Chalkbeat

Newark candidates discuss diversity, board policies, and state aid at NAACP school board forum

2024-03-15T21:24:18+00:00

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Parent engagement, curriculum, and school equity dominated a school board candidate forum for New Jersey’s largest district.

During the two-hour forum, candidates answered questions about which Newark Public Schools policies they would revise or enact, strategies to tackle academic learning loss, and how they would use the record-high state aid proposed in Gov. Phil Murphy’s budget, among other questions.

The event, organized by the Newark branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began with opening statements and questions from moderators Kaleena Berryman, the executive director of the Newark Youth Career Pathways program, and Ali McBride Jr., chair of the civic engagement committee of the Newark NAACP. Toward the end of the event, a small group of residents disrupted the evening and objected to the lack of community questions. Police arrived to ease tensions between the group and volunteer organizers.

Ten candidates are running for four seats, including one who is running for an unfinished one-year term left by former board president Asia Norton. Four are incumbents, four have run before, and two are newcomers. Returning candidate Jimmie White was not at Thursday’s forum.

Candidates discuss district policies, curriculum, diversity

The first question the moderator asked was about which district policies the candidates would revise.

Latoya Jackson, a former beauty salon owner turned full-time community advocate and two-time school board candidate, said she wants an open-door policy for parents who want to visit their children at school. Her son has a disability, and she said she had sometimes been denied access to his school.

Returning candidate Che J.T. Colter is running alongside newcomer Muta El-Amin on the “It Takes a Village” slate, a duo of parents and advocates. Colter, the father of a ninth grader, wants to focus on improving program and instruction policies that impact student learning. He wants more intervention for students struggling in math and reading.

Sheila Montague, a returning candidate and educator, pointed to third-grade scores on the state’s English language arts test that showed only 19% of public school third-graders reached proficiency levels for the second year in a row. She said she wants to address the issue and incorporate more phonics-based learning into the curriculum. Last fall, the district introduced new approaches to teaching phonics and implemented explicit writing strategies.

First-time candidate Debra Salters, who ran in the 2021 general election for New Jersey General Assembly District 29 and works with Newark teens, said she would revise the district’s harassment, intimidation, and bullying policy to encompass racial harassment and equity. She referred to student claims of racist harassment at the Newark School of Global Studies that raised questions about how the district handled those allegations.

Co-vice president Dawn Haynes is one of the longest-serving board members and is running for reelection along with Vereliz Santana and newly appointed board members Helena Vinhas and Kanileah Anderson on the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate.

Haynes also raised concerns about the district’s equity policy and school diversity issues that “keep coming up.” She also noted the school board’s work to rebuild programs and curriculums that were removed while the district was under state control. The state returned local control to the Newark district in 2020.

“Let’s not forget that the state had control of our schools for 25 years. We are building and driving the plane at the same time,” added Haynes during the forum, which was held at The Clubhouse community center in the Central Ward.

Newark students raise questions about student advocacy

Science Park High School juniors Nathaniel Esubonteng and Breanna Campbell each posed one question to the candidates during the forum. The Newark city council unanimously approved an ordinance in January to lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections, but students won’t be voting this April because of state and county delays in getting voter registration machines ready.

Esubonteng and Campbell asked candidates what inspired them to run and how they would learn about student needs. Anderson, who has a daughter with a disability and was recently appointed to the board in January, said she wants to see all high school student government association presidents convene regularly to discuss the biggest student problems and present them to board members.

El-Amin, a newcomer running with Colter, said he was inspired to run after he found out his children were failing math and English language arts last year. He runs the community center at Bradley Court, a public housing complex that he said needs more city services, youth, and community engagement.

“This triggered an alarm system that went off in my head. I as a father have to do something. I as a community advocate have to do something,” said El-Amin, who joined the Newark Community Street Team’s safe passage to schools initiative to help city teens.

Santana, who is running for reelection, said the state legislature should revise the funding formula used to calculate aid to school districts and account for inflation and cost of living. Although the district is slated to get a record-high $1.25 billion in aid for next school year, those dollars “are just going to supplant what federal dollars have been funding,” Santana added.

Federal COVID relief funds sent to school districts are set to expire this fall, and those dollars have been funding the district’s academic programs such as after-school and summer programs, Saturday school, and tutoring, Santana said.

During the forum, returning and new candidates also expressed their concern about the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate, which garners support from state and local leaders like Mayor Ras Baraka and Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz every year. The slate has won every election since 2016. Seven current board members were part of that slate.

Vinhas, who is of Portuguese descent and the mother of two public school students, said she would advocate for more services and resources for English language learners and immigrant families trying to navigate the public school system.

Montague wants to involve parents in board decisions about school curriculums and policies. She also wants to see new members on the school board who are not backed by the mayoral slate that has historically won every election since 2016.

“The most important issue is that we remove politics from the education of our children,” Montague added.

The forum was disrupted when a small group of residents arrived at the end of Haynes’ closing remarks. One resident, who claimed he was the chairman of the new Black power movement in Newark, asked why community residents could not ask candidates a question. McBride tried to address the concerns, but the conversation became volatile. After the police arrived to calm those in the audience, the remaining candidates gave their closing remarks.

NAACP Newark president Deborah Smith Gregory addressed the crowd and said residents were not given an opportunity to ask questions because the event was designed to allow the community to hear from the candidates.

City residents can vote in person on April 16 at their designated polling location or vote by mail if they register for that option seven days before the election. Ballots must be postmarked no later than April 16 and received by the Essex County Board of Elections no later than six days after polls close on election day.

Residents can watch the NAACP Newark candidate forum in full on the organization’s Facebook page.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Have a question for the 2024 Newark school board candidates? Help us build a voter guide.

2024-03-08T11:05:00+00:00

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The Newark school board election on April 16 will be hotly contested with 10 candidates competing for four seats on the nine-member elected body tasked with leading the district’s efforts to improve literacy rates and manage a billion dollar budget, among other pressing issues.

Three seats come with full three-year terms while one is for an unexpired one-year term.

The pool of candidates includes current co-vice presidents Dawn Haynes and Vereliz Santana, and recently appointed Helena Vinhas and Kanileah Anderson. The remaining candidates, Che J.T. Colter, Muta El-amin, Latoya Jackson, Sheila Montague, Jimmie White, and Debra Salters are vying to unseat the four incumbents.

Ahead of the election, Chalkbeat Newark wants to know what questions residents, parents, students, and other school community stakeholders have for the contenders. The questions will be key in creating our annual voter guide, a user-friendly interactive feature with essential information about candidates’ positions to help voters make informed decisions. The questions may also be used in an upcoming candidate community forum, a collaborative effort in the works between Chalkbeat Newark, Project Ready, and other local organizations. More information on that will be available in the coming weeks.

City residents must register to vote by March 26. The last day to apply by mail for a vote-by-mail ballot is a week before the election. Voting in person at designated polling locations takes place on April 16.

In the form below, let us know what questions you have for the candidates as soon as possible. For more information on what’s at stake in this election and who’s running, read this story.

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Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Reach Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

New, returning candidates to face off in Newark’s school board race this year

2024-03-07T11:00:00+00:00

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Newark voters will see a mix of new and returning contenders in April’s school board election, where they will choose representatives for four seats on the nine-member Board of Education.

Among the 10 candidates, four are incumbents running to keep their board seats, four are returning candidates, and two are newcomers. Typically, residents also cast their vote for next school year’s budget but a new state law eliminated that requirement for the first time this year.

The candidates who win a spot in April will be tasked with deciding policies in New Jersey’s largest school system, which is home to roughly 40,000 students. The board is also tasked with holding the superintendent accountable and, last year, approved a $1.3 billion budget.

The winning candidates will have to address the public school’s most pressing issues such as academic recovery efforts, support for the city’s growing population of English language learners and students with disabilities, district expansions, and new schools, among other topics.

The board has recently faced criticism from the community over transparency in the district’s decision to remove a young adult novel about a Palestinian boy and faces demands to release a report on the cultural dynamics at a magnet high school.

Three winning candidates will serve three-year terms and one will complete an unfinished one-year term left by former board president Asia Norton.

The order of names appearing on the April ballot was chosen in a drawing on Wednesday and is subject to final approval by the Essex County Clerk’s office this week. The candidate running for the one-year term will be included on the ballot in April, said business administrator Valerie Wilson during the ballot drawing.

Co-vice presidents Dawn Haynes and Vereliz Santana are running for reelection, along with newly appointed board member Helena Vinhas, on the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate. When they were elected to the board in 2018 and 2021 respectively, Haynes and Santana ran on that slate. Vinhas was appointed to the board earlier this year along with Kanileah Anderson, who is running individually on the “Newark Schools Forward” platform.

Historically, the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate has won every election since 2016 and seven current board members formed part of that group during their elections. The slate garners support from state and local politicians, including Mayor Ras Baraka and state Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz every year.

Returning candidate Che J.T. Colter is running alongside newcomer Muta El-amin on the “It Takes a Village” slate, a duo of community advocates. Latoya Jackson, Sheila Montague, and Jimmie White are also running again. They are joined by first-time candidate Debra Salters who ran in the 2021 general election for New Jersey General Assembly District 29.

City leaders have long raised concerns about voter turnout in the annual school board election that historically has seen around 3% to 4% of registered voters participating. Newark anticipated a new wave of voters this year after the city council unanimously approved an ordinance in January to lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections. But those voters will participate in next year’s election due to state and county delays in getting voter registration machines ready by April.

Advocates say they plan to use the extra time to civically engage and educate city youth who are already interested in the election and reach those who are not yet.

Haynes, a long-time community advocate, was elected in 2018 and is one of the longest-serving board members. Vereliz, the director of lawmaker engagement at the bipartisan organization The States Project, joined the board in 2021 to replace a board member who died suddenly the prior year.

Newly appointed members Anderson, a community advocate, and Vinhas, a jewelry store owner and mother of Science Park High School students, were sworn in at a ceremony during January’s school board meeting. They filled two vacancies on the board left by former president Norton, who abruptly resigned at the beginning of the school, and former member A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, who won a seat on the Essex County Board of Commissioners in November. Their appointments came after the Board of Education refused to swear in a charter school teacher chosen to fill one of the empty seats.

Jackson, a first-time candidate last year, says she feels excited to run again now that she has a better understanding of the election process. She is a beauty salon owner and mother of a Newark Public School student and is focused on special education issues and empowering parents.

Colter, who ran for school board in 2018 and Essex County Commissioner in 2017 said he is running because he also wants to see more parent involvement in district decisions. Board members make financial decisions for the district, which Colter says, is important for parents to be involved in. He is joined by El-amin, a first-time school board candidate. Colter and El-amin are running against Montague, a three-time school board candidate and former mayoral candidate, on the “Open the Door” platform.

White, a two-time school board candidate, says he wants to reach more people in the community. Salters, a community advocate, will also appear on the April ballot under the “Saving Our Children” platform.

Newark and Irvington are the only districts in Essex County participating in the April school board election. Earlier this year, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that removed the vote for school budgets for districts participating in the April election. The district could call for a special election if it proposes more than a 2% change in the city’s tax levy.

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Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark youth vote in school board elections delayed to 2025. Advocates look to get teens ready for next year

2024-02-16T21:49:00+00:00

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Last month, the Newark City Council became the first in the state to lower the voting age to 16 in school board elections. But, the implementation will be delayed until the 2025 election due to voter registration issues, according to city officials.

Supporters and advocates of the lower voting age, which the city council instituted last month, are seeing the delay as an advantage — not a setback — in their efforts to use the expanded voting rights as a way to improve dismal voter turnout in the April school board races.

With the extra year, advocates aim to ensure as many young people as possible are “ready, educated, and empowered” to vote, they said in interviews this week.

“I think that it’s an excellent time for youth to be able to start to test the waters on what it means to fully grasp civic engagement and the power of being civically engaged,” said Shennell McCloud, chief executive officer of Project Ready, an advocacy nonprofit in Newark.

The city council’s unanimous approval of the historic ordinance last month made Newark the first in the state to lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections. But those teens will not be able to vote until next year’s school board election because state and county officials need more time to get voter registration machines and equipment programmed and tested, city clerk Kecia Daniels said in an email this week.

“It takes time to get this done,” Daniels said. “Everyone is working feverishly to effectuate the change as soon as possible.”

New Jersey’s Division of Elections, in the Secretary of State’s office, is managing the technical implementation of the Newark ordinance, according to the Essex County Superintendent of Elections office.

The voting rights expansion to Newark’s 16- and 17-year-olds received widespread approval from state and local leaders pushing young people to become more involved with the voting process. It also received praise from public school students like 16-year-old Science Park High School student Breanna Campbell, who told council members that it “feels good for this law to be passed” because it shows “how our voices can make a difference.”

Historically, turnout for the city’s school board election has hovered around 3% and some council members raised concerns that turnout could go even lower if teens don’t participate. Residents at last month’s meeting worried about the level of civic awareness among youth and questioned if they were prepared to participate in this year’s school board elections.

But advocates say Newark’s teens are eager to get involved and learn more about their new right to vote. The extra time will allow advocates to engage and educate youth who are already interested in the election and reach those who are not yet, said Deborah Smith Gregory, president of the Newark chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Her work mainly focuses on engaging city voters in school board and general elections. Smith Gregory said students have “mixed feelings” about the election “because they understand that without the proper education and empowerment, they could be manipulated by people.

“These young people are very savvy because they are looking at all sides to see what each side is doing and saying,” Smith Gregory said. “For them, it’s about what is going to result in the best quality of life for the people who will be represented.”

For more than a decade, the NAACP-Newark chapter, has held school board candidate forums in Newark ahead of the April elections. It’s important to the group that voters hear from candidates directly instead of by mailers or flyers, Smith Gregory said. They also invite students to ask questions of the candidates during those forums and will continue to stress that as Newark looks to engage city teens, she added.

The hope is that by reaching Newark’s young voters, they can also get through to their parents who may not understand the importance of voting, said Smith Gregory. They hope to continue their voter registration drives throughout city high schools.

“We have so many adults who are not engaged in the electoral process. We don’t want to have students become like these adults. We want them to be better than that,” she added.

McCloud, from Project Ready, wants to make it easier for young voters to cast their ballots by expanding opportunities for those who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. Project Ready is working with Essex County election officials to set up ballot boxes outside all Newark schools so students can vote on and ahead of Election Day.

“They could be sick, they could be not in school, or they could be at work,” McCloud said. “So we want to make sure that they have that access through and through.”

They are also working with the county clerk’s office to create a task force of civic engagement organizations across the city that would develop a five-point plan to help young teens understand the voting process, outline the steps they need to take, and ultimately, become educated voters. The information gap is “a gap that exists across the city,” McCloud said, and her goal is to share candidate and election information so residents can make informed decisions.

In the meantime, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice wants to work with city and school officials to strategize civic engagement efforts for Newark’s new voters and work through the challenges related to voter registration. Micauri Vargas, associate counsel for the institute, said many students working on the institute’s campaign are eager to start working directly with Newark high schools and their peers.

This fall, the organization plans to educate students about their new rights, how to register to vote once the state clears its guidance, and the importance of school board elections, Vargas added. The group is also looking at voting accessibility.

“We’re making sure that materials are accessible in different languages, but also accessible for people with disabilities through vote-by-mail options and that all those things are available to everyone in the same way,” Vargas added.

Newark Council president LaMonica McIver, who sponsored the city ordinance, said her office is planning to work with all schools in Newark to push a civics campaign and host civic workshops for students and parents alike. McIver is “eager and excited” to see city teens participate in the school board election, a sentiment, Vargas said, is shared by this generation of voters.

“We’re not aware of all the logistics quite yet but this youth is just so ready. Everything I’ve heard so far has been so positive, and they’re ready to vote, I know that,” Vargas added.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

La votación de los jóvenes de Newark en elecciones de la junta escolar se retrasa hasta el 2025

2024-02-23T19:47:39+00:00

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El mes pasado, el Concejo Municipal de Newark se convirtió en el primero del estado en reducir la edad para votar a 16 años de edad en las elecciones de la junta escolar. Pero su implementación se retrasará hasta las elecciones de 2025 debido a problemas con el registro de votantes, según dieron a conocer funcionarios de la ciudad.

Los partidarios y defensores de la edad más baja para votar, que el concejo municipal instituyó el mes pasado, ven el retraso como una ventaja, no un revés, en sus esfuerzos por utilizar los derechos de voto ampliados como una forma de mejorar la deprimente participación de votantes en las elecciones de la junta escolar de abril. Con el año adicional, los defensores pretenden garantizar que la mayor cantidad posible de jóvenes estén “preparados, educados y empoderados” para votar, anunciaron en entrevistas esta semana.

“Creo que es un momento excelente para que los jóvenes puedan comenzar a probar lo que significa comprender plenamente el compromiso cívico y el poder de estar comprometido cívicamente”, manifestó Shennell McCloud, director ejecutivo de Project Ready, una organización de defensa sin fines de lucro en Newark.

La aprobación unánime del consejo municipal de la histórica ordenanza el mes pasado convirtió a Newark en el primero en el estado en reducir la edad para votar a 16 años para las elecciones de la junta escolar. Pero esos adolescentes no podrán votar hasta las elecciones de la junta escolar del próximo año porque los funcionarios estatales y del condado necesitan más tiempo para programar y probar las máquinas y equipos de registro de votantes, indicó la secretaria municipal Kecia Daniels en un correo electrónico esta semana.

“Se necesita tiempo para hacer esto”, señaló Daniels. “Todos están trabajando febrilmente para efectuar el cambio lo antes posible”.

La División de Elecciones de Nueva Jersey, en la oficina del Secretario de Estado, está gestionando la implementación técnica de la ordenanza de Newark, según la oficina del Superintendente de Elecciones del Condado de Essex.

La ampliación del derecho al voto a los jóvenes de 16 y 17 años de Newark recibió una amplia aprobación de los líderes estatales y locales que presionaron a los jóvenes para que se involucraran más en el proceso de votación. También recibió elogios de estudiantes de escuelas públicas como Breanna Campbell, estudiante de 16 años de Science Park High School, quien dijo a los miembros del consejo que “se siente bien que se apruebe esta ley” porque muestra “cómo nuestras voces pueden marcar la diferencia”.

Históricamente, la participación en las elecciones de la junta escolar de la ciudad ha rondado el 3% y algunos miembros del consejo expresaron su preocupación de que la participación podría disminuir aún más si los adolescentes no participan. Los residentes en la reunión del mes pasado estaban preocupados por el nivel de conciencia cívica entre los jóvenes y cuestionaron si estaban preparados para participar en las elecciones de la junta escolar de este año.

Pero los defensores dicen que los adolescentes de Newark están deseosos por involucrarse y aprender más sobre su nuevo derecho al voto. El tiempo adicional permitirá a los defensores involucrar y educar a los jóvenes que ya están interesados en las elecciones y llegar a aquellos que aún no lo están, manifestó Deborah Smith Gregory, presidenta del capítulo de Newark de la Asociación Nacional para el Progreso de las Personas de Color (NAACP, por sus siglas en inglés).

Su trabajo se centra principalmente en involucrar a los votantes de la ciudad en las elecciones generales y de la junta escolar. Smith Gregory indicó que los estudiantes tienen “sentimientos encontrados” acerca de las elecciones “porque entienden que sin la educación y el empoderamiento adecuados, la gente podría manipularlos”.

“Estos jóvenes son muy inteligentes porque miran a todos lados para ver qué hace y dice cada uno”, dijo Smith Gregory. “Para ellos, se trata de lo que resultará en la mejor calidad de vida para las personas que estarán representadas”.

Durante más de una década, la sección NAACP-Newark ha celebrado foros de candidatos a juntas escolares en Newark antes de las elecciones de abril. Es importante para el grupo que los votantes escuchen a los candidatos directamente en lugar de enviarles correos o volantes, indicó Smith Gregory. También invitan a los estudiantes a hacer preguntas a los candidatos durante esos foros y continuarán enfatizando eso mientras Newark busca involucrar a los adolescentes de la ciudad, agregó.

La esperanza es que, al llegar a los votantes jóvenes de Newark, también puedan llegar a sus padres, quienes tal vez no comprendan la importancia de votar, dijo Smith Gregory. Esperan continuar con sus campañas de registro de votantes en todas las escuelas secundarias de la ciudad.

“Tenemos tantos adultos que no participan en el proceso electoral. No queremos que los estudiantes se vuelvan como estos adultos. Queremos que sean mejores que eso”, añadió.

McCloud, de Project Ready, quiere facilitar que los votantes jóvenes emitan su voto ampliando las oportunidades para aquellos que no pueden acudir a las urnas el día de las elecciones. Project Ready está trabajando con funcionarios electorales del condado de Essex para instalar urnas fuera de todas las escuelas de Newark para que los estudiantes puedan votar durante y antes del día de las elecciones.

“Podrían estar enfermos, no estar en la escuela o estar en el trabajo”, apuntó McCloud. “Por eso queremos asegurarnos de que tengan ese acceso de principio a fin”.

También están trabajando con la oficina del secretario del condado para crear un grupo de trabajo de organizaciones de participación cívica en toda la ciudad que desarrollaría un plan de cinco puntos para ayudar a los adolescentes a comprender el proceso de votación, delinear los pasos que deben tomar y, en última instancia, convertirse en votantes educados. La brecha de información es “una brecha que existe en toda la ciudad”, dijo McCloud, y su objetivo es compartir información sobre candidatos y elecciones para que los residentes puedan tomar decisiones informadas.

Mientras tanto, el Instituto para la Justicia Social de Nueva Jersey quiere trabajar con funcionarios municipales y escolares para diseñar estrategias de esfuerzos de participación cívica para los nuevos votantes de Newark y superar los desafíos relacionados con el registro de votantes. Micauri Vargas, abogada asociada del instituto, dijo que muchos estudiantes que trabajan en la campaña del instituto están ansiosos por comenzar a trabajar directamente con las escuelas secundarias de Newark y sus compañeros.

Este otoño, la organización planea educar a los estudiantes sobre sus nuevos derechos, cómo registrarse para votar una vez que el estado apruebe sus directrices y la importancia de las elecciones de la junta escolar, añadió Vargas. El grupo también está analizando la accesibilidad al voto.

“Nos estamos asegurando de que los materiales sean accesibles en diferentes idiomas, pero también accesibles para personas con discapacidades a través de opciones de voto por correo y que todas esas cosas estén disponibles para todos de la misma manera”, agregó Vargas.

LaMonica McIver, presidenta del Consejo de Newark, quien patrocinó la ordenanza de la ciudad, dijo que su oficina planea trabajar con todas las escuelas de Newark para impulsar una campaña cívica y organizar talleres cívicos para estudiantes y padres por igual. McIver está “ansiosa y emocionada” de ver a los adolescentes de la ciudad participar en las elecciones de la junta escolar, un sentimiento, dijo Vargas, que comparte esta generación de votantes.

“Aún no conocemos toda la logística, pero esta juventud está muy preparada. Todo lo que he escuchado hasta ahora ha sido muy positivo y están listos para votar, lo sé”, agregó Vargas.

Esta traducción fue proporcionada por El Latino Newspaper, en asociación con el Centro de Medios Cooperativos de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair, y cuenta con el apoyo financiero del Consorcio de Información Cívica de NJ. La historia fue escrita originalmente en inglés por Chalkbeat Newark y se vuelve a publicar en virtud de un acuerdo especial para compartir contenido a través del Servicio de noticias de traducción al español de NJ News Commons.

This translation was provided by El Latino Newspaper, in association with the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University and is financially supported by the NJ Civic Information Consortium. The story was originally written in English by Chalkbeat Newark and is republished under a special content sharing agreement through the NJ News Commons Spanish Translation News Service.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Pete Buttigieg’s education plan highlights broad agreement among Democrats on K-12 policy — though differences on charters remain

2019-12-07T11:00:14+00:00

Pete Buttigieg’s pre-K-12 education plan calls for raising teacher pay, addressing school segregation, and banning for-profit charter schools.

If those ideas sound familiar, that’s because they echo many of the proposals of his top Democratic rivals, who have also released education plans. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg has risen from obscurity to be a top contender, particularly in early primary states, alongside former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

“My plan will empower teachers,” said Buttigieg, whose husband, Chasten, is a junior high teacher on leave from a private school in Indiana. “I’ve seen up close the incredible challenges that educators across the country face, from late nights grading papers to emptying their own bank accounts to pay for school supplies.”

Buttigieg’s plan highlights how the leading Democratic candidates have converged on many key education policies, with one partial exception — charter schools. His proposal touches on the lightning rod issue only briefly, calling for stronger accountability, but without going nearly as far as his primary rivals, some of whom have called for halting all federal support for new charters. Warren has recently been embroiled in the debate, after being confronted by activists and parents critical of her stance on charter schools.

The campaign did not share whom Buttigieg sought guidance from in crafting the plan. But education activist Diane Ravitch said in a July blog post critical of Buttigieg that the campaign told her it had reached out to former Obama administration officials John King and Jim Shelton, as well as the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who praised the plan in a release Saturday.

You can read Buttigieg’s full plan here. Here are four things to know about it:

In many ways Buttigieg’s education plan matches his Democratic rivals — highlighting consensus on several key issues.

If you read Buttigieg’s or other candidates’ plan with their name blotted out, you would have a hard time knowing which Democrat’s plan it was. For instance, Buttigieg wants to triple Title I funding for schools that serve a high percentage of students from low-income families, which Biden and Sanders have also pledged to do. (Warren would quadruple it.)

Most or all of the major candidates have vowed to increase teacher diversity; raise teacher pay; reduce school segregation; close funding disparities; increase access to preschool programs; oppose vouchers for private school tuition; fully fund IDEA, the federal law for students with disabilities; strongly enforce federal civil rights laws, including reinstating regulations rolled back by the Trump administration; and replace Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

Buttigieg’s plan is no exception on any of these counts, though it varies on the specifics in some cases. For instance, he wants parents to pay for preschool based on how much they earn, with the poorest parents paying nothing — similar to his stance on higher education, which has been met with much debate — whereas others want to offer it for free to everyone.

And the plan also touches on a number of lower-profile issues — like increasing spending on schools for Native American students or expanding access to dual-language curriculum in early years — that some other plans don’t.

Like other candidates, Buttigieg promises to support the teaching profession by raising pay and status. “We need to honor teachers like soldiers, and pay them like doctors,” the plan states. More specifically it says that some of the new infusion of Title I dollars would have to be spent on raising teacher pay to ensure it’s competitive with that of other professionals.

Many of the candidates’ ideas, particularly on civil rights, are in line with those the Obama administration espoused. Notably absent, though, from any of the major candidates’ proposals, including Buttigieg’s, are concepts like more rigorous teacher evaluations and tying teacher pay to performance, which Obama’s Department of Education promoted. Those proved controversial, and the #RedforEd movement has turned focus — and public sympathy — away from performance evaluations and toward stagnant teacher pay.

Buttigieg isn’t promoting charter schools, but takes a less hostile approach than Sanders and Warren.

The plan runs 20 pages, but charter schools get just a single paragraph. Buttigieg seeks to “ban for-profit charter schools and ensure equal accountability for public charter schools.” This is in line with a number of Democrats who largely agree on these points. (We’ll hold aside that it would not be easy for the federal government to ban for-profit schools.)

“He will work with states to ensure that policy innovations from charter programs that benefit students can be subsequently shared to strengthen the traditional public school system,” the plan promises, though it doesn’t explain how. Buttigieg also would “take action” against state and local entities that oversee low-performing charter schools.

Buttigieg is silent on the federal Charter Schools Program, a fund to support new charter schools across the country. Sanders and Warren have called for halting or eliminating it altogether. A spokesperson for Buttigieg said he would stop those dollars from going to for-profit charters. (Federal guidance already prohibits CSP money from going directly to any for-profit entity; it can, however, go to a nonprofit charter that contracts its operations out to a for-profit company, so long as there is an “arm’s length” relationship between the two entities.)

Buttigieg is taking a somewhat more favorable stance towards charters than Warren or Sanders — but a less favorable one than President Obama, who supported the expansion of charter schools.

“I think that the promise of charter schools has been that ideas can be piloted there that will then benefit the overall system and find their way into traditional public schools,” Buttigieg told Education Week in August. “But I’m skeptical that we’re going to gain a lot through expansion of charter schools when we still have such severely underfunded traditional public education.”

The charter issue is fraught politically for Democrats. Recent polling shows support for these schools has declined in the party among white Democrats, but indicates stronger, but still mixed, backing among black and Hispanic Democrats.

Meanwhile, Biden, another leading contender, did not even touch on charter schools in his education plan. But in a recently released interview with the National Education Association, he said, “No privately funded charter school or private charter school would receive a penny of federal money — none,” he said. Asked to clarify, campaign spokesperson told Chalkbeat that Biden would seek to stop federal funding for for-profit charter schools.

Buttigieg plans to tackle school segregation.

Buttigieg offers a number of proposals to address school segregation. He would create a $500 million fund to incentivize “community-led” racial and economic school integration. And he says school districts looking to make major changes to their boundaries would have to first seek clearance from federal officials, who would check to see if those changes would exacerbate racial and economic segregation.

The idea appears to be aimed at preventing so-called “breakaway districts,” in which whiter, more affluent communities establish their own school districts by leaving districts with more students of color from low-income families. (This issue attracted Warren’s attention, too; in her education plan she says the departments of education and justice would monitor attempts to create breakaway districts and possibly take action to stop them.)

Buttigieg also says he would direct the departments of education and housing and urban development to issue guidance to help states integrate their neighborhoods and schools using funds set aside to create more affordable housing in high-performing school districts. Buttigieg plans to reinstate Obama-era guidance that allowed consideration of student race in some circumstances to integrate K-12 schools, which was rescinded by the Trump administration. He would also “immediately remove” restrictions on using federal funds to bus students for desegregation purposes. But those barriers exist in federal law and would require Congress to take action.

