southeast Denver) and Marlene De LaRosa (North Denver) all ran on a commitment to make schools safe with a focus on improving student achievement and having more parent involvement in district decision-making.
All three candidates had strong support from Denver Families Action, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
The winning campaigns were less about a mandate for a new direction and more about voter reaction to a highly unpopular school board and a desire for the school district to return to a focus on making schools safe. New board members did not call for new charter schools or a dramatic new direction for DPS. They ran on making schools safe — having schools where students could thrive academically and in other ways.
Surprisingly to me, the impact of the 2023 election has been minor. Yes, there has been less school board drama (thought still some), some changes in safety policies (community resource officers have returned) but for the most part the district has continued along the same direction since Marrero arrived, with far less of a focus on ensuring that students are improving academically.
It has been six years since DPS has put forward a definition of what constitutes a good school. And fewer than one in ten low income students are proficient at 8th grade math (Mississippi and Alabama are doing better than Denver!). Still, the superintendent and some board members boasted and bloviated ad nauseam about the overall results of Denver’s 2024 NAEP scores.
They ignored the inconvenient truths laid bare by disaggregated NAEP data, and bragged about average scores, which were higher than most other big-city districts because DPS enrolls more non low-income white students than most of its peer districts.
To be fair, newly elected members Youngquist and Sia did not vote tthis past spring o extend Marrero’s contract into June 2026. But they dissented very quietly, without making any strong public statements about his performance or why they voted no.
If you watched any board meetings over the last 18 months you would not know there was a contentious election in 2023 with three new members elected to change the policies and direction of the school board. There were no heated or civil public debates over the progress and direction of the district last year.
School board meetings through 2024 were surprisingly civil. They were boring, collegial and continued to be driven by Marrero. Who would have guessed this after the 2023 election and all of the calls for the 2023 board to resign? Unfortunately, civility did not lead to a meaningful change in direction.
In fact, in many ways things got worse..
