All 11 candidates for the four Denver Public Schools board seats squared off Tuesday night in a televised debate that generated some rare back-and-forth heat over everything from student achievement to the performance of Superintendent Alex Marrero.
With ballots mailed Friday for the Nov. 4 election, a large crowd attended the debate at Regis University sponsored by Educate Denver and Chalkbeat and livestreamed on CBS News Colorado.
The stakes are high as this election will determine the direction for the next four years of the seven-member board overseeing nearly 90,000 students at 189 schools.
At-large
Amy Klein Molk, endorsed by Denver Classroom Teachers Association, and Alex Magaña, endorsed by Denver Families Action, are vying for the open seat after Deborah Sims Fard dropped out citing health issues.
Asked to point to the biggest issue in DPS, Klein Molk said rebuilding public trust in the board, focusing on neighborhood schools, and reducing class size. Magaña said closing the achievement gap between white students and Black and Latino students is No. 1.
“We’ve known about this problem for 10 years, and we still have not done enough to solve it,” said Magaña, who is principal of Kepner and Grant Beacon Middle Schools and a longtime DPS educator.
Klein Molk, a parent activist and education entrepreneur, challenged his record, saying he has not done enough to raise achievement at his two schools. Magaña replied that his outreach efforts to school community leaders is making progress on student support.
On school safety, Magaña supports continuing to deploy trained police officers as Student Resource Officers in middle and high schools to help protect students against violence. Klein Molk opposes armed police officers in schools and advocates for more focus on mental health resources.
“We have to invest in mental health of students – that’s how we break the cycle of violence,” she said.
District 2 Southwest Denver
Incumbent and former board president Xochitl Gaytán, endorsed by DCTA, is challenged by Mariana del Hierro, endorsed by DFA.
They sharply disagreed on most issues, with Gaytán defending the board’s record, her support for Marrero and her opposition to charter schools.
“Charter schools are siphoning resources away from our (neighborhood) schools,” she said. When asked by the moderator to raise their hands if they support school choice by parents, she did not raise her hand while del Hierro did.
Del Hierro, a parent activist who directs a Southwest Denver health and food-security nonprofit, said Latino students in 22 of 25 schools in District 2 are performing poorly, arguing that the board needs to set “measurable goals rooted in data” to help raise achievement.
“We are allowing the biggest population of (DPS) students to fall through the cracks,” she said.
Gaytán said test scores are culturally biased and not an accurate measure of student success. She cited her role in advocating for the recommendations in the district’s recent La Raza report as evidence of her commitment to Latino families.
District 3 Central Denver
Scott Esserman, who was elected at-large to the board four years ago, switched to run in District 3 where incumbent Carrie Olson is term limited. He is opposed by DJ Torres, endorsed by DCTA, and Caron Blanke, endorsed by DFA.
Similar to the District 2 debate, Esserman said he is proud of the board’s record, supports Marrero’s leadership and disagrees with a board focus on raising test scores.
“Test scores are an inadequate measure of our students,” Esserman said. If reelected, he said he will push the board to consider other data beyond scores to help determine strategies to bridge the achievement gap.
When the moderator asked for a show of hands if the board needs to spend more time on student achievement data, Blanke and Torres raised their hands while Esserman did not.
Torres, a former DPS administrator and former special education teacher who now works for Sandy Hook Promise, a gun violence prevention-focused nonprofit, said he would work on the board “regaining and maintaining” trust from the community and being more engaged in decision-making. For example, he said, the board extended Marrero’s contract without public input and closed schools despite parent protests.
Torres acknowledged that the district faces difficult budget decisions because of declining enrollment, but he said he opposes closing more schools for reasons of low achievement or enrollment. On charters, he said they need more accountability and was critical of those that hire teachers who lack state certification, or don’t have collective bargaining contracts.
Blanke, a parent activist and former director of early learning at the Jewish Community Center, said she would “demand radical transparency” from the board, criticizing incumbents for making important decisions in secret without input.
She and Esserman sparred over the board’s closed-door discussion extending Marrero’s contract, which Blanke said was an apparent violation of Colorado’s Open Meetings law. Esserman rejected that, adding that the only violation of the law occurred in 2023 when the board held a closed meeting on school safety after the shooting by an East High School student.
“I have a lot of concern about how the board is managing their one and only employee,’’ Blanke said, referring to Marrero.
District 4 Northeast Denver
This is the most competitive race of the four, with incumbent incumbent Michelle Quattlebaum facing three challengers: Monica Hunter is a parent and former DPS teacher who is director of human and civil rights for the Colorado Education Association and endorsed by the DCTA; Timiya Jackson is a DPS parent who works for the city of Aurora as a youth violence and prevention administrator and is endorsed by DFA; Jeremy Harris is a DPS parent and funeral director.
The issues and their responses that were discussed Tuesday night by these four candidates were similar to a recent Northeast Denver candidate forum covered by Boadhawk. That forum is detailed here.
You can watch the full debate below.