These policy ideas come as Buttigieg has faced criticism for saying he “worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated, because they had to be, because of a court order.” He added that that was “true within the limits of the South Bend Community School District,” but it wasn’t in the rest of the county. While South Bend’s school district does enroll a much higher percentage of black and Hispanic students from low-income families than the districts that surround it, South Bend has long struggled to fulfill the terms of a desegregation order, and even today some schools are not in compliance with it.

There’s a fund for that.

Buttigieg’s plan calls for large increases in federal spending on education, partially through specific grant programs.

In addition to the $500 million desegregation fund, he’s also calling for a $10 billion “equity fund” for early education. It would go to programs targeting low-income students of color and using “novel teaching methods and materials, targeted support services, school-family partnership programs, communication and personalization technologies, and other innovative strategies.”

There’s also a new grant program of unspecified size that would help school districts adopt new ways to discipline students, instead of suspending or expelling them. Buttigieg also says he would triple funding to $3.5 billion for an existing federal grant program that funds student safety, health, technology, and arts programs. And he would create a fund to help high-poverty districts prepare students for the workforce through apprenticeships.

In total, the campaign estimates that its K-12 education proposals would cost the federal government an extra $425 billion over 10 years — for context, public elementary and high schools got $56 billion from the federal government in a single year, 2016. Buttigieg says he’ll pay for this and other proposals in a variety of ways, including increasing the capital gains tax for top earners and repealing recent corporate tax cuts.

Curious where all the Democratic presidential candidates stand on education? Read Chalkbeat’s tracker.

Newark will become first in the state to lower voting age to 16 for school board elections

2024-01-10T22:51:58+00:00

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Newark’s 16- and 17-year-olds will be allowed to vote in April’s school board election after city leaders voted unanimously in favor of a historic ordinance to lower the voting age.

The city will be the first in the state to lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections. The ordinance, sponsored by council president LaMonica McIver, stems from McIver’s desire to engage in civics as a 16-year-old after being inspired by her fifth grade teacher, Ras Baraka, who is now the mayor of Newark.

“I decided to run for an elected position because of those lessons my teacher taught me,” said McIver during a press conference following Wednesday’s council meeting.

Before the vote, state and community leaders, educators, and students spoke at the packed city council meeting about the importance of letting young people vote, while others highlighted their concerns during public comment, which ran about 90 minutes. Some residents commented on the importance of letting the city’s youth vote in “decisions that affect their day-to-day,” bringing back civics courses to the public schools, and engaging high school students with civic actions.

During the council meeting, Nathaniel Esubonteng, a 16-year-old junior at Science Park High School and fellow for the nonprofit The Gem Project, called himself an engaged student and said he feels confident that his peers are prepared to vote. After the board vote, he recalled going to a school board candidate forum and being disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to participate in the election.

“We really align with these people but do we get to vote? We were able to listen to everything they had to say and align our values but we couldn’t vote, so that was very unappealing,” Esubonteng said.

Breanna Campbell, also a 16-year-old junior at Science Park High School and fellow for The Gem Project, said she felt urgency and excitement for the opportunity to vote.

“It honestly feels good for this law to be passed because it shows how our voices make a difference,” Campbell said.

The new ordinance comes after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed to allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they are registered and turning 18 by the general election, starting in 2026. In his annual State of the State address on Tuesday, Murphy also asked state lawmakers to send him a bill that would expand voting rights for 16- and 17-year-olds statewide to vote in local school board elections.

The Newark ordinance also comes as the city’s school board works to fill two vacancies, one left by former president Asia Norton, who abruptly resigned last September, and the other by board member A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, who won a seat on the Essex County Board of Commissioners in November.

McIver, the city council president, said her team along with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice have met with Newark Public Schools and are looking for ways to collaborate with the school district to create civic awareness among students. She said there is a possibility “to do workshops with students and their parents.”

Once Baraka signs the ordinance into law, the city plans to meet with the state delegation to encourage them to implement civics education into the curriculum.

During Wednesday’s meeting, some council members expressed support for the ordinance while others shared their concerns with lowering the voting age and about immigrant teenagers who will not benefit from the new ordinance.

“These 16- and 17-year-olds, although they’re not American citizens, need to have their voices heard too,” said East Ward council member Michael Silva, who suggested addressing the voting rights of immigrants in his ward and throughout the city.

Other council members, including Anibal Ramos and Luis Quintana, raised concerns about the future of voter turnout and the importance of engaging young people in Newark. Over the last few years, turnout for the city’s school board election has hovered around 3%.

“This is a victory in increasing who is eligible to vote but if we are not able to effectively engage these young people, the 3% almost every speaker alluded to, could be 2% or 1% in the future because you’re increasing who can vote,” Ramos said.

Council member Carlos Gonzalez also cited concerns about a “slippery slope” of lowering the voting age.

“Isn’t 16 arbitrary? Or are we saying now 16 and next year it’s 14? It’s a slippery slope of going from 18 to 16,” said Gonzalez, who voted in favor of the action on Wednesday despite his concerns.

Despite the reservations, council leaders agreed city students should have a say in school board elections, which directly affect their day-to-day education, they said.

In response to comments about the cons of lowering the voting age, Jonathan Alston, a Science Park High School teacher and debate coach said 16-year-olds should not have stricter barriers than adults when it comes to the right to vote.

“Let’s not hold our 16-year-olds to a higher standard,” said Alston during the meeting.

Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, and the first student representative for the Newark Board of Education, expressed his support for the ordinance but encouraged the council to pass a resolution urging the State Board of Education to restore civics as a required part of curriculum throughout New Jersey.

“During the 1980s, that decision to no longer require civics as a part of the curriculum happened,” Hamm said. “We can see today the dire consequences that has made.”

The Newark Board of Education election will be held on April 16. The voter registration deadline for the election is March 26.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Will Newark’s 16- and 17-year-olds get the right to vote in school board races?

2024-01-09T19:28:41+00:00

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The Newark City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a proposal to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 for school board races, where voter turnout has hovered around 3% for the last few years.

The ordinance, first proposed at a council meeting on Dec. 20, would take effect in time for the upcoming April election. Council President LaMonica McIver sponsored the measure, which passed the first reading at that meeting. It’s up for a public hearing and final vote at the council meeting on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in the council chambers at city hall.

“We need to make sure that the young people, our children, and the children coming behind us have a voice,” said McIver after the council took a first vote in favor of the ordinance last month. “We should be putting them closer to the decision-making table for the policies that directly impact them.”

The proposed measure comes on the heels of a new law that Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed to allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they are registered and turning 18 by the general election, starting in 2026.

During Murphy’s annual State of the State address on Tuesday, where he outlined his legislative priorities for the year, he said he wants state lawmakers to send him a bill that would expand voting rights for 16- and 17-year-olds statewide to vote in local school board elections.

If the Newark City Council approves the measure on Wednesday, Newark would become the first city in New Jersey to move the minimum voting age to 16 in school board elections.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka backs the measure and believes it will give Newark youth a “strong sense of their own agency,” he said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

“I fully support helping them establish civic responsibility at an early age and begin a lifetime habit of exercising this critical and powerful right,” Baraka said.

Nationally, there are signs that more local and state governments are looking to expand voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds.

The city would join a handful of other municipalities throughout the country that have done the same for school board or local elections in recent years, from Berkeley, California to Takoma Park, Maryland, according to the National Youth Rights Association.

“The unfortunate reality is that voter turnout, especially in non-federal elections remains alarmingly low,” said Micauri Vargas, an associate counsel at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice who spoke in support of the ordinance at the December meeting. “One bold solution lies in the empowerment of our youth, the very individuals directly affected by the decisions made by the school boards.”

Vargas added that the New Jersey Constitution doesn’t prohibit voting under the age of 18 and local governments in the state have the authority to set the voting age for local races.

Historically, voter turnout for the annual school board race has been low in Newark. In the last three school board elections, which are held annually in April, turnout has been around 3%.

Expanding voting rights to roughly 7,300 of Newark’s 16- and 17-year-olds could allow for more participation in the school board elections, supporters of the new rule said at the meeting.

“These young people deserve strong advocates on their school boards. Why not let them help choose who they will be?” said Ryan Haygood, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

With such low voter turnout in Newark, “we know that they cannot rely entirely on other people alone to do that for them,” added Haygood, who lives in the city and has two teenagers.

Haygood and other advocates said they would collaborate with government and school officials to put together a civics curriculum for high school students as part of an effort to bring awareness to the new measure and maximize turnout if it passes during the final vote on Wednesday.

Deborah Smith-Gregory, president of the Newark NAACP, spoke at the Newark school board meeting in December and said the organization would step in to help engage students on civic duties. She added that a city high school student told her that if the voting age is lowered “without civics education, it’s not going to be effective.”

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Reach Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

La importancia de las elecciones de consejos escolares y por qué debes votar

2023-10-11T14:40:17+00:00

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Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

Cada dos años en noviembre, la gente que vota en Colorado elige a quienes toman decisiones importantes sobre sus escuelas locales. Pero en la mayoría de los distritos escolares, muy pocas personas votan en estas elecciones de consejos escolares—y la mayoría de ellas no son padres de familia.

¿Qué es exactamente un consejo escolar? ¿Y por qué es importante que votes en estas elecciones que se realizan en años impares?

En esta historia:

¿Por qué importan las elecciones de consejos escolares y por qué debes votar?

¿Qué hace un consejo escolar?

Ejemplos de responsabilidades de los consejos escolares

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre un integrante de un consejo escolar y un superintendente u otros administradores escolares?

¿Cómo se eligen a los integrantes de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

¿A quién representan los integrantes del consejo escolar?

¿Reciben un salario los integrantes de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

¿Dónde puedes encontrar más información sobre tu consejo escolar y los candidatos al consejo escolar?

¿Cuándo son las próximas elecciones de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

¿Por qué importan las elecciones de consejos escolares y por qué debes votar?

Cuando votas para elegir a integrantes de tu consejo escolar que comparten tus valores y tu perspectiva, eso resulta en que sea más probable que las escuelas se administren de una manera que piensas es buena para los niños y tu comunidad. Si no votas, les das ese poder a otras personas. En muchas elecciones de distritos escolares, menos de un tercio de las personas que pueden votar lo hacen. A veces solo un par de cientos o hasta un par de docenas de votos separan a los ganadores de los perdedores. Eso significa que cada voto importa.

¿Qué hace un consejo escolar?

En Colorado, funcionarios electos que forman parte del consejo escolar se encargan de operar los distritos escolares. Los consejos escolares usualmente tienen entre cinco y siete integrantes. La función principal de un consejo escolar es contratar al superintendente, quien es como el director ejecutivo del distrito escolar y responsable de la gestión diaria de las escuelas locales. Los integrantes del consejo escolar supervisan y evalúan al superintendente. Además, votan sobre el presupuesto y aumento de los salarios de los maestros y otro personal escolar, y también establecen las normas que controlan lo que sucede en las escuelas.

Ejemplos de responsabilidades de los consejos escolares

Un consejo escolar quizás tenga el voto final sobre si se debe cerrar o no una escuela con bajos resultados en las pruebas de los estudiantes o con muy pocos estudiantes—o vote para cambiar las prioridades del presupuesto para que esas escuelas tengan más dinero. O un consejo escolar quizás vote para adoptar un nuevo plan de estudios si el antiguo no está funcionando bien para educar a los estudiantes.

Los consejos escolares también tienen la última palabra sobre asuntos contenciosos. Si a un estudiante lo expulsan y la familia presenta una apelación para que el estudiante permanezca en la escuela, o si a un maestro lo despiden y presenta una apelación para mantener su puesto, el consejo escolar toma la decisión final. Los consejos escolares han votado para no participar en los estándares de educación sexual integral de Colorado, para sacar a los policías de las escuelas y para que los policías regresen.

La manera como funcionan exactamente los consejos escolares puede variar entre un distrito y otro. Por ejemplo, en 2020, consejos escolares en algunos distritos votaron sobre el cambio al aprendizaje virtual, mientras que en otros distritos el superintendente tomó esa decisión.

¿Cuál es la diferencia entre un integrante de un consejo escolar y un superintendente u otros administradores escolares?

Los integrantes de un consejo escolar usualmente no participan en los detalles de cómo administrar el distrito. Ese es el trabajo del superintendente.

Los integrantes del consejo no pueden disciplinar a un maestro o director ni decirle directamente lo que debe hacer. No establecen las rutas de los autobuses escolares ni deciden qué rutas se deben eliminar si no hay suficientes conductores. Los integrantes del consejo escolar no eligen directamente qué escuelas deben cerrarse.

En la mayoría de los casos, el superintendente presenta una recomendación ante el consejo escolar. El consejo escolar puede votar para aprobar o rechazar la recomendación o solicitar otras opciones.

Los integrantes del consejo también pueden crear conciencia y solicitar que se cambien ciertas normas. Si suficientes integrantes del consejo están de acuerdo, el superintendente trabajará en esa idea.

¿Cómo se eligen a los integrantes de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

En la mayoría de los consejos escolares, las personas registradas para votar en el distrito correspondiente eligen a sus integrantes.

Los integrantes del consejo escolar ocupan su puesto durante plazos escalonados de cuatro años. En un consejo con cinco integrantes, tres de los puestos están sujetos a elecciones un año y, dos años después, los otros dos puestos están sujeto a elecciones. El consejo escolar de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver tiene siete integrantes, con cuatro de los puestos sujetos a elecciones un año y los otros tres puestos sujetos a elecciones dos años después.

La mayoría de los consejos escolares imponen límites en la cantidad de plazos o mandatos que los integrantes pueden cumplir para que no superen los ocho años en total.

Los consejos escolares siempre tienen una cantidad impar de integrantes para que no terminen en un empate—aunque los empates igual pueden suceder si alguien falta a una reunión o se abstiene de votar.

A veces el integrante de un consejo escolar renuncia a su puesto a mitad de su mandato. En ese caso, los otros integrantes del consejo eligen a alguien para que complete el plazo.

A veces los distritos escolares cancelan las elecciones de su consejo escolar porque no hay suficientes candidatos para realizar una votación competitiva. Eso ahorra algo de dinero pero significa que los votantes no tienen la opción de elegir quién dirige sus escuelas. Quien se haya ofrecido voluntariamente se convierte en el integrante del consejo escolar.

¿A quién representan los integrantes del consejo escolar?

Algunos distritos escolares eligen a integrantes “at large”. Esto significa que cada integrante del consejo representa a todo el distrito, en lugar de a una región específica en el distrito.

Si tu distrito elige a sus integrantes at large, verás a todos los candidatos en la boleta electoral y podrás votar por tantos candidatos como haya puestos vacantes. Si hay dos puestos vacantes, puedes votar por dos candidatos. Si hay tres puestos vacantes, puedes votar por tres candidatos, y así sucesivamente. Las tres personas que reciban más votos se convierten en integrantes del consejo escolar.

Otros distritos escolares se dividen en regiones geográficas, y cada integrante del consejo escolar representa una región. Estos integrantes del consejo escolar deben vivir en esa región.

En algunos distritos escolares, solo las personas registradas para votar que también vivan en esa región pueden votar en esas elecciones para el consejo. Si ese es el caso en tu distrito, solo aparecerán en tu boleta electoral los candidatos para tu área. Solo puedes votar por un candidato, y el candidato que obtenga más votos representará la región.

En otros distritos escolares, como los de Jeffco y Adams 12, los integrantes del consejo escolar deben vivir en una región específica, pero deben ganar las elecciones en todo el distrito. En la boleta electoral de todas las personas que votan en el distrito aparecerán múltiples contiendas para el consejo escolar, y los votantes deben elegir un candidato por cada contienda electoral.

¿Reciben un salario los integrantes de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

La mayoría de los integrantes de los consejos escolares en Colorado son voluntarios no pagados. La ley estatal permite que los integrantes de consejos escolares reciban un pago de hasta $150 al día para asuntos oficiales, y algunos consejos escolares, como los de Denver y Sheridan, han decidido pagarles una pequeña cantidad a sus integrantes.

Un consejo escolar que quiera pagarles a sus integrantes debe realizar una reunión pública sobre la idea y luego una votación sobre el paquete de pago. Sin embargo, la compensación no entra en vigor hasta las siguientes elecciones. Los integrantes del consejo actual no pueden votar para pagarse a sí mismos y solo recibirían la compensación si ganan su reelección.

¿Dónde puedes encontrar más información sobre tu consejo escolar y los candidatos al consejo escolar?

Organizaciones noticieras como Chalkbeat escriben sobre las elecciones de muchos consejos escolares.

Tu diario o canal de televisión locales quizás tengan información sobre los candidatos. También puedes consultar el sitio web de tu distrito escolar. Haz una búsqueda con las palabras “consejo escolar” o “reuniones del consejo” o “elecciones” (en inglés: school board, board meetings y election, respectivamente). Muchos distritos escolares tienen una lista de quiénes son los candidatos y las fechas y el horario de los foros locales de candidatos. Grupos comunitarios como la Liga de Mujeres Votantes (en inglés: League of Women Voters) y organizaciones educativas sin fines de lucro con frecuencia organizan foros o paneles donde puedes escuchar directamente a los candidatos o hasta hacerles preguntas. También puedes visitar los sitios web de los candidatos y ver cómo se describen a sí mismos y comunican sus prioridades.

Lee sobre los candidatos y observa cómo responden a preguntas. Piensa sobre cómo sus perspectivas se comparan con las tuyas y cómo las experiencias que han vivido los han preparado para el puesto. ¿Qué conexión tienen con las escuelas locales? ¿Qué tipo de trabajo han realizado?

Al mismo tiempo, toma en cuenta que los candidatos a consejos escolares—como cualquier político—a veces usan palabras que a todos les suenan bien pero pueden significar diferentes cosas para diferentes personas. Si un candidato habla sobre escuelas exitosas en los vecindarios, sobre escuchar a los padres o apoyar a los maestros, trata de obtener más información sobre lo que quiere decir.

¿Cuándo son las próximas elecciones de los consejos escolares en Colorado?

Las elecciones de consejos escolares en Colorado se realizan en años impares el primer martes en noviembre. Las próximas elecciones son el 7 de noviembre, 2023. Si ya te registraste para votar, debes recibir tu boleta electoral por correo la semana del 16 de octubre. Si no te has registrado para votar, puedes encontrar más información sobre cómo hacerlo aquí.

Erica Meltzer, la corresponsal jefa, cubre temas de leyes y políticas educativas y supervisa la cobertura sobre educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Erica por correo electrónico a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Los candidatos a la alcaldía de Denver Mike Johnston y Kelly Brough hablan sobre temas de educación

2023-05-19T17:42:49+00:00

Read in English.

Ninguno de los candidatos a la alcaldía de Denver favorece que la alcaldía controle la junta escolar, que se ha visto acosada por luchas internas y de poder entre sus miembros.

Esa fue una de las conclusiones de un reciente foro de alcaldes enfocado en la educación y organizado por EDUCATE Denver, Chalkbeat Colorado y CBS Colorado.

La segunda votación de las elecciones entre Kelly Brough, ex directora de la Cámara de Comercio Metropolitana de Denver, y Mike Johnston, ex educador y legislador estatal, está fijada para el 6 de junio.

En una primera votación llevada a cabo en abril, Brough y Johnston obtuvieron el mayor número de votos entre un grupo de 17 candidatos. Sin embargo, ninguno de los dos obtuvo más del 50% de los votos, por lo que se necesita la segunda votación.

Aunque el alcalde de Denver no controla las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS), la educación está entre los temas más importantes para los electores de la ciudad, según encuestas recientes. DPS enfrenta varios retos grandes, entre ellos el aumento de la violencia juvenil con armas en y alrededor de las escuelas.

Más adelante te mostramos lo que Brough y Johnston dijeron sobre ese tema y otros más. Las preguntas y respuestas fueron editadas para acortarlas. Mira el video completo del foro aquí.

La violencia juvenil con armas de fuego está aumentando. Después de un tiroteo en la secundaria East High School en marzo, el Departamento de Policía de Denver acordó asignar a 14 agentes de policía en 13 escuelas secundarias de DPS. ¿Cuál es su postura sobre la policía en las escuelas? ¿Y quién debe pagar por ese servicio?

Johnston: Mi posición desde el principio ha sido que las escuelas deben decidir si necesitan ese apoyo. ... Creo que en cuanto a quién lo debe pagar, es una decisión que podemos tomar juntos. Si el distrito tiene los recursos, debe pagar por eso. Si el distrito no dispone de los recursos necesarios, entonces la ciudad debe intervenir y encontrar la manera de hacerlo.

Brough: La responsabilidad más fundamental del gobierno es mantener la seguridad de nuestros residentes. Por eso, la pregunta de quién lo debe pagar es la última preocupación que deberíamos tener. Históricamente, el distrito ha pagado por los policías en las escuelas (conocidos como oficiales de recurso escolar). Pero dije muy claramente que como alcalde, pagaría por esos oficiales si eso es lo que un director y una escuela han dicho que les gustaría en su escuela.

Hay estudios que muestran una correlación entre la presencia de la policía en las escuelas y las disparidades en disciplina, así como efectos poco claros sobre la seguridad escolar. Si la policía de Denver permanece en las escuelas, ¿cómo asegurará que el distrito logre sus metas de equidad e información sobre traumas?

Johnston: Es cuestión de saber a quiénes apruebas para que hagan este trabajo, qué capacitación tienen para hacerlo y cuál es su alcance de autoridad en la escuela para llevarlo a cabo.

Cuando soy director de un escuela, no necesito que un policía de Denver intervenga en la discusión de dos estudiantes en la cafetería. No necesito que un agente le dé infracciones a la gente por maldecir en el pasillo.

Para lo que uno necesita un policía es para cuando sabes que un estudiante tiene acceso a un arma, temes que está trayendo una a la escuela, y necesitas que alguien que ayude a cachear a ese estudiante para asegurar que no tiene un arma en su posesión.

Brough: Yo también enfatizaría asegurar que se cuenta con los policías adecuados en las escuelas, y que se les de capacitación, apoyo y retroalimentación.

Pero también quiero hablar de que en todos los aspectos de nuestra sociedad hay sistemas de prejuicio, y en particular en torno a la raza. Y por eso creo que en cada una de nuestros escuelas, haya o no un policía de recurso escolar, tenemos que monitorear y estar pendientes de lo siguiente: Qué estamos haciendo en cuanto a la disciplina... y si estamos viendo disparidad basada en la raza, para poder responder y corregir nuestros propios problemas.

¿Consideraría la posibilidad de que la alcaldía controle la junta escolar?

Brough: No creo que puedas decírle al próximo alcalde: ¿Por qué no solucionas los graves problemas que enfrentamos en la ciudad y el condado de Denver y te encargas del mayor distrito escolar del estado de Colorado para ver qué puedes hacer allí también?

No, yo no me encargaría del distrito escolar.

Johnston: No, no creo que sea un buen plan.

Creo que el proceso democrático funciona. Hay mucha gente muy motivada y movilizada por las elecciones a la junta escolar en noviembre, probablemente más de lo que he visto en mi vida adulta, porque los padres están realmente prestando mucha atención. ... Y creo que sus voces serán muy poderosas en lo que suceda en las elecciones a la junta escolar y ellos volverán a tener la junta escolar que quieren y que sienten que les responde.

Como indican los datos más recientes de los exámenes estatales, las escuelas públicas de Denver no están apoyando adecuadamente el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de minorías raciales o de bajos ingresos. ¿Qué papel puede desempeñar el alcalde a la hora de resolver la brecha de equidad entre los estudiantes?

Brough: Una es asegurar que tengamos un gobierno que no se enfoque en otra cosa que no sea brindarles a nuestros hijos la educación que merecen, apoyar a nuestros maestros para que puedan hacerlo y mantener a todo el mundo protegido mientras lo hacemos.

El segundo es saber qué papel tiene la ciudad para ayudar a nuestros hijos a graduarse. Para mí, eso incluirá cosas como más colaboración entre la ciudad y las escuelas públicas de Denver. ...Hay más oportunidades para que la ciudad y las escuelas trabajen juntas para mantener los terrenos, y en una variedad de asuntos, desde compras hasta cómo podemos ahorrar dinero.

Lo tercero que me interesa muchísimo es la función de la ciudad como empleador, que podamos trabajar junto con las escuelas públicas de Denver y que los estudiantes tuvieran prácticas y aprendizajes con salario.

Johnston: Todo parte de la convicción de que todos los estudiantes de Denver son nuestra responsabilidad.

Una de las formas más importantes de hacerlo es fijarse en todo el tiempo de aprendizaje que ahora mismo está ocurriendo fuera de la escuela. Todo lo que ocurre fuera del horario de 8 a. m. – 3 p. m., cuando sabemos que los estudiantes tienen acceso a programas después de la escuela, programas de verano, tutorías, programas de arte, atletismo y campamentos de ciencias... impulsa una gran parte de la pasión que quién eres como persona joven.

Quiero expandir los programas para asegurar que los estudiantes, sobre todo los que reciben comidas gratis o a precio reducido, tengan acceso a esas oportunidades que les ayudarán a encontrar su pasión.

La otra área clave de colaboración en la que la ciudad nos ha defraudado es el de la salud mental. ... Una de las cosas que Denver hace es apoyar a Denver Health, la red de salud que mantiene clínicas en las escuelas de toda la ciudad. No hemos proporcionado suficientes recursos para asegurar que en todas las escuelas secundarias de Denver haya suficientes consejeros de salud mental.

La junta escolar de DPS recientemente propuso una política que excluiría los resultados de los exámenes estandarizados de una página de información pública. ¿Usted apoya la creación de una plataforma en la página de la ciudad para compartir esta información con las familias y la comunidad y responsabilizar al distrito?

Brough: No soy experta en exámenes estandarizados. De hecho, soy terrible en exámenes estandarizados porque soy disléxica. ... No creo que sea menos inteligente que otra persona solo por obtener notas más bajas, y tampoco que mis maestros fueran peores solo porque mis calificaciones fueron menores.

Sin embargo, como madre también quiero saber cómo se está desempeñando la escuela en general. Y me parece que podemos encontrar una manera de comunicar esa información sin simplificarla demasiado ni juzgando o culpando injustamente... a una escuela, un distrito o un grupo de maestros.

Johnston: Yo no apoyaría que a los padres se les niegue acceso a esa información, como tampoco apoyaría que se les negara acceso a la información sobre la estatura y el peso de su hijo en un examen médico anual. Y también sé que, aunque le digan a mi hijo que está en el percentil 15 de estatura, eso no será su valor total como ser humano.

Hay diferentes tipos de información que se recogen, y son indicio de cosas diferentes sobre el progreso de tu hijo. Y lo que uno quiere ver es un conjunto de datos completo que ayude a saber qué hacer a continuación.

Cada vez es más caro vivir en la ciudad de Denver. Esto está causando que muchas familias de bajos ingresos en el DPS se muden fuera de la ciudad. ¿Cómo usted resolverá este reto?

Johnston: Lo que yo haría es construir o reconvertir 25,000 unidades en toda la ciudad para que sean viviendas permanentemente a un precio permanentemente razonable. Esto significa que cualquiera que gane unos $100,000 al año o menos puede ser elegible para mudarse a una de estas unidades. Y la forma en que estarán estructuradas es que el alquiler nunca sería más del 30% del salario de la persona.

El próximo paso más importante es ser propietario de casa. ... En ese aspecto, haría dos cosas. Una es proporcionar ayuda para el pago inicial, lo cual ayuda a alguien a poder comprar una casa por primera vez. ... Y la otra es asociarnos con organizaciones como Habitat for Humanity o Elevation Land Trust, en las que se pueden crear fideicomisos de terrenos para viviendas que se puedan comprar a buen precio.

Se compran con descuento y las vendes con descuento. Es decir, podrías comprar una casa por $300,000 en lugar de $600,000. Pero cuando la mantienes durante 10 años y luego la vendes, es posible que solo la puedas vender $350,000... así se mantiene a precio razonable para otro maestro, otra enfermera, otro bombero.

Brough: Una de las estrategias se conoce en inglés como ‘master leasing’. Esto es cuando, como alcalde, básicamente solicitas propuestas y dices: ‘Quiero arrendar 3,000 unidades durante tres años. ¿Qué me puedes ofrecer?’ Y en esencia, lo que estoy haciendo es ‘comprar’ un alquiler a menos precio y bloquearlo durante unos años. También tiene la ventaja adicional de que si alguien tiene problemas y no puede pagar el alquiler ... la ciudad recibe una llamada antes de desalojar a la persona, lo cual también nos ayuda a empezar a enfocarnos en prevenir que la gente se quede sin vivienda.

Otro ejemplo... y este es uno de los que más me entusiasma, es lograr que la gente tenga casa propia. ... Tuve la oportunidad en Munich de recorrer un edificio sobre un estacionamiento. ... Y si nos fijamos en nuestra ciudad, tenemos bastantes estacionamientos que son propiedad de los contribuyentes. Piensen en nuestras estaciones de policía, parques de bomberos, bibliotecas, centros recreativos. Pero aún más valiosas serían nuestras escuelas públicas de Denver, donde podría haber oportunidades para construir un proyecto de viviendas para venta junto a las escuelas en el que los maestros vivan si lo desean.

Y el último ejemplo que daré es el de la gentrificación. ... Hemos hecho algunas cosas, como aprobar la opción de construir una unidad de vivienda adicional, o ADU (accessory dwelling unit). ... Pero la verdad es que las áreas que no se han gentrificado todavía, es porque esos son propietarios probablemente no cuentan con los fondos [para construir una].

Creo que como ciudad podemos tomar medidas mucho más proactivas: Diseñar la ADU según la comunidad en que estará. Incluso se podría construir a precisión para que cueste un es 30% a 50% menos. Ahora estamos ayudando a ese propietario a construirla de inmediato y empezar a recibir alquiler para poder permanecer en la propiedad que ya tienen y tener ingresos adicionales.

Como alcalde, ¿qué tres cosas haría para hacer de Denver el mejor lugar para criar hijos?

Brough: Asegurar que tengamos un alcalde capaz de restablecer la seguridad en nuestra ciudad, en toda nuestra ciudad, porque creo que las familias están muy preocupadas.

Creo que la falta de vivienda a precio razonable es el segundo problema que está causando, obligando a muchas familias a abandonar nuestra ciudad. ... La vivienda es la estrategia #1 para resolver esa falta de vivienda a buen precio.

Y no hay que ir muy lejos, cuando se habla con un agente de bienes raíces, la decisión #1 de dónde una familia elige comprar una casa es la escuela a dónde irán sus hijos y cuánto confían en esa escuela. Y también creo que debemos enfocarnos en cómo hacer que nuestros residentes vuelvan a confiar en que tenemos un sistema escolar que será bueno para sus hijos y les ofrecerá los resultados que desean.

Johnston: Creo que los tres mayores factores para que la gente abandone la ciudad serán: ¿El costo de la vivienda es razonable? ¿Es un área segura? ¿Sienten que tienen acceso a buenas escuelas?

Ya hablamos sobre el costo de la vivienda. Y ahora quiero hablar... de la seguridad.

Creo que necesitamos 200 agentes de primera respuesta adicionales en las calles de nuestra ciudad, y utilizo el término ‘agentes de primera respuesta porque sabemos que se necesitan diferentes personas para responder a diferentes situaciones según sea el reto.

Si alguien está teniendo una crisis de salud mental, en realidad lo que se necesita no es un policía.

Si alguien está en medio de una crisis de salud física y una posible sobredosis, lo más adecuado es que sea atendido por un paramédico o un técnico de emergencias médicas. No siempre se necesita un agente de policía.

Pero si está ocurriendo un asalto, un robo, un robo de auto o un tiroteo, hay que asegurarse de tener policías disponibles. Ahora mismo, tenemos muy poco personal en cada una de esas funciones.

¿Qué es lo que más le distingue de su oponente? ¿Y en qué se parecen?

Johnston: Primero hablaré de las similitudes. Creo que ambos tenemos experiencia de liderazgo. Ambos hemos dirigido organizaciones grandes y complejas. Ambos hemos estado en el sector público y en el privado.

Para mí, la característica clave que nos distingue... es que creo que la ciudad se enfrenta a muchos problemas muy complejos de resolver. Y creo que resolver esos problemas complejos requiere tener una visión grande de lo que es posible. Y luego ser capaz de construir una coalición bastante amplia para resolverlos, a menudo con gente que probablemente no se llevan bien. Y poder seguir haciéndolo.

Eso es lo que he tenido la oportunidad de hacer durante décadas. ... Eso hice como director de escuela, trabajando con los maestros para conseguir que todos nuestros estudiantes se graduaran. Así ocurrió en la legislatura, donde trabajé para ayudar a los niños indocumentados a tener acceso a matrícula estatal. ... Eso hice cuando trabajamos en la educación preescolar universal por primera vez en todo el estado y tuvimos que reunir a todo el mundo, desde las grandes empresas tabacaleras y las industrias de la salud, hasta grupos defensores de la educación preescolar.

Creo que lo que me hace único en este campo es mi capacidad para tener una visión grande, afrontar los problemas más difíciles, crear coaliciones amplias y obtener resultados realmente históricos.

Brough: Iba a decir que tenemos el mismo sentido del humor, pero en realidad soy más graciosa que Mike, así que en eso no nos parecemos. Diría que nuestra pasión y amor por la ciudad es algo en que somos similares.

Para mí, la mayor diferencia que veo es que ya he dirigido la ciudad antes, cuando fui jefe del gabinete de John Hickenlooper. En ese puesto es responsable de las operaciones cotidianas de una ciudad.

Mi experiencia de vida ha sido muy parecida a la de muchos en Denver hoy en día. Esto es relevante porque creo entender lo fácil que es perder la esperanza.

Cuando pierdes a un ser querido a causa de un crimen violento. O lo fácil que es sentir tanta vergüenza que no estás dispuesto a seguir adelante porque tu familia recibe ayuda del gobierno. O creer que somos la única familia que lucha contra la adicción y sufre por perder a un ser querido.

Y le diría a cada residente de Denver que mi familia no solo es resistente y fuerte, sino que también me identifico con ustedes y puedo ayudar a encontrar un camino hoy para superar esos problemas.

Y lo último que diría es que es la primera vez que me postulo para un cargo público. ... Pero lo más importante es que no me estoy postulando para otro cargo. Cada decisión que tome tendrá que ver con la ciudad y sus residentes, y lo que es mejor para nosotros. Nunca se basará en mi futuro político.

Mira el debate completo a continuación. Para ver los subtítulos en español, haz click en la tuerca que abre los settings en la parte de abajo, dentro de la pantalla del video. Ve a la sección que diga “subtitles.” De allí, donde dice “off” selecciona para que se abra otra lista, y puedas seleccionar “Spanish.”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Te presentamos a los ocho candidatos al consejo escolar de Denver

2023-10-12T09:54:44+00:00

Read in English.

Ocho candidatos se están postulando para tres puestos vacantes en el consejo escolar de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés).

Las elecciones llegan en un momento en el que muchos integrantes de la comunidad están preocupados por la seguridad en las escuelas y la violencia con armas de fuego, y en el que el distrito enfrenta la posibilidad de cerrar escuelas debido a que pocos estudiantes se están inscribiendo.

Los integrantes actuales del consejo han tenido dificultades para llevarse bien, y encuestas muestran que muchos residentes en Denver no confían en el consejo escolar.

Hay siete puestos en el consejo escolar, así que la mayoría no cambiará. Pero las elecciones podrían traer nuevas voces o resultar en que dos de los directores actuales, Scott Baldermann y Charmaine Lindsay, regresen para ocupar su puesto por un segundo plazo. Ninguno de los directores actuales se está postulando para el puesto at-large, en el cual se representa a todo el distrito.

Los tres puestos vacantes incluyen un puesto at-large, un puesto para el 1er Distrito, el cual representa al sudeste de Denver, y un puesto para el 5º Distrito, el cual representa al noroeste de Denver.

Les hicimos algunas preguntas a cada candidato al consejo escolar para que los votantes puedan informarse más sobre cada uno de los candidatos antes de votar. Lee las respuestas a continuación.

Para obtener más detalles sobre qué hacen los integrantes del consejo escolar, lee nuestra historia aquí.

Cuéntanos un poco sobre ti y cómo estás conectado/a con el distrito. ¿Cuánto tiempo has vivido en el distrito escolar? ¿Cuál es tu profesión?

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: La educación va más allá de un compromiso en nuestra familia; es un legado que empezó hace tres generaciones, con mi bisabuelo, director de una escuela en [el estado] segregado de Texas, y continuó con mi mamá, una educadora por 38 años aquí mismo en DPS. Como el hijo de una maestra de DPS y un [estudiante] graduado de DPS, sé personalmente dos cosas sobre DPS: su papel es apoyar a nuestros estudiantes, maestros y comunidad, y, en su mejor papel, DPS puede transformar vidas y resultados positivamente. Esto último es lo que me pasó a mí. DPS está en un momento decisivo. Necesitamos un tipo de experiencia diferente para ayudarnos a abordar la seguridad, la compensación de los maestros y nuestra brecha de logros. Veo un futuro donde el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes de tercer grado puedan leer a nivel de grado, el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes de high school se puedan graduar, y el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes se sientan seguros en la escuela. Tengo la experiencia de vida, la visión y la determinación para guiar a DPS por los desafíos que enfrenta actualmente. Debido a mi postura política y método a favor de los maestros, también me respalda la Asociación de Maestros de Salones en Denver [(DCTA, por sus siglas en inglés)] y el sindicato AFL-CIO. Cuando eres el hijo de una maestra, abogar a favor de los estudiantes y maestros no es solo una promesa política; es profundamente personal. Creo que cada niño se merece una escuela en su vecindario que sea segura y garantice la excelencia de todos.

John Youngquist: Soy un [estudiante] graduado de DPS y un educador de toda la vida con 35 años de experiencia en DPS y distritos escolares en el área de Denver. He vivido en Denver por 46 años y tengo dos hijas que van a East High. Actualmente soy el director ejecutivo de operaciones para el Proyecto de Rescate y Apoyo para Pandillas y soy el presidente de PrincipalEd Consulting, donde apoyo a distritos y asesoro a líderes escolares y distritales.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: Tengo dos estudiantes que van a su escuela de DPS en [nuestro] vecindario. He vivido en el distrito escolar desde 2002 y me crie en Aurora, Colorado. Este trayecto empezó para mí en 2016 cuando fui el presidente de la [Asociación de Padres y Maestros] en la Escuela Primaria Lincoln, y estuve muy involucrado en la huelga laboral de maestros en 2019. Mi título universitario es en arquitectura, y actualmente dirijo una pequeña compañía de software [enfocada] en la industria del ejercicio.

Kimberlee Sia: He sido educadora toda mi vida y apasionada por abogar a favor de la educación de calidad. Traigo más de 25 años de experiencia profesional, un sólido liderazgo ejecutivo y un profundo entendimiento sobre las diversas necesidades de los estudiantes, y una fuerte creencia en el poder de las colaboraciones. He interactuado con el distrito escolar como líder de una red escolar, como líder de organizaciones sin fines de lucro y como integrante de comités distritales y de los Consejos Colaborativos Escolares. También soy madre de dos estudiantes de DPS, un [estudiante de] cuarto grado y uno de séptimo grado, con diferentes necesidades de aprendizaje e intereses educativos, quienes han ido a escuelas de DPS desde el principio de sus trayectorias escolares. Mi familia y yo hemos vivido en Denver por 10 años. Profesionalmente, he sido maestra, directora, administradora a nivel distrito y la líder de una organización sin fines de lucro dedicada al desarrollo de los jóvenes. Actualmente, soy una asesora ejecutiva y consultora estratégica que trabaja en espacios educativos y sin fines de lucro.

5º Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: Soy parte de la 4ª generación [de mi familia] en Denver, he vivido en el distrito la mayor parte de mi vida, y soy madre orgullosa de dos [estudiantes] graduados de DPS. He trabajado por más de tres décadas en los Tribunales de Inmigración del Departamento de Justicia de EE. UU. y recientemente me retiré como especialista en tribunales legales. Esto me ha ofrecido una extensa experiencia trabajando en una agencia que atiende al público [y] que trabaja con personas de diferentes orígenes culturales y socioeconómicos. Además, tengo décadas de experiencia participando en mi comunidad ofreciendo servicios en North e East High School, el Consejo Asesor de Educación Hispana de DPS, el Consejo Asesor de Padres de DPS, el Círculo de Líderes Latinas y, más recientemente, como la persona nombrada por el alcalde al consejo asesor del [Departamento de] Parques y Actividades Recreativas. Mis más de 20 años como voluntaria en DPS siempre se han enfocado en mejorar los resultados académicos de cada estudiante de DPS, al igual que en dedicarme a la participación de los padres y la comunidad.

Charmaine Lindsay: He vivido en el vecindario de Baker por 28 años. En junio de 2022, tuve el honor de ser elegida para representar al 5º Distrito como integrante del consejo de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Ser elegida por encima de los otros candidatos, altamente calificados e impresionantes, me otorga una gran responsabilidad hacia las padres y estudiantes del 5º Distrito y de todo DPS. Mi única motivación era y es promover el éxito de los niños de DPS. He sido una abogada practicante en Colorado desde 1996. Mi enfoque principal es en leyes familiares, y la mayoría de mis clientes son [personas con] bajos ingresos. He pasado mi carrera legal lidiando con el sistema de servicios sociales y tengo experiencia representando a niños y padres en tribunales familiares y [en casos] de negligencia. También defiendo en casos de desalojos y cobranzas, principalmente sin cobrar. Tengo un certificado en Resoluciones Alternativas de Disputas de la Universidad de Denver, y soy mediadora certificada y tengo experiencia y creo en la justicia reparadora.

Adam Slutzker: Soy padre de tres niños en edad escolar (3 años, 6 años y 8 años). He vivido en el noroeste de Denver desde 2019, pero he sido residente de Denver desde 2009. Tengo una maestría en educación (énfasis en matemáticas y ciencias en educación primaria) de la Universidad de Colorado en Denver y enseñé en escuelas primarias del Condado de Jefferson de 2010 a 2014. Me desempeñé los 2 últimos años como presidente del CSC. Entre 2014 y 2022, trabajé independientemente como agente de bienes raíces, carpintero y contratista y enfoqué gran parte de mi tiempo en ser el padre principal ya que mi esposa estaba cursando estudios graduados y ha seguido trabajando como enfermera practicante. Actualmente soy gerente de proyectos en un estudio de diseño en arquitectura. Nota de la editora: CSC significa Comité Colaborativo Escolar, por sus siglas en inglés, el cual es un grupo de padres, maestros e integrantes de la comunidad que ayuda en el proceso para tomar decisiones en una escuela.

¿Cuál crees que es el mayor problema que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver enfrentan y cómo esperas tener un impacto en ese problema como integrante del consejo escolar?

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: La seguridad es nuestro mayor problema singular—pero nuestras inquietudes de seguridad corren paralelas a un problema igualmente grande: tenemos una crisis de confianza en nuestro consejo actual y los líderes de DPS. Este problema naturalmente influye en todos los asuntos en cuestión en DPS, y presenta una amenaza para nuestra habilidad de tener escuelas seguras. Para recobrar la confianza, DPS debe demostrar que podemos enfocarnos en los logros de los estudiantes y el éxito de los maestros en lugar de las peleas internas, la arrogancia política y las redes sociales. Debemos innovar para resolver la epidemia de la salud mental juvenil, contratar maestros dedicados a la educación especial y negros, indígenas y personas de color [(BIPOC, por sus siglas en inglés]] y reducir el tamaño de las clases, para que nuestros maestros puedan apoyar mejor a los estudiantes. Este nivel de innovación en todo el distrito solo puede lograrse con un liderazgo cohesivo. Ayudaré a construir un consejo cohesivo para que podamos reemplazar los carteles que dicen “Renuncien DPS” con el optimismo de que podemos tener un distrito que nuevamente sea líder en el país.

John Youngquist: El rediseño de los sistemas de seguridad y salud mental es el problema más apremiante que DPS enfrenta actualmente. Como un director [escolar] con 18 años de experiencia, sé que abordar las inquietudes de seguridad y salud mental es vital para la participación de nuestros niños, y que debemos implementar medidas ahora. Tendré un impacto en [este problema] al obligar al superintendente a que: cree un acuerdo formal con la Policía de Denver y otros colaboradores de seguridad en mis primeros 60 días en el consejo; requiera que las voces de los estudiantes, padres y directores estén presentes en un rediseño completo de las pautas disciplinarias de DPS; indique que se aumenten significativamente los servicios para la salud mental en las escuelas y recomiende que se tripliquen las Clínicas de Salud Escolares; y, requiera un rediseño de los servicios para la salud mental en el distrito con medidas innovadoras como una adaptación de los sistemas de Respuesta de Apoyo Asistido en Equipo [(STAR, por sus siglas en inglés)] de Denver en las instalaciones escolares.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: El mayor problema que el distrito enfrenta es la reducción en los estudiantes inscritos. Está causando que se desvíen fondos de los salones de clases en todo el distrito. El problema nace por la reducción en las tasas de nacimiento a partir de 2014. Cuando los edificios no se usan eficientemente, el tamaño de las clases aumenta, y los fondos se invierten en la administración duplicada. También hace que otros programas y servicios, como el transporte en autobuses amarillos, sean más costos y menos eficientes. Estas ineficiencias inevitablemente resultan en recortes del presupuesto en todo el distrito.

Kimberlee Sia: Mi prioridad principal para el distrito es implementar iniciativas relacionadas con la seguridad y el bienestar de los estudiantes, incluidos recursos para la enseñanza socioemocional, tener niveles de personal dedicado a servicios para la salud mental que cubran las necesidades de todos los estudiantes, asegurar que medidas preventivas como la implementación de prácticas reparadoras reciban fondos completos y tengan empleados en todas las escuelas, y asegurar que los protocolos y las prioridades de seguridad se implementen y monitoreen completamente para asegurar el éxito e identificar las brechas. Los resultados académicos de los estudiantes mejorarán si nos centramos en apoyar la salud mental, crear un sentido de pertenencia en la escuela, y abordar proactivamente las inquietudes de seguridad. La seguridad de los estudiantes es de suma importancia e incluye la seguridad social y emocional además de la seguridad física.

5o Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: El rendimiento académico según se ve reflejado en la brecha de logros es el mayor problema que el distrito enfrenta actualmente. Denver tiene la brecha de logros más amplia entre todas las ciudades en el estado y eso es algo que no podemos aceptar. Casi un tercio de los estudiantes en el 5º Distrito son estudiantes multilingües, y el distrito debería tomar en consideración el crecimiento académico a lo largo del tiempo al igual que cubrir las necesidades específicas del niño completo. Aseguraré que estemos examinando el crecimiento académico, al igual que el rendimiento. Además, aseguraré que estemos proporcionando los recursos necesarios para las necesidades del niño completo, incluidos aquellos con desafíos en el aprendizaje. También tenemos que avanzar en la identificación de estudiantes que se puedan colocar en clases de educación avanzada.

Charmaine Lindsay: Durante las más de 20 visitas a escuelas que realicé este último año, la mayor inquietud que los líderes escolares expresaron fue cómo la pandemia había afectado las habilidades básicas de lectura y matemáticas. Como integrante del consejo escolar, planeo hacer que esto sea una prioridad al identificar áreas donde se necesitan más recursos y al continuar visitando las escuelas y colaborando con los maestros y padres. Necesitamos cerrar la brecha de logros para que nuestros estudiantes más marginados puedan triunfar.

Adam Slutzker: abordar la disminución de estudiantes inscritos y los cierres de las escuelas: Trabajaría para asegurar que los cierres de escuelas sean bien pensados y que estemos examinando cuidadosamente cuáles son las comunidades afectadas y tratemos de tomar esas decisiones difíciles de la manera más equitativa posible en todo el distrito.

El consejo escolar volvió a poner agentes armados en las escuelas de DPS después de un tiroteo adentro de East High este año. ¿Estás de acuerdo con esa decisión? ¿Cómo debe DPS garantizar que los estudiantes estén seguros?

Nota de la editora: En sus respuestas, muchos candidatos mencionan “SRO”. SRO son las siglas en inglés que se usan para describir a agentes armados de seguridad. Los SRO son agentes de la policía de la ciudad asignados adentro de las escuelas.

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: Nunca debimos haber sacado a los SRO de las escuelas sin un plan claro sobre cómo asegurar que los estudiantes y maestros estuvieran seguros sin ellos. Apoyo [la presencia de] SRO en las escuelas en este momento, como lo hacen el 70 por ciento de nuestros residentes. Para seguir avanzando, debemos reimaginar el papel que los SRO desempeñan para prevenir la criminalización y acoso injusto de estudiantes negros y latinos. A la vez que creamos estrategias para asegurar que nuestras escuelas sean [lugares] seguros, también creo que debemos esforzarnos por sacar todas las armas de fuego de las escuelas y trabajar para [crear] una realidad donde podamos mantener seguras nuestras escuelas sin agentes armados de seguridad. También necesitamos reinvertir en entornos alternativos de aprendizaje para los estudiantes de DPS que no están creando problemas serios de disciplina ni enfrentando cargos penales. Cada estudiante se merece una educación maravillosa en DPS, pero debemos aceptar que se necesitan diferentes entornos de aprendizaje para apoyar individualmente a los estudiantes y a nuestras escuelas en general.

John Youngquist: En noviembre, 2021, le escribí mi primer mensaje electrónico al superintendente porque no había una respuesta a las muchas amenazas en mi escuela y otras. Se ignoraron cuatro cartas más hasta que, después de más de un año, a un niño le dispararon y después murió. Después de que a dos más integrantes del personal les dispararan, la única medida tomada fue que regresaran los SRO. Sí, estoy de acuerdo con la decisión de que regresen los SRO porque el consejo y el superintendente siguen fracasando para tomar otras medidas. Hasta un nuevo “Plan de seguridad a largo plazo” incluye pocas ideas nuevas y está fracasando en su implementación inicial. Con SRO presentes como socios necesarios, debemos obligar a DPS para que cree e implemente finalmente un plan de seguridad que incluya: un acuerdo sólido con nuestros socios externos de seguridad; el fortalecimiento de la cultura, el comportamiento y los sistemas de salud mental en las escuelas; la capacitación y el apoyo de nuestros profesionales que atienden a nuestros estudiantes cada día.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: Desarrollé [la versión] borrador de la norma para el regreso de los agentes armados de seguridad, la cual se aprobó en 2023. Sí, apoyo que regresen con un énfasis en que los SRO establezcan relaciones positivas con los estudiantes y seguridad—no la disciplina que la administración escolar puede abordar. Debemos priorizar el desarrollo del carácter a temprana edad y proporcionar más servicios integrales para los estudiantes que se desvían del camino. Necesitamos que el estado y la ciudad aumenten los fondos para ayudar a lograr esto. En el caso en el que a un estudiante lo acusen de un crimen violento, el estudiante debería recibir aún más servicios integrales y se debería colocar al estudiante en un entorno de aprendizaje alternativo, como asistir a clases por Zoom, a una escuela virtual o a una de las escuelas pathway del distrito, para que continúe su educación y retome el camino. (Nota de la editora: DPS tiene 22 escuelas pathway. Estas escuelas de educación media y high schools ofrecen a los estudiantes que no están avanzando para graduarse una opción diferente para que logren hacerlo.)

Kimberlee Sia: Estoy de acuerdo con la decisión del consejo de volver a colocar agentes armados de seguridad (SRO) en algunas escuelas de DPS. Los SRO tienen la oportunidad de ser integrantes clave de la comunidad escolar, y deben participar en capacitación en las escuelas relacionada con la cultura escolar y del personal, medidas de seguridad escolar, participación familiar y comunitaria y procedimientos y expectativas escolares. DPS debe asegurar que los estudiantes estén seguros al crear entornos acogedores y alentadores y promover un sentido de pertenencia entre todos los integrantes de la comunidad. Esto se puede hacer al proporcionarle al personal escolar capacitación en prácticas reparadoras y la escalera y matriz disciplinarias, proporcionar apoyos fuertes para la salud mental en cada escuela que ayuden a identificar y abordar los riesgos potenciales y creen un entorno favorable para los estudiantes, y designar recursos para financiar y contratar personal de programas socioemocionales que aseguren medidas preventivas más sólidas en cada escuela.

5º Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: Apoyo la decisión actual del consejo de que regresen los SRO a las escuelas. DPS debe continuar monitoreando un plan integral de seguridad para incluir la intervención temprana en las necesidades de la salud socioemocional de los estudiantes, fortaleciendo las medidas de seguridad, cámaras, puntos de acceso, un programa de Safe2Tell y capacitación regular sobre seguridad para los empleados, los estudiantes y las familias. Monitorear las modificaciones que el distrito hizo en la matriz disciplinaria para enfocarse en la intervención temprana y en alternativas a infracciones por ciertas ofensas. Examinar los informes trimestrales de infracciones para asegurar que no haya desigualdades raciales/étnicas. DPS debe asegurar que toda la comunidad escolar sepa sobre el plan de seguridad integral, también interactuar con la comunidad para que los padres sepan que sus hijos están y se sienten tan seguros como sea posible. La decisión actual del Consejo de organizar una reunión crucial sobre seguridad ocultándola como una Sesión Ejecutiva, al igual que su decisión de limitar los comentarios del público, fueron simplemente malas [decisiones] y resultan en que se confíe menos en nuestras escuelas.

Charmaine Lindsay: La seguridad de los maestros, los niños y el personal es mi prioridad. Me siento orgullosa de haber liderado la votación para que regresaran los agentes armados de seguridad a las escuelas. Las pláticas iniciales fueron de 6 a 1 que se oponían a que regresaran permanentemente los SRO. El voto final para que regresaran fue 4 a 3. Mi título en justicia penal combinado con mi experiencia como abogada en leyes familiares abogando a favor de niños con bajos ingresos me ayudan a examinar todas las partes de un problema de seguridad. Trabajaré de cerca con DPS para monitorear a los SRO y prevenir los abusos que han ocurrido en el pasado. Soy una defensora de los derechos de los estudiantes y reconozco el impacto desproporcionado que esas normas han tenido en los estudiantes de color.

Adam Slutzker: Si sigue[n] siendo financiado[s] por la oficina del alcalde, estoy dispuesto a colaborar con los SRO siempre y cuando estén bien capacitados en el trabajo que se espera de ellos. Generalmente hablando, no creo que sean la mejor fuente para mantener seguros a nuestros estudiantes y preferiría ver que se invierta más dinero en servicios sociales y para la salud mental.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Todo lo que debes saber sobre cómo votar en las elecciones de Colorado de 2023

2023-10-11T14:36:18+00:00

Read in English.

El día de las elecciones este año es el 7 de noviembre, pero como todos los votantes registrados en Colorado recibirán una boleta electoral por correo, puedes votar antes.

La Colaborativa de Noticias en Colorado creó una serie de respuestas a preguntas frecuentes sobre el proceso de votación en nuestro estado antes de las elecciones de 2022. Actualizamos la información para las elecciones de 2023. Este año los votantes verán varias medidas electorales que afectan a todo el estado y tomarán decisiones sobre candidatos a consejos escolares y concejos municipales, al igual que medidas sobre impuestos locales.

También hay más información sobre las elecciones en nuestro estado disponible directamente a través de la Oficina de la Secretaría del Estado de Colorado.

Inscripción

¿Cómo puedo inscribirme para votar en Colorado?

Colorado tiene un sistema de inscripción automática de votantes cuando éstos interactúan con ciertas agencias estatales (por ejemplo, el Departamento de Vehículos de Motor) y comparten información personal como nombre, dirección y fecha de nacimiento. Por lo tanto, es posible que ya te hayas inscrito.

Si no te han inscrito, puedes inscribirte en línea o enviar por correo un formulario de inscripción en papel. El registro de electores también estará disponible en los centros de servicio al votante y de votación entre el 23 de octubre y el día de las elecciones el 7 de noviembre.

¿Tengo que inscribirme para votar cada año?

No, pero solo si tu inscripción de votante está activa, algo que puedes verificar en línea. “Activa” significa que votaste en las últimas elecciones o que recientemente te inscribiste o actualizaste tus datos de inscripción.

¿Cómo puedo verificar mi estatus de elector?

El sitio web del Secretario de Estado de Colorado tiene una página de búsqueda en línea. Allí puedes ver tu estatus como elector, el partido al que te has afiliado y otra información clave sobre tu perfil, y también puedes hacer cambios.

¿Qué pasa si me mudé a otro lugar de Colorado después de las últimas elecciones?

Si ya cambiaste la dirección en el Departamento de Vehículos de Motor, tu dirección en el registro electoral debe haberse actualizado automáticamente. Si no lo hiciste, puedes cambiar tu dirección electoral en línea. (Lee la próxima pregunta acerca del tiempo que debes haber vivido en Colorado para poder inscribirte.)

¿Quién puede inscribirse para votar?

Se requiere tener 18 años o más para votar (aunque puedes inscribirte desde los 16 años). Deberás ser ciudadano estadounidense, y haber residido en Colorado durante al menos 22 días antes de las elecciones. Si actualmente no tienes vivienda/hogar, puedes indicar cualquier dirección que el estado considere como “hogar”, lo cual incluye la dirección de un refugio para personas sin casa.

Fui declarado culpable de un delito grave - ¿puedo votar en Colorado?

Si estás encarcelado actualmente, no puedes votar. Pero si estás en libertad condicional, sí puedes votar. Si tu condena fue en el pasado y ya cumpliste con tu sentencia, sí puedes votar.

Soy de Colorado pero estoy estudiando universidad en otro estado. ¿Puedo votar en Colorado?

Depende. Puedes mantener tu residencia de Colorado y votar por correo en Colorado, o si estableces residencia en el otro estado donde estás estudiando universidad (algo que varía según el estado, pero puede incluir condiciones como obtener una licencia de conducir nueva o vivir allí por cierto tiempo definido) entonces votarás en ese otro estado, no en Colorado. No se permite votar en dos estados.

Estoy estudiando universidad en Colorado, pero soy de otro estado. ¿Puedo votar aquí?

Si decides establecer residencia en Colorado, entonces puedes votar aquí. Pero ten en cuenta que no se permite votar en dos estados, y si estableces tu residencia en Colorado, estarás renunciando a tu residencia en otro lugar.

Estoy en servicio militar activo fuera de Colorado o vivo en el extranjero. ¿Cómo puedo votar?

En virtud de la ley federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens and Absentee Voting (UOCAVA), tanto tú como tu cónyuge/pareja y dependientes pueden votar y se les dará tiempo adicional para hacerlo. La boleta de voto por correo se puede enviar a tu dirección postal actual 45 días antes de las elecciones (es decir, antes que la mayoría de los electores) y tendrás tiempo adicional para devolverla. Las boletas se pueden recibir en Colorado hasta el octavo día después de las elecciones, lo cual será el 15 de noviembre de este año. También tienes una opción en línea segura para subir y enviar una foto de tu boleta.

Votación por correo

¿Quién recibirá una boleta para votar por correo?

Todos los electores activos inscritos en Colorado recibirán una boleta de voto automáticamente por correo. Esta boleta también a veces es conocida como boleta de voto ausente.

¿Cuándo recibiré mi boleta para votar por correo?

Las boleta empezarán a enviarse a los electores activos inscritos desde el 16 de octubre. Se supone que los condados deben enviar por correo las boleta de los electores que se encuentran en el extranjero y en servicio militar 45 días antes de las elecciones, pero esos electores también tienen una opción en línea para subir y enviar una imagen de su boleta.

¿Dónde se enviará mi boleta?

Tu boleta para votar por correo se enviará a la dirección postal que proporcionaste al inscribirte como elector o cuando actualizaste tu inscripción.

Si recibo una boleta por correo, ¿tengo que votar por correo?

No. Puedes seguir votando en persona (consulta las preguntas frecuentes sobre el voto en persona más abajo), aunque la mayoría de los ciudadanos de Colorado optan por votar por correo. En 2021, cerca de un 98% de los electores republicanos, demócratas y no afiliados votaron por correo, según los datos de la oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado.

Si no recibo una boleta por correo, ¿cómo puedo pedir una?

Tendrás hasta el 30 de octubre para inscribirte para votar o actualizar tu inscripción y poder obtener una boleta para votar por correo. Después del 30 de octubre, podrás recoger una boleta en la oficina del secretario de tu condado o en un centro de votación. Además, todavía tendrás la opción de votar en persona. Para obtener más detalles, llama a la oficina electoral de tu condado o consulta su sitio web.

¿Cuándo tengo que devolver la boleta de voto por correo?

A menos que estés viviendo temporalmente en el extranjero o en servicio militar fuera del país, para que tu voto sea contado la oficina del secretario de tu condado tiene que recibirlo por correo antes de las 7 p.m. del día de las elecciones, el 7 de noviembre. Esto significa que si vas a enviar tu boleta por el Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos (USPS), debes hacerlo al menos una semana antes del día de las elecciones (pregunta en la oficina local de USPS cuándo es la fecha límite para tu área). Si ya pasó la fecha límite de tu área para enviar la boleta por correo, tu condado tendrá buzones seguros en los que podrás depositar tu boleta completada, o como alternativa puedes llevarla a un centro de votación. Consulta la lista en el sitio web de tu condado, pero por ejemplo, aquí hay información sobre dónde están ubicados los buzones en los condados de Denver, Douglas, Jeffco y Mesa.

La única excepción en la fecha límite es para los electores en servicio militar y en el extranjero, que deberán enviar su boleta por correo o subir la imagen antes de las 7 p.m. del 7 de noviembre. En esos casos, la boleta puede llegar a la oficina electoral del condado hasta el octavo día después de las elecciones, que este año es el 15 de noviembre.

No olvides firmar el sobre en el que pondrás la boleta, o el voto no se contará. Si no firmas el sobre, te lo informarán en una carta y tendrás que ir a proporcionar tu firma en los ocho días después del día de las elecciones. Si decides no depositar tu boleta en un buzón y deseas enviarla por correo (USPS), asegúrate de ponerle al sobre los sellos de correo correspondientes (la cantidad varía según el condado, pero muchos condados te indican cuántos sellos debes usar en las instrucciones de la boleta).

¿Hay boletas disponibles en otros idiomas además del inglés?

La oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado ha creado una línea telefónica con intérpretes de muchos idiomas que pueden explicar el contenido de las boletas a los votantes en su idioma preferido. Llama a 303-860-6970 para ayuda. Para los electores que hablan español, es posible que algunos condados tengan boletas disponibles en español.

¿Cómo puedo saber más sobre los temas de votación y los candidatos?

Además de los medios de comunicación locales, la League of Women Voters of Colorado (que no está afiliada a ningún partido) ha preparado una guía sobre las enmiendas y proposiciones estatales que estarán incluidas en la boleta. El estado también les envía por correo a todos los electores inscritos un folleto electoral azul que explica cada propuesta y enmienda a nivel estatal, y también explicará qué significa un voto de “sí” o de “no” para cada una de ellas.

Voto en persona

¿Cuándo puedo votar en persona?

Entre el 23 de octubre y el 7 de noviembre (excepto el 28 de octubre, el 29 de octubre y el 5 de noviembre). Mira el calendario electoral del estado para obtener más detalles y saber las fechas importantes.

¿Dónde puedo votar en persona?

Para saber cuál es el centro de votación de tu comunidad, busca en línea aquí.

¿Cuándo es el día de las elecciones?

El día de elecciones de 2023 es el 7 de noviembre, pero no es necesario que esperes hasta ese día para votar (lee más arriba). Si decides esperar hasta el día de las elecciones para votar en persona, las urnas estarán abiertas desde las 7 a.m. hasta las 7 p.m. MT. Si hay largas colas el día de las elecciones y a las 7 p.m. todavía estás esperando, podrás votar. Habrá inscripción de electores el mismo día, si la necesitas. Según las leyes de Colorado, si tienes que votar durante el día de trabajo con algunas condiciones, tu empleador deberá pagarte hasta dos horas para hacerlo.

¿Qué debo traer conmigo para votar en persona?

Debes traer una identificación (ID) aceptable. Si tu identificación incluye una dirección, debe ser en Colorado.

¿Hay opciones de votación para los electores que tienen necesidades especiales?

Sí. Cada centro de votación deberá tener al menos una opción accesible, como por ejemplo máquinas de votación accesibles o entradas accesibles para sillas de ruedas.

Seguridad durante las elecciones

¿Qué tan secreto es mi voto? ¿Alguien sabe por quién o por qué he votado?

Tu boleta de voto, y por quién o por qué votaste, es totalmente anónima. Lo único que es información pública es la afiliación de partido asociada con tu inscripción electoral, y es algo que puedes actualizar en línea.

¿Qué tan común es el fraude electoral en Colorado?

No es nada común. La organización conservadora Heritage Foundation ha documentado solamente 16 casos de fraude en Colorado desde 2005. Es decir, 16 casos de los millones de votos emitidos.

¿Cómo puedo estar seguro de que mi boleta será contada?

Colorado tiene uno de los procesos de votación más avanzados y seguros de Estados Unidos. Algunos expertos lo han calificado como el “estándar de oro” a nivel nacional.

Los condados de Colorado utilizan BallotTrax, un servicio gratuito para los electores que permite rastrear tu boleta desde que la envías por correo o es recogida de un buzón de votación, hasta que es contada. Puedes recibir notificaciones por texto o por email. Es bien similar a la manera en que se rastrea un pedido de compra en línea.

Después de las elecciones, los equipos bipartidistas y los secretarios de los condados de todo Colorado hacen auditorías de las boletas para confirmar los resultados. “Ninguna auditoría bipartidista ha encontrado nunca una boleta que no haya sido tabulada correctamente”, según la oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado.

Otras medidas de seguridad en Colorado son: verificación de los antecedentes del personal electoral, pruebas de las máquinas electorales por parte de equipos bipartidistas, verificación de las firmas y una asociación con la Guardia Nacional para monitorear tecnologías electorales críticas, como por ejemplo el sistema estatal de inscripción de electores, a fin de detectar cualquier amenaza cibernética.

¿Puedo ser un observador electoral?

Sí. Los observadores electorales son miembros de la comunidad que se ofrecen como voluntarios para observar el proceso de las elecciones. Llama a cualquier oficina del secretario y registrador del condado para saber cómo participar. Puedes ser observador en cualquier condado, no solamente en el que vives.

¿Colorado está tomando alguna medida para mejorar la seguridad durante las elecciones?

La nueva ley Election Security Act de Colorado crea medidas adicionales para proteger nuestro voto, y estas incluyen las siguientes: vigilancia por video todo el año de los componentes del sistema de votación, enjuiciamiento por delito grave al manipular equipo de votación, protección para toda persona que denuncie infracciones de la ley electoral y un programa de un millón de dólares en grants para que los condados mejoren la seguridad del equipo de votación.

¿Tienes más preguntas sobre cómo votar en Colorado? Envíanos un email a info@colabnews.co y escribe “Elecciones” en el asunto. También puedes encontrar más información directamente del estado en GoVoteColorado.gov.

Este artículo fue preparado por COLab, Colorado News Collaborative, una coalición sin fines de lucro de más de 170 oficinas de redacción en todo Colorado que trabajan juntas para servir mejor al público. Más información en https://colabnews.co

Todo lo que debes saber sobre cómo votar en las elecciones de Colorado de 2022

2022-10-19T18:00:00+00:00

Read in English.

Este año el día de las elecciones es el 8 de noviembre, pero como todo elector elegible registrado en Colorado recibirá una papeleta de votación por correo en octubre, puedes votar antes.

La organización Colorado News Collaborative ha recopilado las respuestas a preguntas frecuentes acerca del proceso de votación en nuestro estado. Estas elecciones de mitad de término serán muy importantes, ya que incluyen el puesto de gobernación, un candidato al Senado de Estados Unidos, y 11 asuntos importantes del estado que se decidirán mediante votos. También se puede obtener más información sobre las elecciones en nuestro estado directamente en la Oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado (en GoVoteColorado.gov).

Inscripción

¿Cómo puedo inscribirme para votar en Colorado?

Si no te han inscrito, puedes inscribirte en línea o enviar por correo un formulario de inscripción en papel. El registro de electores también estará disponible en los centros de servicio al votante y de votación entre el 24 de octubre y el día de las elecciones el 8 de noviembre.

¿Tengo que inscribirme para votar cada año?

¿Cómo puedo verificar mi estatus de elector?

¿Qué pasa si me mudé a otro lugar de Colorado después de las últimas elecciones?

¿Quién puede inscribirse para votar?

Fui declarado culpable de un delito grave - ¿puedo votar en Colorado?

Si estás encarcelado actualmente, no puedes votar. Pero si estás en libertad condicional, sí puedes votar. Si tu condena fue en el pasado y ya cumpliste con tu sentencia, sí puedes votar.

Soy de Colorado pero estoy estudiando universidad en otro estado. ¿Puedo votar en Colorado?

Estoy estudiando universidad en Colorado, pero soy de otro estado. ¿Puedo votar aquí?

Estoy en servicio militar activo fuera de Colorado o vivo en el extranjero. ¿Cómo puedo votar?

En virtud de la ley federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens and Absentee Voting (UOCAVA), tanto tú como tu cónyuge/pareja y dependientes pueden votar y se les dará tiempo adicional para hacerlo. La papeleta de voto por correo se puede enviar a tu dirección postal actual 45 días antes de las elecciones (es decir, antes que la mayoría de los electores) y tendrás tiempo adicional para devolverla. Las papeletas se pueden recibir en Colorado hasta el octavo día después de las elecciones, lo cual será el 16 de noviembre de este año. También tienes una opción en línea segura para subir y enviar una foto de tu papeleta.

Votación por correo

¿Quién recibirá una papeleta para votar por correo?

Todos los electores activos inscritos en Colorado recibirán una papeleta de voto automáticamente por correo. Esta papeleta también a veces es conocida como papeleta de voto ausente.

¿Cuándo recibiré mi papeleta para votar por correo?

Las papeletas empezarán a enviarse a los electores activos inscritos entre el 17 y el 21 de octubre. Se supone que los condados deben enviar por correo las papeletas de los electores que se encuentran en el extranjero y en servicio militar 45 días antes de las elecciones, pero esos electores también tienen una opción en línea para subir y enviar una imagen de su papeleta.

¿Dónde se enviará mi papeleta?

Tu papeleta para votar por correo se enviará a la dirección postal que proporcionaste al inscribirte como elector o cuando actualizaste tu inscripción.

Si recibo una papeleta por correo, ¿tengo que votar por correo?

Si no recibo una papeleta por correo, ¿cómo puedo pedir una?

Tendrás hasta el 31 de octubre para inscribirte para votar o actualizar tu inscripción y poder obtener una papeleta para votar por correo. Después del 31 de octubre, podrás recoger una papeleta en la oficina del secretario de tu condado o en un centro de votación. Además, todavía tendrás la opción de votar en persona. Para obtener más detalles, llama a la oficina electoral de tu condado o consulta su sitio web.

¿Cuándo tengo que devolver la papeleta de voto por correo?

A menos que estés viviendo temporalmente en el extranjero o en servicio militar fuera del país, para que tu voto sea contado la oficina del secretario de tu condado tiene que recibirlo por correo antes de las 7 p.m. del día de las elecciones, el 8 de noviembre. Esto significa que si vas a enviar tu papeleta por el Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos (USPS), debes hacerlo al menos una semana antes del día de las elecciones (pregunta en la oficina local de USPS cuándo es la fecha límite para tu área). Si ya pasó la fecha límite de tu área para enviar la papeleta por correo, tu condado tendrá buzones seguros en los que podrás depositar tu papeleta completada, o como alternativa puedes llevarla a un centro de votación. Consulta la lista en el sitio web de tu condado, pero por ejemplo, aquí hay información sobre dónde están ubicados los buzones en los condados de Denver, Douglas, Jeffco y Mesa.

La única excepción en la fecha límite es para los electores en servicio militar y en el extranjero, que deberán enviar su papeleta por correo o subir la imagen antes de las 7 p.m. del 8 de noviembre. En esos casos, la papeleta puede llegar a la oficina electoral del condado hasta el octavo día después de las elecciones, que este año es el 16 de noviembre.

No olvides firmar el sobre en el que pondrás la papeleta, o el voto no se contará. Si no firmas el sobre, te lo informarán en una carta y tendrás que ir a proporcionar tu firma en los ocho días después del día de las elecciones. Si decides no depositar tu papeleta en un buzón y deseas enviarla por correo (USPS), asegúrate de ponerle al sobre los sellos de correo correspondientes (la cantidad varía según el condado, pero muchos condados te indican cuántos sellos debes usar en las instrucciones de la papeleta).

¿Hay papeletas disponibles en otros idiomas además del inglés?

La oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado ha creado una línea telefónica con intérpretes de muchos idiomas que pueden explicar el contenido de las papeletas a los votantes en su idioma preferido. Para los electores que hablan español, es posible que algunos condados tengan papeletas disponibles en español.

¿Cómo puedo saber más sobre los temas de votación y los candidatos?

Además de los medios de comunicación locales, la League of Women Voters of Colorado (que no está afiliada a ningún partido) ha preparado una guía sobre las enmiendas y proposiciones estatales que estarán incluidas en la papeleta. El estado también les envía por correo a todos los electores inscritos un folleto electoral azul que explica cada propuesta y enmienda a nivel estatal, y también explicará qué significa un voto de “sí” o de “no” para cada una de ellas.

Voto en persona

¿Cuándo puedo votar en persona?

Entre el 24 de octubre y el 8 de noviembre (excepto el 29 de octubre, el 30 de octubre y el 6 de noviembre). Mira el calendario electoral del estado para obtener más detalles y saber las fechas importantes.

¿Dónde puedo votar en persona?

Para saber cuál es el centro de votación de tu comunidad, busca en línea aquí.

¿Cuándo es el día de las elecciones?

El día de elecciones de 2022 es el 8 de noviembre, pero no es necesario que esperes hasta ese día para votar (lee más arriba). Si decides esperar hasta el día de las elecciones para votar en persona, las urnas estarán abiertas desde las 7 a.m. hasta las 7 p.m. MT. Si hay largas colas el día de las elecciones y a las 7 p.m. todavía estás esperando, podrás votar. Habrá inscripción de electores el mismo día, si la necesitas. Según las leyes de Colorado, si tienes que votar durante el día de trabajo con algunas condiciones, tu empleador deberá pagarte hasta dos horas para hacerlo.

¿Qué debo traer conmigo para votar en persona?

Debes traer una identificación (ID) aceptable. Si tu identificación incluye una dirección, debe ser en Colorado.

¿Hay opciones de votación para los electores que tienen necesidades especiales?

Sí. Cada centro de votación deberá tener al menos una opción accesible, como por ejemplo máquinas de votación accesibles o entradas accesibles para sillas de ruedas.

Seguridad durante las elecciones

¿Qué tan secreto es mi voto? ¿Alguien sabe por quién o por qué he votado?

Tu papeleta de voto, y por quién o por qué votaste, es totalmente anónima. Lo único que es información pública es la afiliación de partido asociada con tu inscripción electoral, y es algo que puedes actualizar en línea.

¿Qué tan común es el fraude electoral en Colorado?

No es nada común. La organización conservadora Heritage Foundation ha documentado solamente 16 casos de fraude en Colorado desde 2005. Es decir, 16 casos de los millones de votos emitidos.

¿Cómo puedo estar seguro de que mi papeleta será contada?

Colorado tiene uno de los procesos de votación más avanzados y seguros de Estados Unidos. Algunos expertos lo han calificado como el “estándar de oro” a nivel nacional.

Los condados de Colorado utilizan BallotTrax, un servicio gratuito para los electores que permite rastrear tu papeleta desde que la envías por correo o es recogida de un buzón de votación, hasta que es contada. Puedes recibir notificaciones por texto o por email. Es bien similar a la manera en que se rastrea un pedido de compra en línea.

Después de las elecciones, los equipos bipartidistas y los secretarios de los condados de todo Colorado hacen auditorías de las papeletas para confirmar los resultados. “Ninguna auditoría bipartidista ha encontrado nunca una papeleta que no haya sido tabulada correctamente”, según la oficina del Secretario de Estado de Colorado.

¿Puedo ser un observador electoral?

¿Colorado está tomando alguna medida para mejorar la seguridad durante las elecciones?

La nueva ley Election Security Act de Colorado (aprobada a principios de este año) crea medidas adicionales para proteger nuestro voto, y estas incluyen las siguientes: vigilancia por video todo el año de los componentes del sistema de votación, enjuiciamiento por delito grave al manipular equipo de votación, protección para toda persona que denuncie infracciones de la ley electoral y un programa de un millón de dólares en grants para que los condados mejoren la seguridad del equipo de votación.

Resultados de las elecciones del consejo escolar de Aurora: Ganan candidatos respaldados por los sindicatos

2023-11-10T00:21:30+00:00

Read in English.

Tres candidatos al consejo escolar de Aurora respaldados por el sindicato de maestros ganaron escaños en la junta escolar de Aurora.

Hubo cinco candidatos para los tres escaños: Max García, entrenador de una escuela chárter y maestro sustituto; Vicki Reinhard, incumbente y que fue maestra de educación especiaI; Danielle Tomwing, madre de estudiantes de escuela chárter y actual miembro del consejo; estudiante y futura maestra Tiffany Tasker; y María Saucedo.

El sindicato de maestros apoyó a Reinhard, Tomwing y Tasker. Los tres candidatos fueron los que más dinero recaudaron y mantuvieron el mayor número de votos después de varias rondas de actualizaciones del recuento de votos el martes.

Reinhard, que obtuvo el mayor número de votos el martes, dijo que estar al frente de la contienda hace que le entusiasme volver a trabajar con el Michael Giles, el nuevo superintendente de Aurora, y en quien dijo que confía.

“Espero con mucho gusto trabajar a su lado”, dijo Reinhard.

Los tres escaños son at large, lo cual significa que todos los votantes seleccionaron sus tres candidatos favoritos y luego ganaron los que más votos recibieron.

Por lo menos tres grupos externos gastaron dinero en la campaña. El grupo sindical de maestros Students Deserve Better gastó más de $80,700 para apoyar a sus candidatos. La Colorado League of Charter Schools gastó más de $146,000 para apoyar a Tomwing, y el Ready Colorado Action Fund, un grupo conservador, gastó más de $48,000 para apoyar a García.

En Aurora, el consejo escolar nueva ayudará a dirigir el distrito en un momento en que éste ha vuelto a caer en la lista de vigilancia estatal por su bajo rendimiento académico. El distrito también ha estado tratando de reclutar y retener a más maestros de minorías, y está enfrentando cambios demográficos de un distrito grande que está creciendo en el lado este, mientras pierde estudiantes en el oeste que hace frontera con Denver.

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Denver voters just sent the school board a message. Will they hear it?

2023-11-10T01:11:34+00:00

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It’s clear from the ousting of two incumbents on the Denver school board that voters are mad.

Mad that a student with a previous weapons charge was allowed to enroll at East High School, and that he brought a gun to school in March and shot two deans.

Mad that staff at several schools across Denver, including high-performing schools where the city’s power brokers send their children, were being asked to pat students down for weapons. Mad that after a middle school principal spoke out about it, he was fired.

And mad at a school board whose members snipe at each other on social media and in print, who held a key meeting behind closed doors, and who repeatedly say decisions about Denver Public Schools — the nitty-gritty stuff like bus schedules — are not up to them.

Three seats on the seven-member Denver school board were up for election Tuesday, and challengers handily defeated two incumbents. In the third race, which didn’t feature an incumbent, voters chose the candidate who was aligned with the challengers.

But if it’s clear that anger and dissatisfaction drove the result, what’s less clear is whether that result was a rebuke of the individual incumbents, or of DPS as a whole — and if it’s the latter, how the sitting board members and superintendent will respond to a clear call for change.

“We have to show the public that we can become a fully functioning board that they would like to see,” board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in an interview.

The incumbents’ records on school safety

The two incumbents on the ballot, Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay, largely steered clear of the sniping and infighting that earned the Denver school board a bad reputation.

Of the seven board members, Baldermann and Lindsay pushed the hardest to bring school resource officers, or SROs, back to schools after the East shooting. Lindsay, who was appointed to fill a vacancy, wasn’t even on the board in 2020 when SROs were removed, a change that many blamed for the increase in school violence.

And Baldermann was the sole “no” vote on firing Kurt Dennis, the popular middle school principal who spoke out about safety policies.

Yet Steve Katsaros, an East High parent who started a group with a large Facebook presence called Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, said the incumbents’ individual records didn’t matter.

“We’re supposed to look at the board as a whole,” Katsaros said in an interview. “While [Baldermann and Lindsay] might have made some smart decisions around SROs, in totality, they’re part of a septic organization and a board that needs such a hard reset.”

Katsaros said the group worked hard over the last six months to keep the media’s attention focused on what was wrong in DPS, especially with regard to safety.

“DPS kept doing dumb things like getting rid of Kurt Dennis, and a lot more violent things,” including a non-fatal stabbing at George Washington High School last week, he said.

“How could you live in Denver and not know that DPS is a dumpster fire?” Katsaros said.

Another parent group, called Resign DPS Board, pushed a similar message, even running anti-incumbent Google ads that are now the subject of a campaign finance review.

Heather Lamm, a founder of Resign DPS Board, said that while she agrees voters were dissatisfied with the board as a whole, it’s not fair to say voters didn’t consider Baldermann and Lindsay’s records. Nor is it fair, she said, to imply they weren’t part of the dysfunction.

“Even if they’re quiet and they voted for the SROs, that was a little too little too late,” Lamm said. “A lot of people really took up the message that we started saying early on — that being on this board and not speaking up against the dysfunction means you’re complicit.”

Baldermann said in an interview that he should have seen the writing on the wall.

“Just looking back, it all makes sense,” he said. “I was kind of naive to even think I was going to win. … It was one crisis or distraction after another.”

Group backing winners sees ‘mandate’ for change

The three candidates who won — John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia — were endorsed by Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools, whose board is made up of charter school leaders.

As recently as 2017, the school board consisted entirely of members supportive of education reform and charter schools. That fall, two members backed by the teachers union — which generally opposes education reform — won election. By 2021, the Denver school board consisted entirely of members backed by the teachers union. The current board has been less friendly to charter schools and more lenient toward low-performing district-run schools.

Now candidates backed by education reform supporters have a foothold on the board again.

Denver Families Action spent $1.3 million and counting to support its candidates, and much of the funding came from pro-reform sources and donors. But Denver Families CEO Clarence Burton said this election wasn’t about “the education wars” of the past.

The candidates Denver Families backed, Burton said in an interview, “don’t have a common ideological thread through them. They were candidates that represented this value … that every public school in Denver, whether traditional, innovation, or charter, plays an important role in ensuring we have the quality options we need to serve every family well.”

Burton said he sees the decisive wins as not only a celebration but a mandate.

“One of the challenges and frankly, I think, a mandate that these new board members have is whether they deliver on that promise of a unifying vision for the district,” he said.

The losing candidates — Baldermann, Lindsay, and Kwame Spearman — were endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. In an interview, union President Rob Gould pointed to Denver Families’ outsized spending as a big reason the incumbents lost.

But union-backed candidates have beat big reform money before, including in 2019 and 2021. Gould acknowledged that there were other factors at play this year, including the “constant bombardment” of messages about DPS being unsafe and “the frustration that a lot of people felt with the current board,” who were all previously endorsed by the union.

“What’s at the bottom is the reform groups, and they’re seeing that disruption that’s going on, and then I think they’re tagging it to all of the members of the board,” Gould said.

“It’s just unfortunate that there were casualties,” he said of Baldermann and Lindsay.

‘The board needs to do a better job’

Whereas many parents were supportive of the union after a 2019 strike that led to higher teacher wages, Katsaros and others said they didn’t trust the union on safety issues.

“They endorsed nine of the last 10 [Denver school board members] and everybody has seen the district fall to hell,” Katsaros said. “They appear to be focused on just financial outcomes for the teachers and anti-reformer movements. What they need to learn is we don’t care if our kids are educated at charter or reform or innovation or traditional schools. We don’t even understand all that stuff. … We want our kids to be in healthy environments.”

Gould disagrees that the union doesn’t care about safety. Two days after the East High shooting, the union organized a gun control rally at the State Capitol so big that DPS canceled school, he said. It also supported the return of SROs, and its members are helping to revise the district’s discipline matrix, which some parents have criticized as too lenient.

“I’m not out advertising that on Facebook,” Gould said. “We’re actually doing the work.”

But Lamm said the changes aren’t happening fast enough. She said the superintendent and board’s focus this year on reducing out-of-school suspensions and expulsions doesn’t make sense at a time when more students are bringing weapons to school.

When Baldermann ran in 2019, he said he and other candidates were constantly asked how they would improve DPS for students of color and those living in poverty. This year, the questions from the public were about why DPS doesn’t send students with behavior issues to alternative learning environments instead of big high schools like East.

“In 2019, it was all about equity,” he said. “This year it was like, ‘Whoa, not too much equity.’”

Carrie Olson, who has been on the board since 2017 and still has another two years left of her second term, said she sees this election as a call for change. But while she’s hopeful board members will get along better, she said she’s not sure what that change will look like.

“The board needs to do a better job,” she said in an interview. Then she hesitated to finish her sentence. “Maybe even just putting a period there.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Aurora school board election results: Union-backed candidates win three seats

2023-11-08T04:59:22+00:00

Three Aurora school board candidates backed by the teachers union have won seats on the board.

Five candidates ran for the three seats: charter school coach and substitute teacher Max Garcia; incumbent and former special educator Vicki Reinhard; charter school parent and board member Danielle Tomwing; student and aspiring educator Tiffany Tasker; and Maria Saucedo.

The teachers union endorsed Reinhard, Tomwing, and Tasker. The three candidates raised the most money and held the most votes through a few rounds of updates to vote counts Tuesday.

Reinhard, who had the most votes throughout Tuesday night’s updates, said being in the lead had her excited about getting back to work with Aurora’s new superintendent, Michael Giles, whom she said she trusts.

“I look forward to working alongside him,” Reinhard said.

The three seats are all at-large, meaning all voters selected their top picks and the three top vote-getters won the seats.

At least three outside groups spent money on the race. The teachers union’s group Students Deserve Better spent more than $80,700 to support its candidates. The Colorado League of Charter Schools spent more than $146,000 in support of Tomwing, and the Ready Colorado Action Fund, a conservative group, spent more than $48,000 to support Garcia.

In Aurora, the new school board will help lead the district at a time when the district has fallen onto the state’s watchlist for low academic achievement once again. The district has also been trying to recruit and retain more teachers of color, and is dealing with changing demographics of a large district growing on the east side, while losing students on the western side bordering Denver.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Candidatos respaldados por sindicatos ganan dos puestos en el consejo escolar de Jeffco

2023-11-10T00:05:53+00:00

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Dos candidatos respaldados por el sindicato ganaron escaños en el consejo escolar de Jeffco, compuesta por cinco miembros.

La mayoría de los escaños del consejo escolar de Jeffco ya son ocupados por candidatos respaldados por los sindicatos. Los resultados de las elecciones del martes muestran que los electores del segundo distrito más grande de Colorado refuerzan esa mayoría.

Cada escaño representa un distrito diferente, pero cada elector de Jeffco podría elegir un candidato para cada escaño.

En el Distrito 3, actualmente representado por Stephanie Schooley, la ingeniera Michelle Applegate tenía más votos que Thomas Wicke, presidente de la universidad.

En el Distrito 4, representado ahora por Susan Miller, la educadora Erin Kenworthy le ganó a la ingeniera Amara Hildebrand y el abogado Joel Newton.

Los candidatos con más votos en Jeffco han recibido mucha financiación, en particular de sindicatos.

El sindicato de maestros apoyó a Applegate y a Kenworthy. Ambos candidatos recaudaron más de $58,000 cada uno para la campaña, superando a los demás por un amplio margen. Wicke fue el tercer candidato en obtener más fondos de campaña, con más de $28,000 recibidos de empresarios como Tim Walsh, propietario de Confluence Builders y antiguo candidato al Senado, y de David Jones, miembro del consejo en Arvada.

Hildebrand y Wicke habían sido respaldados por la Colorado Conservative Patriot Alliance, pero ese grupo no ha aportado dinero.

En términos de gastos externos por comités que no están autorizados a coordinar con los candidatos, hubo $111,326 de Students Deserve Better, un grupo de del sindicato de maestros, y más de $56,000 de Better Jeffco Schools, que afirma que apoya a los candidatos conservadores y está haciendo campaña por Wicke y Hildebrand.

El nuevo consejo será responsable de ayudar al distrito a superar los problemas financieros relacionados en parte con la reducción en las inscripciones y el fin de las ayudas por COVID. Después de cerrar escuelas del distrito, el consejo aún está determinando qué hará con los edificios vacíos, y el consejo escolar tendrá un rol en ese proceso.

Después de cerrar 16 escuelas primarias y consolidar tres escuelas intermedias, el distrito no anticipa que haya otra fase de cierres de escuela en el futuro inmediato. Sin embargo, los funcionarios han dicho que seguirán reevaluando.

El nuevo consejo también tendrá pronto una importante decisión que tomar sobre las nuevas solicitudes de chárter para potencialmente llenar un vacío después de la votación para cerrar la escuela Coal Creek Canyon K-8. El distrito tendrá un proceso acelerado de solicitud de chárter y el consejo votará al respecto el 10 de enero

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un email a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Lodging tax for child care? Pueblo voters said no, Ridgway voters said yes

2023-11-09T22:14:43+00:00

Voters in the City of Pueblo soundly rejected a lodging tax increase for child care, while those in the town of Ridgway easily passed a similar tax for affordable housing and child care.

The win in Ridgway, a popular outdoor recreation destination at the base of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, points to the continued success of lodging tax measures for workforce housing and child care in tourist destinations. Meanwhile the loss in Pueblo, a former industrial city in southern Colorado, raises questions about the appetite for such taxes in communities where tourism isn’t the main draw.

Ridgway joins around 10 other other Colorado communities, including Estes Park and Eagle and Chaffee counties, that use taxes on hotel stays in part to support child care. The idea is that local workers power the tourism industry, so visitors should contribute to efforts that support a stable workforce.

Local leaders in Ridgway hope to use some of the new lodging tax proceeds to operate a child care center within a planned affordable housing project with up to 17 rental units. Construction is set to begin next year.

“Child care is pretty critical, particularly to the folks who are living in affordable housing, so they can afford to work,” said Kelly Goodin, director of community outreach at the affordable housing nonprofit Home Trust of Ouray County.

Tuesday’s ballot measure will increase lodging taxes in Ridgway by 2.5%, raising an estimated $100,000 in 2024. The proceeds will go toward tourism, housing, and child care efforts.

Goodin said the lodging tax revenue will help cover operating costs for the planned child care center, but that other funding sources will be needed as well. The new center will serve infants and toddlers — the most expensive age group to serve because state rules require lower staff-child ratios.

Colorado counties and local marketing districts, which are created by communities or regions to promote tourism, have been allowed to use lodging taxes to support child care or housing only since a change to state law in 2022. Before that, lodging taxes in these jurisdictions had to be used for tourism efforts. Some Colorado cities and towns have long had the authority to levy a lodging tax to support child care, but few have done so.

If Pueblo’s ballot measure had passed, it would have increased the lodging tax rate by 1.5%, generating more than $600,000 annually. The proceeds would have provided financial aid to Pueblo families who earn too much to qualify for state child care subsidies but still struggle with the cost of care.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Westminster school board election results: Union-backed slate wins three seats

2023-11-08T04:56:32+00:00

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A slate of three candidates backed by the teachers union was winning the Westminster school board election, according to results Tuesday evening. The slate includes incumbent Christine Martinez and newcomers Audrey Yanos and Mary Beth Murphy.

Three of five Westminster school board seats were up for grabs in this election. It was the first contested board election in the 8,000-student district north of Denver in six years.

The trailing candidates include three newcomers who also ran as a slate: Anthony Sisneros and husband-and-wife team Charles and Brenda Gallegos.

The winning candidates were gathered with supporters at Los 3 Garcias restaurant when the preliminary results came in around 7:20 p.m. Tuesday evening. There were “lots of woo-hoos,” said Martinez, who is vice president of a local property management company and the mother of a seventh-grader in the district.

She said Tuesday’s results show voters agreed with her slate’s belief that the district is moving in the right direction.

Murphy, a retired teacher who has four adult children, said she heard from many of the voters she texted in recent days that they appreciated how positive the slate’s campaign was.

“No matter what else came out, we never got down in the mud,” she said.

Yanos, an operations supervisor at a healthcare nonprofit and the mother of three children in the district, said, “We weren’t a doom and gloom slate,”

The school district will face a leadership transition in the coming year, with the district’s longtime superintendent, Pam Swanson, set to retire next summer. In October, the board named Deputy Superintendent Jeni Gotto as her successor.

The next school board will also likely grapple with continuing enrollment declines, which have forced several Denver area districts to consider school closures or consolidations in recent years. Between 2016 and 2021, the district lost more than 1,400 students — a 15% drop.

Martinez said she’s eager to see Westy Futures, a sports program for K-8 students, continue, and the planned conversion of a middle school to new career and technical education space move forward.

Yanos, an avid gardener, said she wants to help expand the district’s horticulture program with an eye toward incorporating lessons on climate change and sustainability.

Murphy, who is director of the Central Adams UniServ Unit, an organization that supports four local teachers unions, said she didn’t come to the race with any specific agenda.

“Every decision I make will be based on what’s best for our kids and community,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board election results: Voters signal they want change by electing three new members

2023-11-08T05:24:49+00:00

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In a year of rising gun violence in and around Denver schools, and persistent allegations of dysfunction on the school board, Denver voters signaled Tuesday that they want change by electing three new board members.

In the citywide at-large race, former East High School Principal John Youngquist beat Tattered Cover bookstores co-owner Kwame Spearman by a wide margin. Youngquist will replace the board’s most high-profile member, Vice President Auon’tai Anderson.

Two incumbents, Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay, lost their seats. Former KIPP charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia bested Baldermann for the board seat representing southeast Denver’s District 1. In northwest Denver’s District 5, longtime DPS volunteer and Latina advocate Marlene De La Rosa defeated Lindsay.

“I’m feeling like there is a lot of support for the message that we need experience and people close to the community and people who know schools and districts,” Youngquist said at a joint election watch party with De La Rosa Tuesday night.

Taking the microphone at the party, De La Rosa promised to listen “to all sides.”

“I am not a reformer,” De La Rosa said. “I am not a union [candidate]. I am not a particular ideology, but I am the ideology that we need to support students.”

Denver Public Schools is Colorado’s largest district, with more than 89,000 students. The next board will face several challenges, including how to deal with declining enrollment and how to address school safety concerns after several shootings in and around DPS high schools.

From left, Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia, and John Youngquist won seats on the Denver school board Tuesday.

In DPS election politics, the teachers union is typically on one side, while groups supportive of charter schools and education reform are on the other side. That was true in this election, too.

The candidates who won — Youngquist, Sia, and De La Rosa — were backed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools whose board is made up of local charter school leaders. The losing candidates — Spearman, Baldermann, and Lindsay — were backed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the teachers union.

For the past four years, board members backed by the union have held a majority of seats. Tuesday’s election won’t change that because the other four members on the seven-person board were backed by the union and will still hold the majority.

But the election of three new members is likely to shake up the interpersonal and political dynamics on the board. The winners are all supportive of keeping police in schools and, to varying degrees, allowing schools to have more academic and programmatic autonomy and encouraging families to choose the school they deem best.

The current board has restricted principal autonomy and been less friendly to charter schools.

This election has been expensive, with candidates and outside groups spending nearly $1.9 million as of last week, according to reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

The biggest spender has been an independent expenditure committee called Better Leaders, Stronger Schools, which spent more than $1.3 million on digital ads, mailers, and even TV ads to support Youngquist, Sia, and De La Rosa. The pro-charter committee outspent the teachers union by 4 ½ to 1 in the lead up to the election.

The new board members are set to be sworn in on Nov. 28.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Los votantes de Denver indican que quieren cambios, eligen a tres integrantes nuevos para el consejo escolar

2023-11-09T19:41:16+00:00

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En un año en el que aumentó la violencia con armas de fuego adentro y alrededor de las escuelas de Denver, y persistentes acusaciones de disfunción en el consejo escolar, los votantes de Denver indicaron el martes que quieren ver cambios al elegir a tres integrantes nuevos.

En la contienda general para elegir a un representante de toda la ciudad, el exdirector de East High School John Youngquist venció al copropietario de las librerías Tattered Cover Kwame Spearman por un amplio margen. Youngquist reemplazará al integrante más notorio del consejo, el vicepresidente Auon’tai Anderson.

Dos integrantes actuales, Scott Baldermann y Charmaine Lindsay, perdieron su puesto. La exdirectora ejecutiva de la red KIPP de escuelas charter, Kimberlee Sia, superó a Baldermann en el puesto para representar al 1er Distrito en el sudeste de Denver. En el 5º Distrito en el noroeste de Denver, la voluntaria de DPS por años y defensora comunitaria latina Marlene De La Rosa venció a Lindsay.

“Estoy sintiendo que hay mucho apoyo por el mensaje de que necesitamos experiencia y personas cercanas a la comunidad y personas que conocen las escuelas y los distritos”, Youngquist dijo durante una fiesta organizada junto con De La Rosa para observar los resultados de las elecciones el martes por la noche.

Al tomar el micrófono en la fiesta, De La Rosa prometió escuchar “a todas las partes”.

“No soy una reformadora”, De La Rosa dijo. “No soy una [candidata] del sindicato. No soy una ideología en particular, pero soy la ideología de que necesitamos apoyar a los estudiantes”.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver forman el distrito más grande de Colorado, con más de 89,000 estudiantes. El próximo consejo enfrentará varios desafíos, incluido cómo lidiar con la disminución de estudiantes inscritos y cómo abordar las inquietudes relacionadas con la seguridad en las escuelas después de varios tiroteos en y alrededor de high schools de DPS.

De izq. a der., Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia y John Youngquist ganaron un puesto para el consejo escolar de Denver el martes.

En lo relacionado con la política de las elecciones para el consejo de DPS, el sindicato de maestros usualmente está de un lado, mientras que otros grupos que apoyan a las escuelas charter y la reforma educativa se encuentra del otro. Lo mismo sucedió durante estas elecciones.

Los candidatos que ganaron—Youngquist, Sia y De La Rosa—recibieron el apoyo de Denver Families Action, la rama política de un grupo llamado Familias de Denver a favor de Escuelas Públicas cuyo consejo está integrado por líderes de escuelas charter locales. Los candidatos perdedores—Spearman, Baldermann y Lindsay—estaban respaldados por la Asociación de Maestros de Salones de Clase de Denver, el sindicato de maestros.

Durante los últimos cuatro años, integrantes del consejo escolar respaldados por el sindicato han ocupado la mayoría de los puestos. Las elecciones del martes no cambiarán eso porque los otros cuatro integrantes en el consejo de siete fueron respaldados por el sindicato y continuarán siendo la mayoría.

Pero la selección de tres integrantes nuevos probablemente sacuda la dinámica interpersonal y política en el consejo. Todos los ganadores apoyan que se mantengan a agentes de seguridad armados en las escuelas y, en diferentes niveles, permitir que las escuelas tengan más autonomía académica y programática y animar a las familias para que elijan la escuela que mejor les parezca.

El consejo actual ha limitado la autonomía de los directores y sido menos amistoso con las escuelas charter.

Estas elecciones han sido costosas, con candidatos y grupos externos gastando casi $1.9 millones hasta la semana pasada, según informes presentados en la oficina de la Secretaría del Estado de Colorado. Partidarios de las escuelas charter gastaron cuatro veces y media más que el sindicato de maestros en el período antes de las elecciones.

Se espera que los nuevos integrantes del consejo acepten su cargo el 28 de noviembre.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Melanie Asmar es reportera sénior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor. Here’s what she wants to change about education.

2023-11-08T11:30:00+00:00

There was never much doubt that Cherelle Parker would become the city’s 100th mayor and the first woman ever to lead the nation’s sixth largest city. On Tuesday night, she defeated Republican David Oh, winning more than 73% of the vote.

Like mayors before her, she will lead a city with an underfunded school district beset by concentrated poverty — conditions that limit schools’ ability to make major inroads on the traditional measures of student achievement such as proficiency on state tests and graduation rates.

But unlike previous mayors, Parker — who started her career as a teacher — will take office when a major contributor to those conditions is on the verge of significant change.

That’s because the state is working to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order from February to revamp a state school funding system that has resulted in wide gaps in spending between high- and low-income districts, and has historically shortchanged Philadelphia.

Although the city’s public school district was not a plaintiff in the case that led to the judge’s order, Philadelphia schools could benefit greatly from any changes to the state funding formula, and increases in overall education funding, that Pennsylvania lawmakers ultimately adopt.

What will also help define Parker’s tenure as mayor is how she will use her power to appoint all nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education — she can rebuild it from scratch, if she wants — and what will happen regarding the one far-reaching education proposal she shared during the mayoral campaign: a year-round schedule for schools.

Parker pushes for more Philadelphia school funding

Parker grew up on Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane, the daughter of a teenage mother. She was raised by her grandparents and attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating from Girls High.

When she voted Tuesday morning, she brought along her high school English teacher, Jeanette Jimenez, who encouraged her to write about her life after her grandmother died.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” she said.

She was the first in her family to go to college. After attending Lincoln University, she briefly taught English and English as a second language in Pleasantville, New Jersey, before interning for former City Council member Marion Tasco and setting off on a political career.

She will work as mayor to launch all young people on a path of self-sufficiency, she said at her victory speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters Tuesday night.

As a member of the City Council and as a state legislator, Parker leveraged methods to collect more revenue for schools, including an initiative that went after delinquent property taxpayers in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker celebrates with supporters on Nov. 7, 2023.

The mayor of Philadelphia has no direct authority over the School District of Philadelphia. But with the power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education (subject to City Council approval), Parker can help shape education policy on key issues. These include spending priorities, charter schools, how to deal with the district’s aging buildings, and negotiations with unions for the district’s educators and other staff.

Through the school board, she can also influence where (and whether) to close schools and where to build new ones, and how to enhance student safety with respect to everything from environmental hazards such as loose asbestos to gun violence that has plagued the city.

During the campaign, Parker did not tip her hand on any intentions to keep or replace the current board members, saying she would not discuss any personnel issues before the election.

Parker favors keeping schools open longer

Parker’s signature education proposal in the mayoral race was to institute year-round schooling. She said what she had in mind would not involve more days of traditional classroom seat time for students, but more breaks spread throughout the year and a shorter summer vacation, coupled with increased access for students to enrichment activities.

Parker also advocated for a school day that starts earlier and ends later.

In making both these proposals, she cited the hardship that school schedules pose for many parents, rather than touting the additional time as an educational improvement strategy.

“Not all of the young people in the school district of Philadelphia are in the Hamptons in the summer, or at the Vineyard.” she said in her victory speech. “Maybe you thought they were there. But they are not.”

She added that “for those who are being raised, particularly in circumstances like mine, particularly when they’re being raised by someone other than their biological parents, they can benefit from creative year round scheduling. They could benefit from going to school in the morning and having it open until 6:30 in the evening.”

She said after the traditional school day is over, students could learn coding, financial literacy, and other subjects. “I’m getting ready to tell you the big one for me is homework help and tutoring,” said the mayor-elect, who is the mother of a young son. “Have you seen the math today?”

As far as paying for any such change, she has said she favors devoting a higher proportion of the city’s property tax revenue to the district — 58% instead of 55%. Parker said that change would bring $50 million in additional revenue for schools even before any statewide funding reform.

Parker is a strong union supporter, and many of the city’s labor leaders endorsed her in the Democratic primary, although the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers supported rival Helen Gym. PFT president Jerry Jordan did not attend Parker’s victory party Tuesday night, unlike many other union heads, but issued a statement saying members “celebrate and honor this momentous and historic occasion… (Parker’s election) shows little girls, especially Black girls, what they can achieve.”

On social media, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten also congratulated Parker for making history as the first woman to lead the nation’s sixth largest city.

Parker will for sure need union buy-in for her plan to move to a year-round school schedule and keep school buildings open longer.

Cherelle Parker holds her hand up to honor Delta Sigma Theta sorority after winning the mayoral election and becoming Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Nov. 7, 2023.

Parker skirts divisions over charter schools

One area where Parker as a candidate took a measured approach was charter schools.

Nearly one-third of Philadelphia’s public school students attend charters, making the city home to one of the largest charter sectors in the country. The school board must approve charter school applications, and has essentially imposed a moratorium on new charters since 2018.

During the campaign, Parker did not directly answer a question from Chalkbeat about whether she would like Philadelphia to have more charter schools.

“I want quality seats, and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding: “I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” She forcefully repeated that in her victory speech Tuesday.

“If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it,” she said.

Parker has also avoided wading into a controversy over whether the Board of Education has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

A report issued by a law firm last month found problems with the charter monitoring system that has resulted in a larger proportion of Black-led charters being closed. But the report, two years in the making, found no “intentional” racial discrimination.

Parker did say that as mayor she would “insist” that the state legislature reinstate a budget provision that sent millions of dollars to school districts to compensate them for “stranded costs” linked to charters and cyber charter schools that occur when students leave district schools in patterns that don’t allow for neat downsizing.

That provision was eliminated in 2011 by state lawmakers under the administration of former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican; half the total amount came to Philadelphia. Losing that reimbursement was among the factors that fueled resistance in Philadelphia to expanding the charter sector, including near the end of the period when the district was under state control from 2001 to 2017.

Parker’s main goal now, which she said is attainable through government and private collaboration: “We want all of our children in a 21st century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Resultados de las elecciones para el consejo escolar de Westminster: grupo respaldado por el sindicato gana tres puestos

2023-11-09T20:57:16+00:00

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Un grupo de tres candidatos respaldados por el sindicato de maestros ganaron en las elecciones para el consejo escolar de Westminster, según resultados el martes por la noche. El grupo incluye a la actual integrante Christine Martinez y dos candidatas nuevas, Audrey Yanos y Mary Beth Murphy.

Tres de los cinco puestos en el consejo escolar de Westminster estaban en juego estas elecciones. Fueron las primeras elecciones competitivas en seis años en este distrito de 8,000 estudiantes ubicado al norte de Denver.

Los candidatos rezagados incluyen tres candidatos nuevos que también se postularon como grupo: Anthony Sisneros y el equipo formado por los esposos Charles y Brenda Gallegos.

Los candidatos ganadores se reunieron con sus partidarios en el restaurante Los 3 Garcias cuando los resultados preliminares se dieron a conocer alrededor de las 7:20 p.m. el martes. Hubo “muchos, ¡qué bueno!”, dijo Martinez, quien es vicepresidenta de una compañía local de administración de propiedades y madre de un estudiante de 7º grado en el distrito.

Dijo que los resultados del martes muestran que los votantes están de acuerdo con lo que su grupo cree—que el distrito está avanzando en la dirección correcta.

Murphy, una maestra retirada que tiene cuatro hijos adultos, dijo que muchos votantes a quienes contactó por mensaje de texto en días recientes le dijeron que apreciaban lo positiva que fue la campaña del grupo.

“Sin importar qué más salió, nunca nos bajamos al lodo”, dijo.

Yanos, una supervisora de operaciones en una organización no lucrativa que proporciona servicios de salud y madre de tres niños en el distrito, dijo: “No fuimos un grupo pesimista[AC1] “.

El distrito escolar enfrentará una transición de líderes el próximo año cuando la superintendenta de muchos años, Pam Swanson, se retire en el verano. En octubre, el consejo nombró a la superintendenta adjunta, Jeni Gotto como sucesora de Swanson.

El próximo consejo escolar probablemente también tenga que lidiar con disminuciones en la cantidad de estudiantes inscritos, lo cual ha obligado a varios distritos escolares en el área de Denver a considerar el cierre o consolidaciones de sus escuelas en años recientes. Entre 2016 y 2021, el distrito perdió más de 1,400 estudiantes, una reducción del 15 por ciento.

Martinez dijo que está ansiosa de ver que Westy Futures, un programa de deportes para estudiantes de kindergarten a 8º grado, continúe, y que la conversión planeada de una escuela de educación media a un nuevo espacio para la educación profesional y técnica siga avanzando.

Yanos, a quien le encanta la jardinería, dijo que quiere ayudar a que se expanda el programa de horticultura en el distrito, con la meta de incorporar lecciones sobre el cambio climático y la sustentabilidad.

Murphy, quien es directora de la Unidad UniServe en Adams Central, una organización que apoya cuatro sindicatos locales de maestros, dijo que no se unió a la contienda con intenciones políticas específicas.

“Cada decisión que tome se basará en lo que es lo mejor para nuestros niños y la comunidad”, dijo.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Ann Schimke es una reportera principal para Chalkbeat, cubriendo temas sobre la primera infancia y lectoescritura temprana. Comunícate con Ann por correo electrónico a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia mayoral election results: Cherelle Parker wins

2023-11-08T01:00:02+00:00

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Democrat Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor and the first woman to hold the position.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

Parker will set the agenda on school safety, infrastructure, charter schools, funding, and more. She will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s attempts to improve educational outcomes for students.

In her victory speech Tuesday night at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters, Parker reiterated her campaign promise to move towards year-round public school and said, “we are going to find a way to move educational opportunities for our young people forward.”

“We want all of our children in a 21st-century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement,” Parker said. “If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it. I’m not the person to have that conversation with.”

With more than 273,800 ballots counted and 1,542 of 1,703 divisions reporting, the unofficial election results are:

Democrat Cherelle Parker: 73.6% (193,968 votes)
Republican David Oh: 25.6% (67,353 votes)

Check out our mayoral guide for more from both candidates.

In Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans seven-to-one, there has been little doubt that Parker would win the general election. She collected endorsements from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and promised to be a pragmatic dealmaker in Harrisburg capable of bringing more state funding to Philadelphia.

The Associated Press called the race for Parker Tuesday evening shortly after polls closed.

This election cycle, Parker leaned on her proposal for year-round public schools — which Superintendent Tony Watlington promised to pilot — her desire to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and an increased police presence in and around schools.

Republican David Oh, meanwhile, told Chalkbeat he saw a path to victory due in large part to his active, in-person campaign strategy. While Parker opted to stay out of the public eye for much of the summer, recovering from a dental emergency and holding private meetings, Oh was door-knocking, giving interviews, and calling for public debates.

Oh’s education platform called for a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” district leadership model, with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

Tonight’s vote counts are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the officials who oversee the city’s elections, certify the results.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Proposition HH election results: Voters reject property tax measure that would have shored up school funding

2023-11-08T04:11:09+00:00

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Colorado voters strongly rejected Proposition HH, Democrats’ effort to offer property tax relief while shoring up school funding.

Advocates on both sides seemed to have anticipated the outcome, with the “no” campaign dubbing their watch party a celebration a full day before polls closed and the “yes” campaign not holding a watch party at all.

Proposition HH would have offered home and business owners some relief from rising property taxes while also allowing the state to keep and spend more money from other taxes, such as sales and income taxes. Much of that extra money would have been placed in the state education fund, where it could be used to support K-12 schools. In turn, less money would be available for taxpayer refunds after next year.

“Ultimately, people wanted simple property tax reform, and instead they came up with a 48-page bill that took away TABOR refunds without offering enough property tax relief,” said Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado Action, a key player in the “no” campaign.

The defeat has renewed calls for a special legislative session, something Gov. Jared Polis has steadfastly refused to commit to. A spokesman said via text message Tuesday evening that Polis is disappointed voters didn’t pass property tax relief, and he is considering next steps.

Lawmakers have until December to provide some sort of property tax relief before the impact of 40% valuation increases hits homeowners and business owners. Any effort to cut property taxes, in turn, will affect funding for schools and many other local districts.

“All these property tax dollars coming in are what allows the governor to balance the budget and pay down the negative factor,” said Bell Policy Center President Scott Wasserman, who supported Proposition HH. “If this money goes away, we have to make up for it.”

The negative factor refers to the more than $10 billion Colorado lawmakers have withheld from K-12 schools to pay for other budget priorities since the start of the Great Recession. This withholding is also known as the budget stabilization factor. Next year’s proposed Colorado budget is the first since 2008 to fully fund schools. Higher local property taxes over the last several years have helped make that possible. More local funding means the state doesn’t need to kick in as much to meet constitutional funding requirements.

Education groups, including the Colorado Association of School Boards, the Colorado Education Association, and Democrats for Education Reform, all backed Proposition HH and provided much of the more than $2 million spent in favor of the measure.

They hoped the extra money Proposition HH would provide for schools would allow funding to increase in the future or help the state avoid cuts in a future recession. They also feared that not providing property tax relief would give fuel to Initiative 50, a measure Fields’ group has placed on the ballot for 2024 that could cap the growth of property taxes at 4% a year.

Wasserman called Initiative 50 a “school district destroyer.”

Yet Polis consistently refused to talk about Proposition HH’s impact on school funding, instead focusing on property tax relief.

Wasserman said the “yes” campaign might have benefited from a more honest conversation.

“Everyone involved should have talked much more holistically than just about property taxes,” he said. “I think the governor could have been more forthcoming with voters about the problem this was trying to solve.”

Wasserman said property taxes pay for so many critical local services, from fire districts to libraries to schools, and voters need to think about how property tax relief affects funding for those services.

Fields said he’ll withdraw Initiative 50 if the legislature provides more significant property tax relief than was offered in Proposition HH and agrees to some sort of cap on future increases. He rejected the idea that school districts would be harmed by a cap on future revenue.

“It’s a matter of prioritization,” Fields said. “I think there should be more money coming from the state. They should be fully funding schools and making sure more of that money gets into the classroom.”

School funding levels in Colorado are set by the state through a formula. The state makes up for whatever local property taxes don’t cover. That means whatever happens with property taxes has major implications for the state budget. Even as the state has struggled to meet its constitutional obligations to fund schools, K-12 education takes up more than a third of the general fund and crowds out other budget priorities, including higher education.

At the same time, Colorado funds its schools below the national average, and rural school districts offer some of the lowest starting salaries in the country.

Colorado voters have repeatedly rejected efforts to raise taxes statewide to increase school funding or to allow the state to keep and spend more money from existing taxes.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s Prop II election results: Voters back nicotine tax measure to fund preschool

2023-11-08T03:32:32+00:00

Colorado voters easily approved a ballot measure that will send more than $20 million to the state’s new universal preschool program.

Proposition II (pronounced “eye-eye”) will allow the state to keep all the money raised through a nicotine tax Colorado voters approved in 2020, even though the tax raised more money than originally predicted. The state is required by the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, commonly called TABOR, to ask voters if it can keep extra revenue generated by taxes — in this case $23.7 million. The state will get to keep any excess revenue in future years as well.

Prop II had no organized opposition. A similar measure that allowed the state to keep excess marijuana tax revenue above what officials predicted they’d collect passed with nearly 70% of the vote in 2015.

The additional nicotine tax money will go toward Colorado’s universal preschool program — the same place most of the nicotine tax money from the 2020 ballot measure is already going. The $322 million preschool program is one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature initiatives.

Polis said in a statement Tuesday evening, “I am thrilled people voted in favor of providing more funding for our free universal preschool program that is saving families money, and this voter-approved measure will help fund more preschool for kids. Thank you to all voters who made their voices heard, and thank you for continuing Colorado’s clear history of supporting early education.”

The preschool program launched in August and provides tuition-free classes to about 38,500 4-year-olds and 10,300 3-year-olds this year. While the program has proven popular with families, its rollout has been rocky at times.

In July, thousands of families who expected tuition-free, full-day preschool found out their children would get less because the state didn’t have enough money. In August, school district officials sued over the program, claiming the state is harming students who have disabilities and breaking funding promises to families and schools.

Some of the $23.7 million available through Prop II could help solve these problems.

The money will help pay for additional half-day and full-day preschool spots next year. This year, full-day spots are available to 4-year-olds from lower-income families who also have a second risk factor. Those factors include being an English learner, having a special education plan, being homeless, or being in the foster care system. About 3,600 children are enrolled in free full-day classes this year.

Next year, state officials want to make free full-day classes available to 3,000 additional 4-year-olds, specifically those from very low-income families.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Jeffco school board election results: Union-backed candidates win two open seats

2023-11-08T17:36:38+00:00

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Two union-backed candidates won seats on Jeffco’s five-member school board after holding steady leads Tuesday evening.

Union-backed candidates already held the majority of seats on the Jeffco board. The election results show voters in Colorado’s second largest district reinforcing that majority.

“Jeffco voters have shown their support for our public schools via the ballot box, and clearly share our vision for strong neighborhood schools, the recruitment and retention of highly qualified educators, and a path for all students to find success in adulthood, even if they choose not to go to college,” said Kari Gray, social emotional learning specialist at Manning Middle School and chair of the union’s Political Action Team, in a press release.

Each seat represents a different district, but every Jeffco voter could select one candidate for each seat.

In District 3, currently represented by Stephanie Schooley, engineer Michelle Applegate won against college president Thomas Wicke.

In District 4, currently represented by Susan Miller, educator Erin Kenworthy took the lead over engineer Amara Hildebrand and advocate Joel Newton.

The county clerk’s office estimates they’ve counted more than 99% of the ballots cast.

The leading candidates in Jeffco received a lot of funding, in particular from union groups.

The teachers union endorsed Applegate and Kenworthy. Both candidates led in campaign fundraising by a wide margin, with more than $58,000 in contributions each. Wicke was the opponent with the next highest amount of campaign funds with more than $28,000 raised from business owners including Tim Walsh, owner of Confluence Builders and former candidate for a Senate seat, and from David Jones, a sitting council member in Arvada.

Hildebrand and Wicke had been endorsed by Colorado Conservative Patriot Alliance, although that group hasn’t contributed funding.

In terms of outside spending by committees that are not allowed to coordinate with candidates, there has been $111,326 from Students Deserve Better, which is a teachers union funding group, and more than $56,000 from Better Jeffco Schools, which states it supports conservative candidates and is campaigning for Wicke and Hildebrand.

The new board will be responsible for helping the district through financial problems in part related to declining enrollment and the end of COVID relief funding. After closing district schools, the board is still going through the process of figuring out what to do with the empty buildings, and the school board will have a role in that.

After closing 16 elementary schools and consolidating three middle schools, the district is not expecting another phase of school closures in the immediate future. However, officials have said they will continue to reevaluate.

The new board will also quickly have an important decision to make on new charter applications to potentially fill a gap after the vote to close Coal Creek Canyon K-8. The district is hosting an expedited charter application process with a board vote on Jan. 10.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis mayoral election results: Democrat incumbent Joe Hogsett defeats Republican Jefferson Shreve

2023-11-08T03:49:47+00:00

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Democratic incumbent Mayor Joe Hogsett secured a third term with nearly 60% of the vote against Republican opponent Jefferson Shreve, unofficial election results showed with roughly 97% of precincts reporting as of 10 p.m. on Tuesday.

Shreve conceded in a speech to supporters at a watch party broadcast on WTHR, telling the crowd: “We can be better and we will be better, but (Hogsett) has won the night.”

He also pointed to the lead that Democrats have in Marion County, calling it “sobering.” Unofficial election results showed that roughly 65% of voters cast straight Democratic party ballots compared to roughly 35% of voters who cast straight Republican ballots.

“We’ve just got to learn to work within that model to advance change and improve our city,” he said.

In his speech to supporters broadcast on WTHR, Hogsett said that the pandemic had undeniably delayed some progress for the city.

“Now, the voters have spoken. They have given us the chance to deliver on those challenges that yet remain,” he said. “Because there are guns to get off of our streets. There is affordable housing to build. There are students to support. There are small businesses to empower.”

Voter turnout increased slightly since the last municipal election in 2019, with roughly 26% of registered voters casting a vote, per the Marion County Election Board. In 2019, 153,977 people voted, compared to 164,677 ballots cast in Tuesday’s election.

Hogsett will continue to have significant influence over public education in Indianapolis, where the mayor’s office serves as an authorizer for new and existing charter schools. Those decisions are made by the Indianapolis Charter School Board within the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. The board has nine members with six members appointed by the mayor.

Hogsett’s top three education priorities highlighted in Chalkbeat’s voter guide are high-quality oversight of mayor-sponsored schools, improving literacy rates, and ensuring students are prepared for life beyond high school.

But education took a back seat in much of the discourse surrounding the mayoral election, with debates focusing mainly on police, the status of downtown Indianapolis, and the city’s animal shelter.

To address gun violence’s impact on young people, Hogsett highlighted “common-sense gun safety measures,” such as increasing the legal purchasing age from 18 to 21 and requiring a permit to carry a handgun in Marion County. The Indiana state legislature prohibits cities from regulating firearms, but Hogsett said he would push for state preemption on local gun laws to be removed in upcoming sessions.

In Chalkbeat’s voter guide, Hogsett said that as mayor he will continue to hold mayor-sponsored charter schools to high standards, “while remaining engaged with their work so we know if we need to step in to offer support.”

Hogsett would not say whether he would support a potential operating referendum by Indianapolis Public Schools that the district could propose to taxpayers in the future. Instead, he noted, the decision will be made by taxpayers within the IPS district.

Provisional and military ballots still need to be counted on Nov. 17. The Marion County Election Board will certify the vote totals on Nov. 20.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Election results show Indiana voters mostly supporting school funding referendums

2023-11-08T21:50:59+00:00

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Indiana voters across the state showed support for giving their school districts the green light to use millions of dollars in property tax revenue to hire and retain teachers and fund programs and transportation.

Unofficial election results on Wednesday showed voters largely in support of property tax referendums in seven of the 11 districts that placed one on the ballot. Fort Wayne schools, along with three school districts in Hamilton County, saw strong support for their referendums. Monroe County schools’ referendum led Wednesday by just 108 votes.

Meanwhile, three districts in Lake County, including the School City of Hammond, saw the opposite results from their voters. By Wednesday, Lake Station schools’ referendum was down by only 14 votes.

Property tax referendums have long been a cornerstone of school funding in the state, but local revenue is especially important now as the federal emergency funding that has supported schools throughout COVID begins to sunset. Due to a change in state law this year, certain districts like the School City of Hammond will also need to share any property tax revenue with charter schools.

Indiana allows districts to ask local residents for three kinds of referendums: construction referendums for renovation and building projects; operating referendums for staff, programs, and services; and safety referendums, the newest type of ballot measure that allows schools to make security improvements and hire school resource officers.

This year, 11 districts sought approval from voters for new referendums or renewals of previous referendums. Below are the unofficial results according to the Indiana Election Division website.

Operating referendums

Carmel-Clay Schools, Hamilton County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 67.8% yes and 32.3% no.

Rate: $0.19 per $100 of assessed property value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $24 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $23 million dedicated to retaining and attracting teachers and staff

Hamilton Southeastern Schools, Hamilton County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 70.1% yes and 29.9% no.

Rate: $0.1995 per $100 of assessed property value for eight years (renewal at a decreased rate)

Annual revenue: $24 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $9 million for attracting and retaining teachers and $5.9 million for maintaining class sizes

Lake Station Community School Corp., Lake County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 49.3% yes and 50.7% no.

Rate: $0.54 per $100 of assessed value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $1.3 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $466,000 for school bus transportation

Monroe County Community School Corp., Monroe County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 50.5% yes and 49.5% no.

Rate: $0.085 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $8.5 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $6 million for funding low-cost preschool, $1.25 million for eliminating K-12 student fees

Northeast Dubois County School Corp., Dubois County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 60.6% yes and 39.4% no.

Rate: $0.18 per $100 of assessed value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $703,000

Highlights from the spending plan: $390,000 for academic programming

School City of Hammond, Lake County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 28.7% yes and 71.3% no.

Rate: $0.44 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $14.6 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4.8 million for school bus transportation

School City of Whiting, Lake County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 39.8% yes and 60.2% no.

Rate: $0.17 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $1.1 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $418,000 staff recruitment

West Lafayette Community Schools, Tippecanoe County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 80.5% yes and 19.5% no.

Rate: $0.37 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $7 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4.4 million for teacher and staff compensation for managing class sizes

Sheridan Community School Corp., Boone & Hamilton Counties

With 91% of precincts reporting in Hamilton County, the vote is 81.8% yes and 18.2% no in Hamilton County.

With 91% of precincts reporting in Boone County, the vote is 77.5% yes and 22.5% no.

Rate: $0.25 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years (renewal)

Annual revenue: $1.3 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $896,000 for retaining and attracting teachers and staff

Safety referendums

Bluffton Harrison MSD, Wells County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 42.2% yes and 57.8% no.

Rate: $0.075 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $445,000

Highlights from the spending plan: $254,000 for additional school resource officers

Fort Wayne Community School Corporation, Allen County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 53.3% yes and 46.7% no.

Rate: $0.10 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $12 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4 million for student advocates

Construction referendums

School City of Hammond, Lake County

With 91% of precincts reporting, the vote is 23.7% yes and 76.3% no.

Rate: $0.4357 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Revenue: $84 million over 25 years

Highlights from the spending plan: Renovations and additions at Hammond Central High School and Morton High School

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

The day before the Denver school board election, spending in the races nears $1.9 million

2023-11-06T19:04:30+00:00

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On the eve of the Nov. 7 election, spending in the Denver school board races has climbed to nearly $1.9 million, according to reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

It’s not a record yet — but it’s close. The most expensive Denver school board race ever was in 2019, when candidates and outside groups spent $2.28 million. However, this year’s running total has surpassed spending in the last election in 2021, which totaled $1.67 million.

Three seats on the seven-member Denver school board are up for grabs Tuesday. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board; members backed by the Denver teachers union will still hold the majority of seats. But it could change the board’s interpersonal dynamics, which have been tense, and perhaps the political dynamics as well.

As in past elections, the bulk of the spending is by independent expenditure committees, which cannot coordinate with the candidates. In Denver Public Schools election politics, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is typically on one side, and groups that support charter schools and education reform are on the other side.

So far, the pro-charter side is outspending the union 4½ to 1.

This year’s big spender is a pro-charter committee called Better Leaders, Stronger Schools, which has spent $1.3 million on digital advertising, mailers, text messaging, and even TV ads, which are unheard of in Denver school board elections.

The committee is supporting three candidates: John Youngquist for an at-large seat, Marlene De La Rosa in District 5, and Kimberlee Sia in District 1.

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools is largely funded by Denver Families Action, the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families was founded in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks, and its board is made up of charter leaders.

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools has also gotten donations from wealthy Colorado businesspeople, including $250,000 from Kent Thiry, the former CEO of dialysis provider DaVita. Envision CEO James Rechtin gave $15,000, while SonderMind CEO Mark Frank and Benson Mineral Group Co. each gave $20,000. Oakwood Homes CEO Pat Hamill, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries, and private-equity firm Rallyday Partners each gave $10,000.

The teachers union is supporting three candidates: Kwame Spearman for the at-large seat, Charmaine Lindsay in District 5, and Scott Baldermann in District 1. Lindsay and Baldermann are incumbents running to keep their seats.

The union is spending money two ways: by giving directly to the candidates and through its own independent expenditure committee. So far, the Denver and Colorado teachers unions have given $47,500 each directly to Spearman and Baldermann, and $35,405 to Lindsay.

The union’s committee, called Students Deserve Better, has spent just over $150,000 on mailers and digital ads in the Denver school board races this year.

For the second time, Baldermann is largely self-funding his campaign, pumping $91,000 into his reelection bid so far. In 2019, he spent more than three times as much.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers propose having half of Chicago voters select school board members in 2024

2023-11-03T23:45:00+00:00

Roughly half of Chicago voters would get to elect school board members in 2024 and the other half would vote in 2026, according to new language proposed by state lawmakers late Friday.

Earlier this week, legislators released a new draft map that divides the city into 20 districts. Each district has roughly 137,000 people in it. The new proposal assigns each district a number and says odd-numbered districts would vote in 2024. The state legislature could vote on the proposal during next week’s veto session.

In addition to outlining how Chicagoans would vote in the 2024 and 2026 election, the proposal includes ethics requirements for elected members and a conflict of interest provision that falls in line with state law.

The proposal also calls for the board of education to create a Black Student Achievement Committee to address the needs of Black students throughout the district and create a strategic plan to close the gap in academic achievement between Black students and their peers.

Valerie Leonard, of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, has pushed during public hearings for the Senate’s committee on the elected school board to create a Black Student Achievement Committee.

According to state law passed in 2021, 10 members of the school board are to be elected and 10 are to be appointed by the mayor in 2024. The mayor will also appoint a school board president. In 2026, the districts with appointed members will vote and the entire city will vote for a school board president.

People interested in running for Chicago’s Board of Education must collect 250 signatures from their districts and can begin circulating petitions on March 26, 2024. To get on the ballot, petitions must be filed by June 24, 2024.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Campaign finance complaint filed against Resign DPS Board’s anti-incumbent ads

2023-11-03T22:38:25+00:00

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Google ads encouraging Denver voters to oust the incumbents on the school board in the Nov. 7 election are the subject of a campaign finance complaint against the group Resign DPS Board, a document filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office shows.

The complaint alleges that Resign DPS Board, a parent group formed in the wake of a March shooting inside East High School, failed to disclose spending $2,000 on Google ads that say “vote out incumbent candidates up for re-election.” The ads popped up at the top of a Google search for Scott Baldermann, a board member running for re-election in southeast Denver’s District 1, according to a screenshot attached to the complaint.

Baldermann faces challenger Kimberlee Sia for the District 1 seat.

The ads included a link to the Resign DPS Board website, which also encourages voters to oust the incumbents. Charmaine Lindsay is the other incumbent; she is running against Marlene De La Rosa and Adam Slutzker to keep her seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5.

This close to an election, state law requires candidates or groups to file reports within 48 hours disclosing “electioneering communications” that cost more than $1,000. The complaint alleges that Resign DPS Board failed to do so. The complaint was filed Wednesday by a person named Kevin Williams. Williams did not return a phone call or email seeking comment.

Heather Lamm, a founder of Resign DPS Board, said via text message that the group disagrees that the ads are electioneering communications, but has pulled them down anyway.

“We believe we are promoting voter education,” she wrote.

Resign DPS Board is not registered as a political committee with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. Lamm said the group didn’t think it was necessary since its message is mostly focused on advocating for the current school board to resign.

The complaint alleges that the group’s website contains numerous examples of “express advocacy” in the Nov. 7 school board election without disclosing who paid for the advocacy or saying it was not authorized by any candidate, as is required.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Charter school funding is on the ballot in northwest Indiana. Do voters know?

2023-11-03T16:04:16+00:00

This article was originally published by WFYI.

Residents in Hammond will vote next week on whether to continue a property tax increase to give more money to local schools.

But voters may not know a crucial detail. For the first time in the state, the district will be required to share the money with nearby charter schools. That’s because the question on the Tuesday ballot does not mention charter schools at all.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently managed, don’t typically receive property tax revenue in Indiana.

A law approved earlier this year by the GOP-controlled General Assembly and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb requires school districts in Lake and three other counties to share the money from voter-approved referendums with charter schools that chose to opt in.

Supporters for changing the law say all students attending public schools should benefit equally from local referendum funds — not just students at traditional school districts.

But citizen advocacy groups and local voters say lack of transparency on the ballot is concerning.

Julia Vaughn, head of the elections watchdog Common Cause Indiana, said the referendum question is missing critical information the public needs to know when casting a vote.

“This is a big change in state law,” Vaughn said. “I think voters might after the fact feel a bit hoodwinked if they come to understand that now there will be charter schools who are eligible and will be receiving this funding.

“I think the legislature missed the mark this year, by failing to require full and complete transparency with the school referendum.”

Referendum funds would be shared with charter schools

The School City of Hammond is the only district in the November election to qualify for the provision since it went into effect in May. Hammond has agreed to share revenue, as required by law, with 10 charter schools. The district is asking voters to extend a previously approved tax rate increase to generate $14.6 million in operational funds for each of the next eight years.

The public question that voters see on the ballot says the tax levy is for funding the “school corporation,” which will use it for costs including teachers, academic programs, and transportation at the Hammond school district. It does not mention charter schools.

The new law does not require the ballot question include an explanation that funds will be shared with charter schools, or the names of those charter schools, according to a recent Department of Local Government Finance memorandum. Rather, the law modified the required ballot language by striking the term “school corporation” as the unit that receives the tax revenue and replaced it with “schools.”

But the law does not modify the question for a referendum to extend an existing tax levy, according to the DLGF memo. The ballot question for Hammond still refers to the “school corporation” as receiving all the funds.

A DLGF spokesperson did not respond to questions about requirements of the law.

Kenneth Davidson, a Hammond resident and property owner opposed to the referendum, said he was “flabbergasted” when learning the ballot question lacked details about sharing revenue with charter schools that are outside city limits.

“I guess the theory is that the dollars follow the students,” Davidson said about the intent of the law. “But my general belief is that my property tax money supports my local community. And when you take that money outside the community, I think that’s a big step for people and especially when they don’t know about it.

“If it was clearly stated, and people knew about it and they still chose to do it, that’s fine.”

Splitting the money between district and charters

If the Hammond referendum passes, about $830,000 annually would be distributed between local charters, according to a district spending plan. Those 10 schools enroll students who live in Hammond. They chose to participate in the referendum and follow certain requirements, like agreeing to post a referendum disclosure statement on their websites.

Charter schools will receive money for each student they educate who lives in Hammond. Most of the participating schools will get less than $20,000 each year.

Hammond Academy of Science & Technology, however, would receive around $700,000 annually. The charter, which serves grades 6-12, enrolls more than 500 students who live in Hammond. School leader Deborah Snedden said the revenue injection would support a full-time social worker, support staff for academic intervention and possibly building improvements — to make more space and modernize high school course offerings.

But Snedden is cautious about what will happen even if the referendum is approved. Guidance on how the new law is supposed to work has been difficult to get.

“We’re on uncharted territory,” she said.

Hammon Schools Superintendent Scott Miller said the district did its best to follow the law and contact all charter schools that qualified to be part of the referendum. In June, the school board passed a resolution to seek the referendum and it included language that revenue would be shared with eligible charter schools.

“This is not just for the School City of Hammond, this is for all Hammond students. And it would help us have a better chance of winning, quite honestly,” Miller said in an interview with WFYI. “So that’s why we intentionally made the decision to revenue share and be fully transparent.”

But details on which charter schools would receive the funding are not easily available for voters. WFYI only received the list after requests to the state Department of Education and Hammond schools. The district website for the referendum does not mention the charter-sharing agreements.

Miller said the district did not add the names of charters to the ballot question because Hammond Academy of Science & Technology, the school that would receive the bulk of the revenue share, confirmed participation in the referendum after the language was submitted to the state.

“So for us, it was a timing thing,” Miller said. “Perhaps if we had more time to plan around that, you know, we could have done that better.”

The Indiana Charter School Network advocated for the passage of the charter-sharing law. Marcie Brown-Carter, executive director, said she was pleased to see the school district and charter schools collaborating. And she was not surprised a major change to how tax dollars are distributed is not perfect.

“It’s such a departure but it’s a great one,” Brown-Carter said of the law. “And I’m sure from what I understand that legislators will be willing to go back and fill in any gaps or any holes that make the law stronger, and better for everybody in this coming session.”

Republican Sen. Linda Rogers, who co-wrote Senate Enrolled Act 391 that changed the referendum law, declined to comment about transparency concerns. Rogers, through a spokesperson, cited ongoing litigation over the law.

The Indianapolis Public Schools Board is suing the state over another provision in the law that exempts school districts from selling closed buildings to charter organizations if they share referendum revenue with local charters.

The School City of Hammond is not the only district in Lake County with a referendum on the ballot this month. But Lake Station Community Schools and School City of Whiting are not required to share revenue with charter schools because their school boards approved resolutions to place a referendum on the ballot before the law went into effect on May 10.

Which charter schools would benefit?

Here are the eligible charter schools, excluding virtual charter schools and adult charter high schools, that would receive a share of School City of Hammond’s referendum funds, according to the Indiana Department of Education. The revenue share is based on the per-student enrollment of students who live in the boundary of Hammond schools. Enrollment is in parentheses.

21st Century Charter School of Gary (3)
Aspire Charter Academy (13)
Charter School of the Dunes (1)
East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy (37)
East Chicago Lighthouse Charter (33)
Gary Lighthouse Charter School (4)
Gary Middle College (7)
Hammond Academy of Science and Technology (513)
Neighbors’ New Vistas High School (2)
Steel City Academy (1)

WFYI education reporter Dylan Peers McCoy contributed to this report.

Contact WFYI education editor Eric Weddle at eweddle@wfyi.org.

Many school district tax measures on November ballot would pay for teacher salaries

2023-11-02T21:54:53+00:00

Many of the more than a dozen tax measures Colorado school districts put on the ballot for the Nov. 7 election are intended to fund teacher and staff salary increases that officials say are urgently needed.

District leaders say they are facing budget crunches from various factors such as drops in enrollment and an end to federal COVID-relief funding. Some districts say they’re having a hard time hiring enough teachers and keeping them.

Alan Kaylor, superintendent of the Weld Re-8 school district in Fort Lupton, said his district started this school year with 18 vacancies out of about 210 certified teachers.

That’s more than in the past, he said.

“It used to be in special education, math, science, but it’s kind of across the board right now,” Kaylor said. “It’s hard to recruit teachers.”

School districts around the metro area have been raising salaries. In Westminster, the school district raised starting pay to $61,000 this year. According to the Colorado Education Association, 30 unions have won an 8% or higher raise this year. A few districts, including Aurora and Sheridan, have struggled to negotiate raises.

Weld Re-8 is asking voters to approve a $4 million mill levy override and a $70 million bond request. For at least the first year, the measures would not cost homeowners any more in property taxes. The bond issue would go to funding building upgrades, but the mill levy override would help raise the starting salary for teachers from $45,000 to $52,000.

Kaylor said that even though Re-8 is considered a rural district, with about 2,500 students, it borders larger urban districts including St. Vrain Valley School District, where the starting salary for teachers is $56,000. On top of that, he said, houses in the community are priced in the $500,000 range, similar to the metro areas.

“My teachers are locked out from that market,” Kaylor said. “We don’t have many multifamily units either. Those tend to be filled. Most of my teachers live out on that I-25 corridor. They drive right through St. Vrain to get here.”

Re-8 is growing in enrollment, one of few districts in the state that is. But Kaylor said other budget issues coming up are related to the end of COVID relief funding.

The relief money wasn’t used in his district to fund teacher salaries, but he did use it to pay for new support positions such as instructional coaches that may not have funding to continue next year.

Kaylor is also concerned about the upcoming cost of renewing licenses for online programs purchased during the pandemic that teachers still use and whether he’ll be able to find funding to maintain an online program the district still offers as an option for about 50 students who preferred the model.

In Englewood, another small district requesting a $4 million mill levy override, the district has had to spend down reserves, or savings, in order to increase salaries for teachers over the past few years.

The Englewood district, south of Denver, has had a drop of more than 11% in enrollment in the last five years.

If the measure is approved, the district already negotiated an increase of 5% for teachers and a minimum increase of 7.5% for classified staff, both effective Jan. 1.

Englewood’s tax request would not increase property taxes for homeowners because the measure would simultaneously lower the taxes for the bond approved in 2016.

In Douglas County, the district is trying a second year in a row to ask voters for a mill levy tax measure. The $66 million mill levy override would pay for teacher raises. Last year, the same measure failed by less than 1% of the vote.

Superintendent Erin Kane said average salaries for teachers in the Douglas County school district are $19,000 less than in neighboring districts. It has meant more vacancies at the start of the school year.

At one elementary school, a teacher who took another job elsewhere over the summer was not able to be replaced in time for the school year to start. The school had to combine three second grade classrooms into two, with 33 students each.

“That’s the very real impact,” she said.

In talking to the community about the need for the measure this year, Kane said that voters understand that teachers deserve a raise, and that a teacher hired at $45,209 — the current starting salary — can’t afford living in Douglas County.

“It’s a shift in our community,” Kane said, of having more teachers commuting into the district for work.

But the challenge, she said, is helping voters understand how Colorado school districts are funded.

“Our community is under the impression that since their local property taxes are going up that their schools would be benefiting from that,” Kane said. “Higher local property taxes just means less money from the state.”

Colorado runs a formula that dictates how much money each district should have per student. The money comes first from local property taxes, and then the state fills in the gap, to get the funding to what the formula says it should be. Districts get more money than the formula says they should only when voters approve local tax measures that are on top of the regular property taxes.

In Douglas County, Kane tells voters the district is getting $2,000 less per student than neighboring districts because of those local measures, meaning the salaries she can offer are less competitive.

“I would have told you last year it was urgent,” Kane said. “This year it’s a crisis.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the District 1 race

2023-11-02T19:20:41+00:00

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Voters in southeast Denver face the choice of re-electing a school board member who has championed the teachers union’s causes, or replacing him with an educator who led a local charter school network for six years.

Scott Baldermann, 47, is the incumbent in the District 1 race, having been elected to the school board in 2019. His win was part of a historic “flip” of the board to candidates backed by the Denver teachers union. Baldermann is the father of two Denver Public Schools students and owns a small software company that makes a heart rate tracking app for group fitness classes.

Kimberlee Sia, 47, is challenging Baldermann for his seat. She also has two children in DPS and was most recently the head of the Colorado “I Have a Dream” Foundation, which runs after-school and summer programming in DPS. She has worked as a teacher and principal, and was the CEO of the KIPP Colorado Public Schools charter network from 2013 to 2019.

District 1 includes many of the city’s whitest and wealthiest neighborhoods. Only 25% of students in DPS are white, but district data shows that 48% of students in District 1 last year were white.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. All of the current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

The school board hires and evaluates the superintendent, sets policy, and votes on controversial issues, such as whether to open new schools or close existing ones. The board voted this year to close three schools with low enrollment, a decision it will likely face again as the number of children living in Denver continues to decrease.

Where the candidates stand on school closures, police

Baldermann steers clear of interpersonal conflict and does not speak much in public board meetings. When he does, it’s often to read a statement he’s prepared about how he will vote. But he’s one of the board’s most active members when it comes to writing policy proposals.

“The good work is boring,” Baldermann said in an interview.

Sia and Baldermann vehemently disagree on a policy Baldermann co-authored to limit the autonomy of district-run innovation schools. Under state law, innovation schools can waive certain district policies, state laws, and parts of the teachers union contract.

The original version of the policy would have required innovation schools in DPS to follow the entire union contract and the state law that grants teachers Colorado’s version of tenure, among other changes. The board eventually passed a scaled-back version of the policy last year — and then backtracked even more. But innovation schools in DPS now have to abide by the state’s teacher tenure law and pay teachers according to the union contract salary schedule.

Baldermann said it’s among the things he’s most proud of. “I’m not against innovative practices,” he said, “but not at the expense of teachers’ statutory and collective bargaining rights.”

Sia, meanwhile, has said she disagrees so much that it’s one reason she decided to run against Baldermann. “Autonomy in innovation schools is critical,” she wrote in Chalkbeat’s candidate questionnaire.

Teachers at innovation schools must vote to approve their school’s waivers. While Baldermann described the board’s new policy as protecting teachers’ rights, Sia has said that limiting the waivers “actually diminishes the innovations that teachers themselves had voted on.”

If elected, Sia wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire that she would “protect the autonomies of innovation schools” by ensuring board policies don’t contradict the schools’ waivers.

Baldermann also wrote a pair of proposals currently under consideration that would deal with declining enrollment in DPS by capping enrollment at some schools, adjusting attendance boundaries, and setting timelines and other rules for school closures. The proposals say DPS should inform communities about “the positive implications of proceeding and the negative implications of not proceeding” with merging under-enrolled schools.

Sia has acknowledged that school closures are likely inevitable. But she said she opposes capping school enrollment and frequently adjusting attendance boundaries for fear of frustrating families. She agrees that the board should follow a set process and timeline for closures, though she said the community should be more involved in the decisions.

Baldermann authored the policy to permanently return police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, to DPS schools after a March shooting inside East High School. He’d voted in 2020 to remove SROs over concerns about the over-policing of Black students, but he said the increase in gun violence in and around schools this year changed his mind.

“This is about deterrence,” he said at a June meeting before the board voted 4-3 to bring back SROs. “If it stops one kid from bringing a loaded gun into a school, I think it’s worth it.”

Sia largely agrees with Baldermann on SROs. She has said she supports the board’s decision to bring SROs back this year. But she has also said she would have voted to remove them in 2020 due to over-policing concerns if there had been a plan in place for operating without them. That’s where the board and the district dropped the ball, she said.

SROs “should not have been removed in the first place without a clear plan in place to be able to support schools,” Sia said at a recent debate co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado.

Who has endorsed them

Baldermann is endorsed by the teachers union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. The union also endorsed him during his first campaign in 2019, and President Rob Gould said in an interview that doing it again was an easy decision.

“The candidates that we’re supporting are the incumbents that are the ones getting the work done,” Gould said. “When we think about Scott, that’s been his focus.”

Sia is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

Denver Families CEO Clarence Burton said his organization is backing candidates “with decades of experience working in our schools or in our communities.” He said that’s “what’s needed to repair the relationship between the community and school board going forward.”

Endorsements often come with money. An independent expenditure committee associated with Denver Families Action has been spending big in the last month on digital advertising and a flurry of mailers, including some attack ads. The committee also spent $250,000 on TV ads, which is unheard of in Denver school board races. Baldermann largely self-funded his 2019 campaign, and he had contributed $77,000 to his own campaign as of Oct. 31 this year.

In DPS politics — and especially in school board elections — the Denver teachers union is often on one side, and groups supportive of charter schools are on the other.

Charters are funded with public dollars but run by independent nonprofit boards, not by DPS. Supporters say charter schools’ autonomy allows them to be innovative. Critics say charters “privatize” public education and siphon students from traditional schools.

Of all the candidates running for school board this year, Baldermann and Sia have the starkest opposing views on charter schools and school choice, which allows students to apply to attend any school they want.

Baldermann has long been critical of charters and choice. His criticisms include that charter school teachers do not need to be licensed, that their independent boards can vote to close the schools — and have — with little advance notice to families, and that school choice creates competition that often results in schools spending money on marketing that he says should be used for the classroom.

“In my first term, nine charter schools closed,” Baldermann said at a recent debate. “It is too risky for us to continue down the path where we have alternate governance models that function more as businesses that close [schools] as if they are a business.”

Sia was head of the local chapter of the national KIPP school network, overseeing six schools in Denver, and was on the board of the Colorado League of Charter Schools from 2018 through June, including a yearlong stint as board chair. She is still a board member of a homegrown Denver charter school network called University Prep.

One of Sia’s children attends a charter school and the other attends a district-run school. She volunteers on parent committees at both schools. She has also noted that she was president of a teachers union in a small school district in California.

“I believe we should strengthen all our schools,” Sia said at a debate.

She emphasized “holding all of our schools to the same levels of accountability” and ensuring “that we are working with the teachers, families, students at those schools to figure out, ‘How can we collaborate and learn from each other?’”

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Scott Baldermann

Kimberlee Sia

Watch the candidates debate here.

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the District 5 race

2023-11-01T19:09:00+00:00

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All three candidates vying to represent northwest Denver’s District 5 on the school board are or were Denver Public Schools parents. But their life experiences, careers, and community ties set them apart, as do their stances on topics such as police in schools and school autonomy.

Charmaine Lindsay, 57, is the incumbent in the race, having been appointed to the seat in June 2022 to fill a vacancy. Her son and stepchildren graduated from DPS, and her grandchildren are current DPS students, including two grandsons who live with her. Lindsay is a family law attorney who works out of her home and represents many clients for free.

Marlene De La Rosa, 59, is one of two challengers for the seat — and the one with the most endorsements and funding. De La Rosa’s children are DPS graduates and she was a very involved volunteer, both at the school and district level, when they were growing up. She’s also a prominent Latina community advocate, and recently retired from a career as an immigration court specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Adam Slutzker, 39, is the father of three kids who are in fourth grade, first grade, and preschool at Columbian Elementary, a district-run school in the Sunnyside neighborhood. Slutzker worked as an elementary school teacher in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools before his oldest child was born. He now works part-time as a real estate agent, contractor, and carpenter.

The winner would represent northwest Denver, a historically Latino part of the city that has seen significant gentrification and demographic change.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

Where the candidates stand on academics, school closures

DPS student test scores fell during the pandemic, but are now rebounding. However, yawning gaps remain between the test scores of white students and those of Black and Latino students.

All three candidates agree that DPS needs to better serve the Black and Latino students who make up the majority in the district. But they have different takes on how to approach it.

Both Lindsay and Slutzker have said DPS relies too much on standardized test scores to tell whether students are at grade level and should consider other measures. Slutzker has suggested asking parents and school staff how students are doing, while Lindsay has said students’ grades in class should be considered.

“If a college student’s achievement is measured by a passing grade in a class, then why shouldn’t the same be true for primary students?” she wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire.

De La Rosa, meanwhile, has said the board should set high academic goals — as high as 90% of students in kindergarten through third grade scoring at grade level on tests — and then direct the superintendent to reach them. Last spring, 58% of DPS students in kindergarten through third grade were reading at grade level, according to tests given per the state’s READ Act.

“We really, really need to focus on early literacy for all of our students,” De La Rosa said at a debate.

Declining enrollment is a big issue in northwest Denver. Higher housing prices have pushed many families out of the city, and there is far more capacity in the region’s schools than there are children to fill the seats.

Lindsay voted in favor this year of closing three small schools, including Fairview Elementary in District 5. She wrote in a Chalkbeat questionnaire that “low enrollment should not be the major criteria in closing any schools,” but she has also defended her Fairview vote by saying there would not have been enough students to open a kindergarten classroom there this fall.

De La Rosa has criticized Lindsay’s vote on Fairview. At a recent debate, she said DPS did not spend enough time in that community talking to families, many of whom live in subsidized housing, about the enrollment projections and preparing them for the transition.

“That affected one of our most disadvantaged populations in our city, and I think that they suffered very tremendously in that decision,” De La Rosa said.

De La Rosa acknowledges some schools may need to close, but she said at a debate that DPS needs “to look at making sure we are working with the communities that would be affected with a sufficient amount of time — at least one school year.” The board voted in March to close Fairview in June and send the students to nearby Cheltenham Elementary this fall.

The school Slutzker’s children attend, Columbian Elementary, was also on the school closure list before Superintendent Alex Marrero pared down the list from 10 schools to three following pushback from the board and community members. The near-closure is what motivated Slutzker to run for school board, he said.

Slutzker said he too felt the recent process was unfair, but he realizes some closures may be necessary.

“I believe we need to look at each situation under a microscope to determine the best path forward,” he wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire. “Closing a school strictly based on low enrollment should not be on the table, but there will be times when schools may have to close due to financial realities.”

Denver schools are funded per student.

Where the candidates stand on school safety

As a board member, Lindsay participated in a closed-door meeting where the board decided to bring back school resource officers, or SROs, the day after a March shooting at East High School. A judge later ruled the meeting violated the open meetings act and ordered the recording of the meeting released after Chalkbeat and other media organizations sued.

Lindsay said at a recent candidate debate that she “led the charge in bringing back” the SROs. Another board member, Scott Baldermann, drafted a memo after the shooting to temporarily bring back SROs, but it is true that Lindsay advocated for their return.

The recording of the meeting, released by the board months later, shows Lindsay didn’t get bogged down in wonky procedural debates or interpersonal spats like other board members did. Typical of her approach on the board, she didn’t speak much. But when she did, it was to argue for the return of SROs.

“How many instances [are there] where some kid is being bullied or threatened by another kid or somebody has a gun and they go tell an SRO officer because they trust this person?” she said during the closed-door meeting.

However, Lindsay has also been criticized for how talked about the need for police in schools, including when she said SROs were needed to stop “minority kids who are likely to carry guns.”

Lindsay voted a few months later to make SROs permanent, but she has noted that officers are stationed at only 13 of the district’s 200 schools, the city is paying for them, and DPS is monitoring to make sure students aren’t getting ticketed or arrested for low-level offenses like marijuana possession.

De La Rosa said she agrees with the decision to bring back SROs. But she has emphasized the need for monitoring to ensure officers aren’t over-policing students of color, as happened in the past, and the need for DPS to provide robust mental health support to students.

De La Rosa has also criticized Lindsay for taking part in that closed-door meeting, writing in a Chalkbeat questionnaire that the board’s “decision to hold a critical safety meeting behind the veil of Executive Session” was “simply wrong” and led to “less trust in our schools.”

Slutzker is the only candidate who disagrees with the SRO decision. But he said that as long as the city is paying for the officers, and DPS is monitoring to make sure SROs are not getting involved in routine student discipline, he’s willing to give them a chance.

“I don’t personally believe that SROs make our schools a safer place,” Slutzker said at a recent debate. “The unfortunate reality is if somebody wants to harm our children in our schools in America, they are going to be able to harm our children in our schools.”

Who has endorsed them

In DPS politics — and especially in school board elections — the Denver teachers union is often on one side, and groups supportive of charter schools are on the other.

Lindsay is endorsed by the teachers union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

De La Rosa is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

Slutzker has not received any major endorsements.

For many years, the Denver school board encouraged new charters to open in DPS, hopeful it would boost academic achievement. Union-backed board members took power in 2019 and stopped that trajectory by rejecting new charters and even closing one for low performance. Meanwhile, declining enrollment has led many charters to close voluntarily.

De La Rosa has said she’d like the board to go in a different direction. She said she believes in giving schools autonomy — which for charter schools and district-run innovation schools means, to varying degrees, freedom from certain state laws, district rules, and teachers union contract provisions — “to help students catch up academically” after the pandemic.

She’s also vigorously defended school choice, which is enshrined in state law and allows students to apply to attend any school they want. “It is important that we do have a portfolio of schools,” De La Rosa said at a recent debate. “Not every school meets every family’s needs. Myself, I did exercise choice in choosing different high schools where my students attended.”

Slutzker has been most critical of school choice and charter schools. He has said that choice, especially as used by wealthier white families, exacerbates racial segregation in schools, and charter schools contribute to declining enrollment in traditional district-run schools.

Lindsay has also offered some criticism of charter schools, but it has been more muted. She said in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire that the board “has an obligation to support our neighborhood schools and make sure they have the resources to meet the needs of students.” Neighborhood schools is how the union and others refer to traditional district-run schools.

At a debate, Lindsay also advocated for lowering the class sizes in district-run schools “to try to make the neighborhood schools more attractive and more competitive.”

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Marlene De La Rosa

Charmaine Lindsay

Adam Slutzker

Watch the candidates debate here.

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers release third draft map for Chicago elected school board

2023-11-01T22:00:04+00:00

As trick-or-treating got underway Tuesday night, Illinois lawmakers released a new draft map for Chicago’s soon-to-be-elected Board of Education.

It’s their third attempt at drawing districts future school board members will represent.

The new map has seven majority Black districts, six where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts — one representing Rogers Park on the North Side and the other representing Portage Park and Old Irving Park on the North West side — are plurality white, with Latinos making up the second-largest population.

Chicago’s Board of Education holds significant power over public schools. School board members approve the district’s annual multi-billion dollar budget, determine how schools are measured and held accountable, authorize contracts with third parties to bus students to and from school, clean classrooms and hallways, and even operate entire schools under charter agreements.

The board has been appointed by the mayor since 1995, when the state legislature gave control of Chicago Public Schools to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. After former Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools in 2013, community organizations and the Chicago Teachers Union began fighting for an elected school board.

Valerie Leonard, with the Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said under mayoral control, school board members were perceived to be not connected to the community.

“People felt — and I was one of them — like they were out of touch with what the community wanted, and they were only responsive to what the mayor wanted,” Leonard said. “It matters to have someone [on the school board] from your community who understands what people in your community are experiencing.”

After many years of advocacy and lobbying, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in 2021 to create a 21-member elected school board with phased-in elections.

Under state law, Chicagoans will elect 10 school board members from 10 districts in November 2024. The mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, and will also appoint a school board president. A 21-member hybrid board will be sworn in January 2025.

Then in November 2026, the 10 appointed members and school board president will be up for election, while the 10 elected in 2024 will continue serving their four-year terms. Going forward, all members will serve four-year terms and elections will be staggered, with half of the seats up for election every two years.

However, the law does not spell out how the map will move from 10 to 20 districts. Lawmakers continue to draw a map with 20 districts and have not made clear how they plan to divide the city into 10 districts for the 2024 election.

Sen. Robert Martwick, a Democrat representing the North West side of Chicago and west suburbs, said that figuring out how to create 10 districts for the 2024 elections and 20 districts for the 2026 elections has been difficult for legislators.

“The original idea was that we would draw ten districts and then after the election we would split them into 20 districts,” Martwick said. “Another variation on that would be to draw 20 districts and combine them for the purposes of the first election. The idea there was that everyone in the city of Chicago would get to pass a vote on this new elected school board.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of the city’s North Side and chairs a special task force of House Democrats working on drawing school board districts, said the transition from 10 districts to 20 is “still under discussion,” but the goal is to vote on a map during next week’s veto session.

“At some point we have to get a map so that people can start looking at the districts and prepare to run for office,” Williams said.

“No map is ever going to be perfect. No map is ever going to make every single person happy,” she added. “But we really truly felt like this is the product that most incorporated the feedback that we got from the communities during all those hearings.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has been a longtime supporter of an elected school board. But when asked through a spokesperson Wednesday if he supported the latest draft or would weigh in on how school board districts are drawn, the spokesperson wrote back: No comment.

Lawmakers were supposed to draw a map of Chicago school board districts by July 1, 2023, but extended the deadline to April 1, 2024 after pushback from the public for not drawing districts that would be reflective of student enrollment.

That’s a difficult task in a city whose population does not mirror the public school enrollment. Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, 29% Black, and 7% Asian, but the school district’s student population is 47% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

School board seats are non-partisan so there will be no primary. According to the Chicago Board of Elections calendar, the first day candidates running for nonpartisan school board seats can circulate nominating petitions is March 26, 2024. They must collect 250 signatures from voters in their districts by June 24, 2024, in order to be on the ballot.

Last week, Martwick and state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat, put forward a proposal that would also allow school board members to be compensated.

Mixed reactions to new draft map roll in

Legislators held two public hearings last month to gather additional feedback on their proposed school board districts. On Wednesday, several of the groups who have repeatedly testified and submitted public comment on previous maps reacted to the latest iteration.

Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit education advocacy organization that supports Black and Latino families and has an Elected School Board Task Force, called the latest proposal “more trick than treat.” The group took lawmakers to task for dropping a new draft map on Halloween when “most Chicago families were out celebrating with their children.”

Hal Woods, director of policy for Kids First Chicago, said the map continues to give white Chicagoans “substantial voting power” over a school district that serves just over 10% white students. He said parents see “more work that could be done.”

“Even with redlining, even with segregation, even with discriminatory housing policies that have forced many Chicago neighborhoods to be segregated … we have put forward prototypes that even with those historical inequities still adhere to all relevant election law,” Woods said.

A group of parents and data advocates called The FOIA Bakery released an analysis of the third draft map that looks at the proposed districts through the lens of the 2023 municipal election results. They say only seven districts in the new draft map would have elected a “minority-preferred candidate.”

But others say the new draft districts are much better than previous versions.

Jeff Fielder, executive director of the Chicago Republican Party, previously raised concerns about gerrymandering and argued for an independent commission to draw the maps. He said the third draft is better than the previous two because it has less gerrymandering.

“I’m sure there’s going to be lawsuits as it is but of their efforts, this is probably the best one,” Fielder said.

Cassie Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, said she’s mostly concerned about not having a map solidified yet.

“The shorter the time between a final map and next year’s election, the worse it is for genuinely grassroots candidates who are trying to decide whether or not to run and then mustering the resources to do so,” Creswell said.

Political consultant Eli Brottman said the new map is “1,000 times better” and called six solid Latino districts a “huge win for our schools and our kids.” He said it took him multiple attempts to draw a map that would have six Latino majority districts.

Brottman said he suspects the lawmakers’ latest draft map has a “significant chance” of passing next week. Whenever that happens, he encourages people to get up to speed on what district they live in and who is running.

“Whoever we elect in these first couple rounds, helps to set a precedent for the future,” Brottman said.

Leonard, whose group Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting put out a 10-district map that tries to align school board districts with City Council wards, said lawmakers are getting closer with this latest iteration. But they need to figure out how their 20 districts become 10 for the 2024 elections, she said.

Corrina Demma, an organizer with Educators for Excellence Chicago that supports the map Leonard’s group proposed, raised concerns that lawmakers could propose residents in only 10 of the 20 districts would vote in 2024, meaning “only half of Chicago will have the privilege to vote … while the other half will lack a voice.”

“We need Illinois lawmakers to get the maps right, for the sake of the 323,000 students that are depending on it,” Demma said.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia voter guide 2023: Where the mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-11-01T14:39:24+00:00

Philadelphia’s next mayor — the city’s 100th — will be in a historic position with the ability to fundamentally change the way schools are run and governed.

In addition to shaping the city’s conversation about school safety, infrastructure, funding, and more, the mayor has the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members. Those members have the responsibility of appointing and evaluating the superintendent, and monitoring the district’s efforts towards improving educational outcomes for all students under their care.

Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh are vying for the seat, and each has put forward distinct platform proposals for education.

Parker is promising year-round school, which she said she envisions not as “children sitting in a classroom at a desk” for 12 months, but something more flexible, with extracurricular and enrichment opportunities available to students all year.

Oh, meanwhile, wants a partially elected school board and a more “horizontal” leadership model with power shared between the superintendent and other chief executives.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Chalkbeat sat down with both candidates and discussed issues affecting Philadelphia’s students, educators, and families at length. You can find Cherelle Parker’s detailed Q&A here, and David Oh’s detailed Q&A here.

Below is a selection of their responses to some of the biggest education questions facing the city. Their answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Jump to a topic:

Charter schools |
School safety |
Infrastructure |
School board |
Teacher shortage

Do you want more charter schools in Philadelphia?

Parker: I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code.

Under a Parker administration, I will not allow anyone to pit traditional publics versus traditional charters to act as if those two are warring factions. They are not. They are two types of schools that are both public that educate children in the school district of Philadelphia

Oh: No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

What would you do about school safety?

Parker: We have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We are going to have community policing in every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. The only time we see law enforcement won’t be because it’s a crisis and someone called 911. They will be a part of the very fabric of our neighborhoods, and that, of course, does mean in and around our schools and buildings.

Oh: [Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

What is your plan to address Philly schools’ facilities needs?

Parker: Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via a School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure.

I’m more concerned with getting it done. We have to get together at the table, agree to what the plan will be. And then we have to be unified in our advocacy and not trying to pick winners and losers with the ultimate goal being focused on our children and doing right by the people who work in those buildings.

Oh: I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

The most direct control the mayor has over education is appointing the school board. Would you make any changes to the board?

Parker: I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.

I will not and do not support an elected school board because if you elect a school board that comes with taxing authority … I trust the [city] council with the taxing authority for the city of Philadelphia. They are our legislative branch.

Oh: I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, [combining the 10 councilmanic districts to make five], but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district

How would you address the teacher shortage?

Parker: We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. … We’re going to make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

Oh: We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

If I wanted to deal with teachers, I would look at recruitment. I would create a more predictable system of how you get paid, and how the pay increases every certain number of years. And it would incentivize staying in Philadelphia longer.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Proposition HH: How the property tax measure would affect school funding

2023-10-30T20:53:04+00:00

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Colorado voters face a complex decision on their November ballots that will affect property tax bills, income tax refunds, and school funding for at least the next decade.

Proposition HH asks: Shall the state reduce property taxes for homes and businesses, including expanding property tax relief for seniors, and backfill counties, water districts, fire districts, ambulance and hospital districts, and other local governments and fund school districts by using a portion of the state surplus up to the Proposition HH cap as defined in this measure?

If that sounds complicated, it is.

Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic lawmakers placed Proposition HH on the ballot this spring as homeowners received new property assessments that increased their values an average of 40%. Lawmakers worried that dramatic property tax increases would hurt businesses and lower income homeowners and give momentum to conservative efforts to cut taxes further.

Proposition HH would reduce how much property value is taxable, blunting the impact of higher assessments. It also would limit how much additional revenue most local governments could collect year over year. School districts would be exempt from that second provision.

This means property owners would pay less under Proposition HH than they would otherwise — but also that park and library districts, fire departments, and school districts would collect less tax revenue than under current law.

At the same time, state government is bringing in more money than ever from income and sales taxes due to a strong economy. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limits how much spending can increase to the rate of population growth plus inflation. Any money collected over that cap — estimated to be $1.9 billion next budget year alone — must be returned to taxpayers as refunds.

Proposition HH would raise the spending limit, allowing the state government to keep more money from existing taxes and reducing future TABOR refunds. The extra money would be used to backfill some of the lost local revenue, shore up the state education fund, and provide rental assistance.

Proponents say Proposition HH balances property tax relief and the need to fund critical government services. It would allow Colorado to protect education funding against future recessions and keep up with inflation. If Proposition HH passes, Colorado could meet its constitutional school funding obligations and then some — something the state hasn’t done for more than a decade.

Opponents of Proposition HH say it’s essentially a tax increase to fund schools — something voters have repeatedly rejected at the state level — disguised as property tax relief. There are no guardrails to ensure the extra money would improve teacher pay or student achievement, they say.

Here’s a closer look at how Prop HH would affect school funding.

How are property taxes and school funding related?

Colorado funds its school with a mix of local property tax revenue and state funding that comes from income taxes, sales taxes, oil and gas revenue, and other sources. Colorado uses a formula to determine how much total funding each school district should get per student. Whatever local taxes don’t cover, state funding makes up the rest.

By limiting the taxable value of property, Proposition HH slows the growth in local revenue and increases the state obligation toward K-12 schools.

Out of a roughly $9 billion K-12 budget, legislative analysts estimate the state would owe school districts an extra $130 million this budget year under Proposition HH, an extra $310 million next year, and another $360 million in the 2025-26 school year.

How would Colorado backfill school district budgets?

Proposition HH would raise the cap on state government spending by 1% a year, allowing the state to keep and spend more money from existing taxes. Less money would be available for TABOR refunds going forward.

That retained revenue would backfill local government budgets. Lawmakers have pledged to hold school districts harmless, meaning they’ll get the same amount of money under Proposition HH as without it. Other local taxing districts, like fire and library districts, would get some backfill but not as much.

State analysts estimate Proposition HH would generate $125 million for schools in the 2024-25 budget year and up to $2.16 billion in the 2031-32 budget year. But the farther out the economic forecast goes, the more uncertainty there is.

Over time, the need for backfill would go down as property values continued to rise, and the state would have more money in the education fund. Depending on economic conditions, this money could allow Colorado to increase school funding or avoid cuts during a recession.

Would Proposition HH get rid of TABOR refunds?

Under current law, Colorado is set to return billions of dollars to taxpayers over the next several years, with higher earners getting larger refunds. Next year, budget analysts estimate taxpayers will receive between $586 and $1,834 depending on how much they earn.

Under Proposition HH, all taxpayers would receive a flat refund of $833 next year, but after that, the state would keep more of the excess money and refunds would be smaller.

Whether money is available for TABOR refunds would depend on economic conditions and how much revenue the state collects. That’s true today as well — some years, taxpayers don’t see any money back.

But under Proposition HH, as the state spending limits got higher, it would become more likely that taxpayers wouldn’t get refunds in the future.

Do Colorado schools need more funding?

Colorado’s school funding is below the national average, despite recent increases. Starting salaries in small rural districts are among the lowest in the nation, and even districts that have raised teacher pay haven’t kept up with the rising housing costs.

Amendment 23, approved by voters in 2000, requires that education funding increase each year at the rate of population growth plus inflation. But that hasn’t happened since 2008. When tax revenues plummeted during the Great Recession, lawmakers started diverting education money to other priorities. This withholding, known as the negative factor or the budget stabilization factor, has added up to more than $10 billion that never went to schools.

Even without Prop HH, Colorado is on track to eliminate the withholding next year. But with spending obligations linked to inflation, and potentially billions needing to be returned to taxpayers under current law, it’s unclear whether Colorado could sustain constitutionally required funding levels into the future. K-12 spending takes up more than a third of Colorado’s general fund, squeezing out other programs, including higher education.

Conservatives say the state could fund schools adequately if lawmakers just prioritized education. They question whether school districts are spending too much on administrative costs instead of paying teachers more.

Progressive education advocates say even meeting Amendment 23 requirements wouldn’t be enough. Adjusting for inflation, that would bring Colorado to 1989 funding levels, while schools today are expected to do a lot more, from providing advanced career and technical education to supporting students’ mental health.

Is Prop HH a property tax measure or a school funding measure?

Supporters have pitched Proposition HH as property tax relief. But back in May, then-Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno called it “a key piece of the solution” to decades of underfunding Colorado schools.

Education groups, including teachers unions and Education Reform Now Advocacy, are major backers of the property tax measure. The Colorado Association of School Boards has also come out in support.

“Any measure that tries to reduce property tax revenue has to account for what happens to school funding,” said Scott Wasserman, president of the left-leaning Bell Policy Center, which supports the measure. “Opponents try to act like a bait and switch. It’s not a bait and switch.”

Wasserman said doing nothing risks provoking a taxpayer backlash that could lead to even stricter limits on the growth of government that would hurt schools. Already, conservative activist Michael Fields has placed a 4% property tax cap on the ballot for 2024.

Along with Republican lawmakers and conservative activists, opponents include the Colorado Municipal League, the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, and the conservative education group Ready Colorado.

An analysis from the Common Sense Institute estimates an extra $9.6 billion would go to education over the next decade under Proposition HH. The analysis notes that school districts don’t have to use the money to raise teacher pay, and there’s no guarantee student outcomes will improve.

“I’ve been surprised to see how much money could be allocated to education without any guardrails,” said Kelly Caufield, the institute’s executive director.

The Common Sense Institute estimates 95% of additional state revenue would go to schools under Proposition HH. But lawmakers aren’t required to increase school funding above Amendment 23 requirements. Caufield said the money could end up freeing up general fund dollars to grow other programs.

Tracie Rainey of the Colorado School Finance Project doesn’t see Proposition HH as a school funding measure, just a way to mitigate the impact of property tax relief.

“If the economy stays strong and if we don’t have an economic downturn and if inflation isn’t running wild, then possibly, down the road, there could be additional dollars,” she said. “There’s a lot of ifs in there that make it hard to know.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the at-large race

2023-10-27T22:46:18+00:00

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One candidate is a longtime educator who supporters say knows Denver Public Schools inside and out and will be ready to make changes on day one. The other is a business leader who grew up in a family of educators and who backers say will bring fresh ideas to the district.

That’s the choice voters face for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

John Youngquist, 57, was a teacher, principal, and school district administrator for 35 years, with much of that time in Denver. He taught or led at four different DPS elementary and high schools, including two stints as the principal of East High School.

Youngquist’s two daughters are students at East, and he is a graduate of Denver’s Thomas Jefferson High School. He now works with a youth-focused organization called GRASP, which stands for Gang Rescue and Support Project.

Kwame Spearman, 39, is co-owner of the storied yet financially troubled Tattered Cover bookstores. His mother is a longtime DPS educator, and Spearman graduated from East High.

Spearman worked in the private sector, including at Bain & Company, before moving back to Denver in 2020 to run the Tattered Cover. He ran for Denver mayor earlier this year but dropped out before Election Day. He stepped down as CEO of Tattered Cover before running for school board.

Two other candidates are also on the ballot for the at-large seat, which represents the entire city.

Brittni Johnson hasn’t campaigned much due to illness and did not respond to multiple requests for interviews. Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race in September but will still appear on the ballot. Votes for Ballenger won’t count.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The winner in the at-large race will replace board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who is not running for re-election.

The current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

Where the candidates stand on the issues

The at-large candidates have emphasized different issues on the campaign trail. Spearman has talked about building affordable housing for educators on DPS-owned land. Youngquist has said he wants to triple the number of student health clinics inside schools.

Spearman also said he’d like to ask Denver voters to raise taxes to pay for student transportation. Youngquist said DPS should create a public, online dashboard with data on student attendance, safety, and academics.

Youngquist and Spearman both want more mental health support for students and good pay for teachers. They both value school choice.

And they both want police officers known as school resources officers, or SROs, in DPS schools right now — but Spearman has pledged to remove SROs by the end of his first term.

“Most of the time an SRO is in a school, they’re not doing what we think of as police activity,” Spearman said in an interview. “They’re literally just sitting.”

He said he understands why SROs are in schools right now, following a fatal shooting outside East High and a shooting inside the school this year — “people are on edge, and we have to respect and understand that” — but he said it is objectively “a clear waste of resources.”

The key to removing SROs is to provide separate alternative schools, with smaller classes and more mental health support, for students with behavior issues, Spearman said.

“The students most likely to make us think we need SROs shouldn’t be in those environments,” he said of big high schools like East. Spearman said he’d like to replace SROs with community officers, though he hasn’t defined what that would look like.

Youngquist agrees that some students would be better served in alternative schools, and he said he’s seen those options dwindle in DPS over time.

“For me, as a principal, what I need are options when I have a student who has demonstrated violent behaviors,” Youngquist said in an interview. “The district has taken away all the options and not provided consult. The district has essentially said, ‘Good luck.’”

As principal of East High in 2020, he opposed the previous board’s decision to get rid of SROs — and he supported the board’s recent decision to bring them back after the March shooting inside East. After the shooting, DPS hired Youngquist as a consultant to interview high school principals and teachers about safety; all said they wanted SROs to return.

“Over time, we need to ensure we develop an understanding of how [SROs] best fit in our schools and where it is that we’re gaining value from them,” Youngquist said at a recent debate.

Who has endorsed them

Spearman is endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the teachers union. Progressive former Denver mayoral candidate Lisa Calderón also endorsed him.

Youngquist is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

For many years, pro-reform Denver school board members encouraged new charters to open in DPS, hopeful they would boost academic achievement. Union-backed board members took power in 2019 and stopped that trajectory by rejecting new charters and even closing one for low performance. Declining enrollment has led many charters to close voluntarily and made it extremely challenging to open new schools.

Spearman has criticized Youngquist for accepting the endorsement of Denver Families Action, which he said at a recent debate is “funded by two people, Reed Hastings and John Arnold” who “are committed to the privatization of our schools.”

Hastings is the co-founder of Netflix and Arnold is a former Enron executive. Both are on the board of The City Fund, a national organization in favor of charter schools and school autonomy. Denver Families for Public Schools gets money — $1.75 million in the last fiscal year — from The City Fund, according to federal tax records.

“The biggest thing that separates me from John is that the educational community has decided to support me,” Spearman said in an interview.

Youngquist has pointed out that he spent his career working primarily with traditional schools, not charter schools. Neither candidate has called for closing charter schools, and both have said they support allowing families to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs.

“We can’t get into the traditional fights between reform and neighborhood schools,” Youngquist said at a recent debate. “We’ve been there before. It hasn’t served our children well…It’s time to come together, sit at the table, [and] design the DPS that our students need.”

Both candidates sat for endorsement interviews with Denver Families Action and the union. Youngquist also took a Denver Families candidate training called Lead 101. He said he did the training to learn what a campaign was like before he decided to run.

Endorsements often come with money. Pro-reform organizations have deeper pockets than the teachers union and their spending is often more opaque.

An independent expenditure committee associated with Denver Families Action has been spending big in the last month on digital advertising and a flurry of mailers, including an attack ad that Spearman decried as racist. The committee also spent $250,000 on TV ads — a first in Denver school board races.

What supporters say

In endorsing Spearman, the Denver teachers union noted that he’s a DPS graduate who comes from a long line of educators. In an interview, union President Rob Gould said Spearman’s advocacy for teacher housing stood out among the candidates, as did his outreach to teachers.

“He met with a variety of individuals to find out: What do educators need? What’s the current status?” Gould said. “What we found is that he was working hard to understand.”

He said Spearman’s approach “is very juxtaposed” with other candidates, whom he declined to name, who act like “they already know the answers.”

Former Denver school board President Nate Easley endorsed Spearman early in the race, before Youngquist jumped in. Easley was also endorsed by the teachers union in his race, but ended up voting with the pro-reform members on the board. Easley said he found Spearman to be a mature, independent thinker who was raised by a strong DPS educator.

Easley said he also likes that Spearman has been a CEO, which to him means Spearman will be innovative. Spearman bought Tattered Cover as part of an investment group when the company was already on rocky financial footing and worked to revive it.

But just this month, after he had stepped down as CEO, the company filed for bankruptcy and is trying to restructure. As CEO, Spearman also faced accusations of workplace bullying and ageism. In an interview, he said, “When you’re an actual leader, you know leadership is hard.”

Easley said his endorsement of Spearman is not a rebuke of Youngquist.

“I think both of them are grown ups,” Easley said. “I like the idea of a DPS graduate whose mom taught in the district and could be in his ear.”

In endorsing Youngquist, Denver Families Action cited his experience as a DPS educator and parent. CEO Clarence Burton said the organization was looking for “the most credible candidates who can speak to a background in education … not just the values they’d bring to the board but can say, ‘We’ve been showing up and doing that work, not just for years but for decades.’”

Educators, parents, and DPS graduates helped interview the candidates for the Denver Families Action endorsement, Burton said, but the final decision was made by the organization’s staff and board chair.

Happy Haynes, another former school board president, also endorsed Youngquist. Haynes typically voted with the pro-reform members in her time on the board.

“As an educator, they don’t come better,” she said of Youngquist.

Spearman has criticized Youngquist for the yawning gaps in test scores between white students, who score high, and Black and Latino students, who score lower. Haynes said she admires Youngquist’s efforts to close those gaps. She cited an effort at East to enroll all freshmen into honors courses and provide extra academic support to those who needed it.

In 2022, the last year Youngquist was at East, the number of white 11th graders who met expectations in literacy on the SAT was 47 percentage points higher than the number of Black 11th graders who met expectations. That gap was a little worse than the gap at Northfield High, the city’s second-largest high school behind East, and a little better than the gap at third-largest South High.

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Kwame Spearman

John Youngquist

Watch Spearman and Youngquist debate here.

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Spending in Denver school board election tops $1.3 million, including on a mailer decried as racist

2023-10-27T22:28:48+00:00

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With a little more than a week until Election Day, spending in the Denver school board race has surpassed $1.36 million, fueled largely by one group that has spent big, including on an attack ad that the targeted candidate decried as a racist dog whistle.

That group — Better Leaders, Stronger Schools — is an independent expenditure committee funded largely by Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools. The organization was founded in 2021 with the backing of local charter school networks and its board is populated by charter leaders.

In Denver Public Schools politics, pro-charter organizations like Denver Families Action are on one side and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association union is on the other. So far, the charter group is outspending the teachers union by about 4 to 1.

Pro-charter organizations are fighting to gain back a seat at the decision-making table. After years of a pro-charter majority on the Denver school board, the balance of power flipped in 2019. Today, all seven current members of the Denver school board were backed by the teachers union. With just three of the seven seats up for grabs Nov. 7, the election won’t change the majority. But it could change the board’s discussions.

Though Denver school board races have been million-dollar elections for several cycles, this year’s spending is notable. Pro-charter Better Leaders, Stronger Schools spent $250,000 on television ads featuring Denver Mayor Mike Johnston endorsing three candidates who were also endorsed by Denver Families Action: John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia. It’s the first TV ad in memory for Denver school board candidates.

The pro-charter committee has also sent several negative mailers, including one featuring a sad white child on one side and candidate Kwame Spearman, who is Black, on the other.

In an interview, Spearman called the juxtaposition “dog whistling.”

Clarence Burton, CEO of Denver Families Action, did not respond to a request for comment.

One side of a mailer attacking candidate Kwame Spearman.

Independent expenditure committees do the dirty work in political campaigns. They are not allowed to coordinate with the candidates, and they don’t have to disclose their donors, which is why they’re often referred to as “dark money” or “outside spending.”

The pro-charter spending seems more concentrated and strategic this year in that it’s being funneled through one committee rather than several as in years past. Better Leaders, Stronger Schools had spent a whopping $1 million total as of Oct. 25, according to campaign finance reports on file with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

The big spending started later than usual, likely because the Denver Classroom Teachers Association waited until early October to finalize its endorsements. The teachers union is backing candidates Spearman, Charmaine Lindsay, and Scott Baldermann. The union has its own independent expenditure committee called Students Deserve Better.

The negative mailer accuses Spearman, who’s running for an at-large seat on the board, of being a bully. Spearman is a DPS graduate and the son of an educator, and he co-owns the Tattered Cover bookstores. The mailer notes that Tattered Cover employees accused him of bullying while he was CEO. He has since stepped down from that role.

“To evoke and call me a bully, and on the other side [of the mailer] to have a white child, it’s very clear what they were trying to do,” Spearman said.

The mailer also brings up comments Spearman made about homelessness, crime, and immigration during his brief run for Denver mayor earlier this year. And it says he wrote “several sexist newspaper articles” when he was a college student. Spearman is 39 years old.

“It’s very obvious Denver Families has some kind of polling that indicates I’m doing very well,” Spearman said, “and instead of focusing on issues and what they want to do for the district, they’ve dug up stuff from my college days to put together this stew to show that I’m a bully.

“It’s a turning point in this race.”

Spearman called on Johnston, who endorsed Spearman’s opponent, to denounce the mailer.

“Mayor Johnston did not send the mailer,” spokesperson Jordan Fuja said in an email. “He endorsed candidates with strong educational experience who could bring change to the board.”

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools has also sent negative mailers about Baldermann and Lindsay, the two incumbents in the race. Both Baldermann and Lindsay are white. The mailers targeting them mostly focus on their political records.

This is not the first time a Denver school board candidate has raised concerns about negative mailers being racist. In 2019, two Latina candidates decried a mailer sent out by the teachers union’s independent expenditure committee they said erased their identities by leaving off their Latino surnames. The union-funded committee apologized for the mailer.

In 2017, a union-funded committee sent a mailer featuring photos of former President Donald Trump and his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos alongside a photo of Angela Cobián, a Latina candidate who won her election. “I know what racism feels like, so this isn’t new,” Cobián told Chalkbeat at the time. “But I am deeply pained.”

Chalkbeat Colorado Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer contributed to this report.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How Cherelle Parker answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:58+00:00

If Philadelphia voters cast their ballots in line with their party registration this November, Democrat Cherelle Parker is all but guaranteed to become the city’s 100th mayor. She will also be the first woman, and the first Black woman, to hold the office.

Parker is a former City Council member and state representative who has a degree in education from Lincoln University and worked briefly as an English teacher in Pleasantville, NJ. She is running against Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

The next mayor will have the responsibility of appointing the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent, and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

Parker’s campaign has already begun shaping education conversations in the city. Her pledge for “year-round school” was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington, who incorporated a pilot program into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

Inspired by reader submissions, Chalkbeat asked both candidates to weigh in on the city’s most pressing education issues: school funding, safety, infrastructure, school board appointments, charter schools, and more. You can find Oh’s detailed Q and A here.

Here, Parker clarifies that for her, year-round school doesn’t mean more seat time in traditional classrooms, but vacation breaks spread throughout the calendar year and shortened during the summer, along with more enrichment activities for students. She also reiterates that she would favor putting more city funds into schools by increasing the district’s share of the city property tax, its largest source of local money.

She did not rule out creating more charter schools: “I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” Unlike Oh, she does not favor electing members of the school board.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Year-round school has been the centerpiece of your education platform. Tell us more how you envision that working.

When people heard me describe access to year-round school, I was not referring to our children sitting in a classroom at a desk, like we do during a traditional school day. But rather, it will … ensure that everyone has access to not just our traditional school curriculum, but academic enrichment programs, tutoring, homework help after school, and access to any workforce development and life skills opportunities that we could offer during out-of-school time.

Year-round education also references being innovative with scheduling. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever get time off. It could be two weeks here, two weeks here, three weeks here. All of our children … aren’t in the Hamptons or the shore all summer long. So for those children for whom those kinds of familial opportunities aren’t a part of their real lives, how do we structure our traditional school year in a way that makes good economic sense and is worth the educational investment for them?

Do you have any more specifics about how this would work and have you talked to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ union about this?

The way I design things, they won’t be designed without the PFT, without our administrators, without our parents, without the external stakeholders, and subject matter experts all at the table figuring out, how do we make this work? … That has not been figured out, but that’s the purpose of putting out the concept. Stakeholders come together and we figure out a way to make it work. And that’s how I go about doing things.

Maybe some other people would love to be able to offer a plan and very specifically say, “This is how it’s going to work and this is what you’re going to do in a Parker administration.” That’s a recipe for disaster. This is a concept that I have in my mind. If I am the mayor, we are going to have year-round educational opportunities for our children. What does it specifically look like when it’s baked and done? I don’t have the specifics for you right now.

There is a basic foundation to public education, that we should in no way shape or form attempt to usurp. But I will tell you that it is in no way sufficient for everything that our children should be learning today.

The most direct power the mayor has over education in Philadelphia is by appointing the school board. Do you intend to replace any of the Board of Education members?

I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.

Your opponent David Oh has talked about shifting to a partially elected school board. Is that something you would support or do you think the current model is working?

Who do you think would have access to the resources to run a citywide campaign to get elected to a school board? It would be those who are boosted by very special interests.

What is your position on charter schools? The Board of Education has not approved a new charter school since 2018, do you think that there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code. I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are … Some people are not going to like it, but I’m going to unify educational institutions in the city of Philadelphia to work together to help our young people.

I want to see our traditional publics, our traditional charters or parochial schools, and even the private schools — I want to see the leadership all coming together to say this is what we’re doing. Is there a way as educational leaders … that we can add value to each other’s delivery of education? Can we leverage working together, and any supports or services that could benefit young people? Can we share or steal an idea?

I’m always looking to see what other cities and states and countries and nations are doing relative to public education … we haven’t thought big enough and broad enough because everybody’s so accustomed and comfortable working in silos, my mind doesn’t work that way.

Do you support Councilman Thomas’s proposal for a school building authority that would help the school district deal with flaking asbestos and other issues relating to safety and modernization of its buildings?

Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure. I’m not wedded to any way, I’m actually still right now reviewing what that means.

How do you expect to pay for some of the big policy ideas you’ve put forward?

I would be open to exploring increasing the school district’s portion of our property taxes from 55%, potentially to 58%. And that would add an additional $50 million in additional revenue.

That couldn’t be done alone. You have to have an intergovernmental strategy that’s state, local, and federal. You also need the philanthropic community, you need the business community. We cannot try to address these issues in silos that we’ve got to bring people together to say this is the plan, this is what we need from you and you and you and how are we going to work together in order to make it happen?

Our district is historically underfunded, we get it. The court case [ruling Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional] is extremely important, and potentially increasing our school district’s portion of our property taxes, but we also have to be demonstrating that we’re trying to do things differently here. People are not going to talk about providing additional support and funding to the school district until they see us trying to do something different [in the city.].

Gun violence is also a major issue affecting students, educators, and school communities. What are your proposals for improving school safety?

I welcome everyone to take a look at my comprehensive neighborhood safety community policing plan … we have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We cannot talk about [education] without talking about trauma, mental and behavioral health support. We can’t talk about public education without the need for nurses and counselors and therapy for our children. A holistic approach to delivering public education helps us with public safety.

How does policing fit into that?

How can anyone shout we should be defunding the police when we should be focused on a holistic approach that does include community policing? … [We should] have officers who are not there as warriors but as guardians, working in partnership with our public safety office in the school district, with SEPTA and with other institutions so that we can have a holistic, comprehensive approach

I don’t apologize to anybody about making that a priority, because every child deserves to feel safe in school, and we should do everything that we possibly can to ensure it.

School was a lifeline for a person who grew up in poverty like me. … Every school should be a community school.

What’s your plan to address the teacher shortage and grow the teacher pipeline?

We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. We should be creative and incentivizing this … first we’re gonna make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

We’re going to see shortages across the board if we don’t find a way to use non-traditional strategies to market and encourage people to become residents of our great city.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How David Oh answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:53+00:00

Though the voter registration rolls are against him, Republican mayoral candidate David Oh thinks he sees a path to victory in Philadelphia, and that path starts with the city’s schools.

Voters are “not coming out because of the pomp and ceremony. They’re not coming out because of the noise, they’re coming out because they want a change,” Oh said in a recent interview at his campaign office in Northeast Philadelphia. “People want to believe there is a better future for them. And schools are where it can happen.”

Oh, a former City Council member, is running against the heavily favored Democrat Cherelle Parker, who also served on council and was a state representative. In Philadelphia, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans seven to one.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Oh said he favors holding elections for five of the nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education while the mayor would appoint the remaining four. That would in effect cede the mayor’s primary influence over education in Philadelphia, which is to appoint all members of the board that governs the district.

Oh did not go into detail into how such a hybrid board would work with respect to issues like taxing power. Now, the appointed school board relies on the City Council to allot local tax dollars to the schools. Parker said she opposes an elected board because she wants the council to keep taxing power.

But Oh said that having elected members would make the board more responsive to community concerns. He proposed combining the 10 current councilmanic districts (districts that are aligned with those represented on the City Council) into five, and electing one from each district.

He said he would also seek to promote “equity in resources and facilities” and beef up vocational education. On charter schools, he said: “I am not for or against. I am for good public schools.”

An attorney, Oh was born and raised in Southwest Philadelphia, where he still lives, and represented on the council from 2012 until he resigned to run for mayor earlier this year.

He reiterated that the major issue facing the next mayor is crime — in the city and in the schools. He contends that reducing crime will have a beneficial effect on education by attracting more people to teach in the city and reducing student trauma, among other things.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your proposals for improving school safety?

[Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable. I say ‘when you’re in our custody, you’re in our care’ for people who we arrest. When you’re in our schools, you’re in our care.

I think a lot of our problems come from the fact that people feel neglected. They feel like nobody cares about them, they feel like they have no future.

I think, although well intended, to not provide police, to not provide discipline, to not provide that shows you don’t care when kids are getting killed, shot, and hurt.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

How would you address the teacher shortage?

We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

The low pay with no visible steps — the more experience you have in Philadelphia, what do you get? What is your future there? And so a lot of teachers look at Philadelphia as their public service time … we lose too many good teachers, and they really want to be here. They want to be a part of the community.

You’ve said you would support an elected school board. How would that work? What would you do when you first take office, before you could change from an appointed to elected board?

I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district. … In other words, I would rather have the community tied in with the schools and have some level of tailoring language, culture, educational options, things like that. And recognition of religious issues that are important to their community.

What would your education priorities be as mayor?

Safety in the school, which is a big problem. Number two, it would be equity in resources and facilities ... and I would return the standards of academics, vocational career training, and then I’d try to create a VET program like they do in Germany, Switzerland — vocational educational training.

If someone wants to get certified in a good vocation, there’s a program that I would try to work out with [lawmakers in] Harrisburg, where you do ninth and 10th grade in business theory, academics, all that related to what your career is. Then in 11th and 12th grade, you do part-time [at a] workplace.

What changes would you make to the way the school district is organized?

I’m not really a fan of the way schools are run now with a superintendent in charge of everything … I think it has to be a little more horizontal. There should be a chief innovation officer for technology. One that doesn’t get fired or demoted by the superintendent.

I don’t think the school board should be in the school administration building at all … you have to let the administrators administrate. Let the teachers teach, let the principals be the principals, let the facilities [workers] do the facility, the police do the police and the board looks at the overall but without any interest, without any conflicts.

A Commonwealth Court judge recently ruled the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional and many school districts, including Philadelphia, are underfunded. What would you change about the system?

The city is very wasteful. And nobody likes to hear that, or they already know it.

The poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia are overtaxed. They have a lot of anxiety, they have a lot of problems, they have a lot of violence and all kinds of things. It’s illegal and it’s unfair.

I would … audit the [property tax] assessment process… we have to create fairness in taxation. … Otherwise, we’re going to drive all our poor folks out of the neighborhood with their kids who go to schools.

I believe the city should contribute more money from the money it has..the taxes have to be accurate, if they are higher, no problem. If they’re lower, whatever they are, they have to be accurate.

The current system is abusive to the poor, the vulnerable, and the low income and that is resulting in a lot of other problems that are very expensive.

That is having a devastating effect on our city. A lot of the problems we face are from people who feel targeted by a bullying, hateful government that doesn’t care about them … they could see it in schools and the libraries and places like that. I would correct that property tax.

How would you deal with the school infrastructure issues like damaged asbestos?

I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … In this city, since the colonial days, schools have been a place of political payback.

I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

Do you think there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

I would look at the mayor as someone who’s responsible for education for every child … whether it’s at a charter school, a neighborhood public school, a magnet school, a private school, at religious school, or whatever it is, it’s a school … [and it] is the mayor’s responsibility. One of the biggest jobs a mayor can do is to raise the money to put into education.

Would you support private school vouchers?

I think I’m for them.

If [private school families] are going to pay their taxes and send your kids to another school and pay for that, that helps us … it helps us to have them pay their taxes and have open seats … I would like to give them a tax break, to encourage them to do that so I can get the benefits of their tax dollars and those open seats.

If we had more people paying taxes, and paying for their own tuition, we’d have more money, more room in schools. So in that sense, I’m for it.

How would you improve trust between the school district and the communities it serves?

Our issue is how do we deliver a good quality education, a meaningful education in a way that shows the children in our care in our worst neighborhoods, that they have hope for the future? … As a mayor, I have to answer that question.

I think the problem with this whole situation is that the public does not trust the schools anymore … it’s all a scam to them.

You’re going to have to show them a visible difference from almost day one. The neighborhood looks different, the school’s different, the library hours have changed, the whole delivery of services is different.

You have to build credibility. We have such pessimistic people in this city. And it’s one of our biggest problems. Many of them don’t believe school matters, quite frankly, they just see school as a place to send kids and just occupy their time there.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 12 school board candidate sent dozens of CRT-obsessed emails

2023-10-26T19:29:10+00:00

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As a candidate for school board, Ben Helgeson says he wants to serve as a bridge between parents and teachers, opening up dialogue and restoring trust.

As a parent, Helgeson sent dozens of emails to district administrators, teachers, and union leaders accusing a teacher of being a “priestess” of critical race theory, accusing the union of pushing a racist, religious ideology, and accusing Superintendent Chris Gdowski of being complicit in it all.

Helgeson is part of a slate of conservative candidates seeking to shift the balance of power in Adams 12 Five Star Schools, a diverse suburban district north of Denver. It’s one of dozens of Colorado districts seeing contested school board races this year shaped by religious and political divisions. Teachers unions and conservative groups are spending big in an effort to sway voters.

In Adams 12, the public rhetoric is more muted. Candidates on both sides talk about paying teachers more, improving academic outcomes, and keeping students safe. But Helgeson also is deeply concerned the teachers union is pushing critical race theory into Adams 12 classrooms.

Chalkbeat obtained many of Helgeson’s emails through a public records request. Some were redacted or withheld. Helgeson’s first complaints involved quarantines and masking rules, but soon he was writing almost entirely about critical race theory. Critical race theory is an academic field that analyzes how race is embedded in American laws and policies, but it has become a catch-all term for progressive approaches in education.

Helgeson wrote that teacher training courses offered by the Colorado Education Association on books like Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be an Antiracist” were themselves systematically racist and would pave the way to authoritarianism. An Adams 12 high school teacher led one of the courses.

In one email, which bore the subject line “Happy Memorial Day and Addressing Inconsistencies,” Helgeson linked to a proposal from Kendi that the United States should create a Department of Anti-racism to monitor policies and public officials’ statements and intervene to prevent racial disparities.

“That would mean, for example, that Ibram or one of his racial gestapo deputies could enter my home, slaughter my family, harvest our organs, take all of our material possessions and financial resources and re-allocate them as they determine, in accordance with their supreme power,” Helgeson wrote.

Helgeson said in an interview with Chalkbeat that he stands behind the substance of what he wrote, including his fears that anti-racism could lead to bloodshed, but he has some regrets about how he expressed himself.

“I’ll be honest,” he said. “That was me feeling like they’re not going to listen to me anyway, so I’ll say whatever I want to say. I felt like I was told to basically shut up.”

Political divisions hard to discern in Adams 12

The 35,000-student Adams 12 district is the sixth largest in Colorado and serves a diverse student body that is 42% white, 44% Latino, and 6.5% Asian American. More than 45% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, a measure of poverty. Those students are concentrated in the southern part of the district, while the northern half is more affluent.

The district is also politically diverse, with a large share of unaffiliated voters, and saw bitter disagreements over remote learning, masks, and quarantines during the first year of the COVID pandemic.

Two years ago, while conservatives won board majorities in many Republican-dominated parts of Colorado, the blue and purple communities along the Front Range mostly saw union-backed candidates who favored progressive approaches prevail. Conservatives picked up seats here and there, including one on the Adams 12 board.

This year, conservative education group Ready Colorado is backing Helgeson, Rebecca Elmore, and Ken Murphy-Montoya, while the teachers union is backing incumbent board president Lori Goldstein and newcomers Paula Battistelli and Alexis Marsh-Holschen.

Libertarian Brian Klein is running independently.

In questionnaires posted on the Adams 12 district website, candidates describe their deep ties to the district and their commitment to improving education. Political divides are hard to discern. Mailers from independent expenditure committees, though, are making the divisions clearer. Helgeson and Murphy-Montoya also participated in a voter guide prepared by Transform Colorado, a group that seeks to “restore biblical values in the public square.” They answered questions about pronouns, parental rights and sex education.

Equity audit, anti-racist training prompted emails

Helgeson worked as a teacher in neighboring Westminster Public Schools for 19 years. He names Thomas Sowell, an economist, professor, and prominent Black conservative, as an inspiration. Helgeson was placed on unpaid leave in October 2021 because he refused to get vaccinated against COVID. He sued the district. Court records show he reached a settlement last year. In an interview, he described this as a time of grief and suffering, but said it also opened a door to a new opportunity as the manager of a fly fishing business.

If elected, Helgeson said he would work to recruit and retain experienced teachers with higher pay, signing bonuses, and incentives to work in high poverty schools. He would promote co-teaching and disciplinary practices that support safe schools, he said.

“The campaign that he’s running is not representative of the person that I experienced,” the teacher who was targeted in Helgeson’s emails told Chalkbeat. “At least stand in who you are as a person. If you are going to make threats to educators, at least be authentic and not this other person.”

Asked if his responses to candidate questionnaires would give voters enough information to understand where he stood on controversial issues, Helgeson said that was a good question, and he doesn’t know. If the district stays focused on academics, it shouldn’t come up, he added.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, the teacher asked to remain anonymous because she fears further harassment. She said Helgeson never directly called for her to be fired, but she was alarmed by how he described her in his emails and that he emailed her again after Gdowski told Helgeson not to. It was especially upsetting to be accused of supporting authoritarian beliefs because her family includes people killed and imprisoned by both the Nazis and the Soviets, she said. In one email, Helgeson told the teacher and Gdowski the “cautionary tale” of a California teacher who resigned under pressure after a viral video showed him making left-wing statements. A district investigation also found he violated policy.

District administrators had previously told Helgeson that CRT was not taught in Adams 12. A letter from Gdowski to parents describing a planned equity audit was evidence to the contrary, Helgeson wrote, describing equity as “the holy grail of Critical Race Theorists. It’s their god.”

Correspondence shows district leaders were concerned about the volume and tone of the emails and discussed how best to respond. Helgeson says now that he particularly regrets calling the superintendent “an enemy of the state” and a “complete failure.” The school board is responsible for hiring and supervising the superintendent. Helgeson said he was deeply frustrated at the time, didn’t appreciate the competing pressures Gdowski was under, and “was encouraged by other parents who were saying far worse.”

Helgeson still has concerns about training courses offered by the union.

“A parent might hear from a school that CRT is not part of a given curriculum, but a course like that is designed not necessarily to come up with curriculum but to embed some of these ideas that are highly politically charged, unproven, and even religious into the classroom,” he said in an interview.

The teacher targeted by Helgeson said her anti-racist philosophy is about being aware of her own biases and accounting for them so she can be a better teacher, not about any lessons she teaches to students. In the classroom, she said she’s very careful about keeping her political beliefs private so students can reach their own conclusions.

Asked what he would do about these courses, which teachers pay for and take on their own time, if elected, Helgeson hedged. He’s just one person, he said, and there would need to be a conversation. But he wants parents to know what kind of training teachers are seeking out, and said teachers should only move up the salary schedule when they take courses the district deems useful.

Teachers who engage in what he sees as political indoctrination from any direction, he said, may be well-intentioned and should be given an opportunity to change their ways. But if they don’t, “now you have a political mercenary and not a public educator.”

The election is Nov. 7.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Guía para votar: Conoce a los 5 candidatos al consejo escolar de Aurora

2023-10-20T18:56:16+00:00

Read in English.

Este año los electores de Aurora votarán por hasta tres miembros nuevos para el consejo escolar de las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora.

Todos los puestos del consejo escolar de Aurora estarán en la boleta, lo cual significa que cada elector del distrito puede votar por sus tres candidatos preferidos, y ganarán los que más votos reciban. El consejo tiene siete miembros.

Habrá cinco candidatos para los tres puestos en la boleta del 7 de noviembre: Max García, la incumbente Vicki Reinhard, María Saucedo, Danielle Tomwing y Tiffany Tasker.

La unión de maestros de Aurora, que ha luchado por llegar a un acuerdo salarial con el distrito este año, ha endosado a Reinhard, Tomwing y Tasker.

Le hicimos las mismas preguntas a los candidatos a la junta escolar para ayudar a los electores a conocer mejor a cada uno antes de votar. Lee sus respuestas a continuación. Las respuestas pueden haber sido editadas por cuestiones de formato, pero por lo demás se muestran tal como fueron recibidas.

Saucedo no contestó ninguna de las preguntas.

Háblenos un poco de usted y de su conexión con el distrito. ¿Cuánto tiempo ha vivido en el distrito escolar? ¿A qué se dedica?

Vicki Reinhard: Soy maestra jubilada y comencé mi carrera en la secundaria Lewis & Clark Junior High de Omaha, NE, enseñando un bloque de estudios sociales y lenguaje para 8º grado durante 4.5 años. En 1987 me mudé a Colorado con mi esposo y dos hijos pequeños, y nos establecimos en Aurora, donde empecé a trabajar como maestra sustituta en las escuelas públicas de Aurora y Cherry Creek. También trabajé en el Excelsior Youth Center, primero como orientadora y luego como maestra. Mientras estaba allí, obtuve un título en Educación Especial de la Universidad de Denver que me llevó a un puesto como maestra de educación especial primaria en las escuelas públicas de Aurora. Ocupé ese puesto durante 25 años - los primeros 20 fueron en Kenton, los últimos 5 en Montview. Mis hijos son ambos graduados de la Rangeview High School. Aurora es nuestro hogar; llevamos 30 años viviendo en esta comunidad.

Danielle Tomwing: Mi familia ha vivido en el noroeste de Aurora desde hace 14 años. Mi esposo y yo queríamos que nuestras hijas crecieran en una comunidad que reflejara nuestros valores de diversidad y sentido de comunidad. Mis 2 hijas van a la escuela en el distrito APS. Mis casi 5 años de experiencia en el gobierno de un consejo escolar, en particular durante la pandemia, me han dado una visión increíble de lo que se necesita para tomar decisiones difíciles que impacten a nuestra comunidad escolar - una escuela que atiende a niños de 26 nacionalidades y una población estudiantil en la que un 80% de los estudiantes reciben almuerzos gratuitos y a precio reducido. En los 2 años como miembro activo del Comité Asesor de Rendición de Cuentas del Distrito en APS, he tenido la oportunidad de escuchar a los maestros, padres y personal de todo nuestro distrito y aprender las organizaciones que componen al distrito de escuelas públicas de Aurora. Soy directora en una organización de salud y tengo experiencia trabajando con equipos internacionales.

Tiffany Tasker: Crecí y viví en el distrito escolar toda mi vida, y me encanta pasar tiempo con mi familia. Soy estudiante y ‘tía-mamá’ de mi sobrina, ya que ayudo a mi hermana en su crianza y también asisto a tiempo completo a la Universidad de Colorado Denver, donde estoy cursando un Doctorado en Educación y Liderazgo para Equidad Educativa en Comunidades Urbanas y Diversas. También en las tardes ofrezco programas de educación financiera para el Centro de Educación Financiera y Transformación Económica, y soy maestra sustituta en las Escuelas Públicas de APS. Aparte de eso, soy instructora de CU Anschutz Pre-Health Scholars y maestra de CU Succeed.

Max García: Creo sinceramente que los años de experiencia que tengo enseñando y capacitando en el salón de clases y en el campo de juego, trabajando diligentemente con estudiantes de diversos orígenes sociales, raciales y económicos, junto con los retos que ellos enfrentan, me convierten en un excelente candidato. Mi pasión y deseo es que esta y las futuras generaciones de estudiantes amen la escuela, como yo lo hice y lo sigo haciendo, y que puedan tener éxito en todo lo que pongan su corazón, mente y fuerza. Ya sea una educación superior con una carrera específica en mente, ser empresario(a) o dedicarse a oficios que están pagando más de seis dígitos. Como miembro del consejo escolar trabajaré incansablemente para asociarme con y unir a otros con el fin de que juntos podamos volver a enfocarnos en el bien y el bienestar de los niños a los que se nos ha dado la oportunidad de guiar y hacer crecer en sus años más importantes.

¿Cuál cree que es el problema más grande que están enfrentando las escuelas de Aurora ahora, y cómo espera tener un impacto en ese problema como miembro del consejo escolar?

Reinhard: Satisfacer las necesidades de nuestra tan diversa comunidad es un reto diario. Tenemos que asegurar que estemos brindando una educación equitativa a todos nuestros estudiantes en un distrito que representa a más de 160 países y habla 130 idiomas. Los recursos curriculares tienen que ajustarse/adaptarse para atraer y llegar a todos nuestros estudiantes. Hay que apoyar al personal y a los maestros, y darles las herramientas necesarias para hacer ajustes y preparar lecciones culturalmente relevantes, y hay que escucharlos en cuanto a qué está funcionando y qué no. Todo esto requiere fondos. Podemos trabajar con la legislatura para mejorar la asignación de fondos a las escuelas. Cuando mejoremos en esa área, podremos avanzar más y ofrecer la educación diversa necesaria para nuestra población estudiantil, que también es sumamente diversa.

Tomwing: Aurora tiene el reto único de enfrentar una matrícula que está reduciéndose, pero también cambiando. A medida que Aurora siga expandiéndose, seguirá teniendo el reto de satisfacer las necesidades de los estudiantes que viven en urbanizaciones nuevas a la vez que equilibra las necesidades de los que viven en áreas ya establecidas. El mayor problema al que se enfrenta el distrito de APS es satisfacer las diversas necesidades de los estudiantes en todo el distrito con un enfoque en cerrar la brecha de la desigualdad mientras la ciudad evoluciona y crece.

La accesibilidad a los recursos es clave para resolver las desigualdades en nuestras escuelas. Las escuelas están estratégicamente situadas en nuestras comunidades Se necesitan escuelas centradas en la comunidad que brinden los recursos y servicios integrales que cada comunidad escolar necesita. Este sistema de apoyo eleva a todos y crea una comunidad más fuerte para nuestros niños, especialmente los de comunidades desfavorecidas. Nosotros podemos proporcionar el apoyo adicional que necesita nuestra comunidad escolar reforzando nuestras colaboraciones.

Tasker: El mayor problema enfrenta el distrito de Aurora ahora es la necesidad de respuesta cultural y equidad en el ambiente laboral y de aprendizaje. Es esencial proporcionar equidad y relevancia cultural porque se ha demostrado en investigaciones que un ambiente de trabajo culturalmente más receptivo, equitativo y seguro hace que los maestros y estudiantes sean más eficaces y productivos, y aumenta la retención.

Garcia: La prioridad número uno que enfrenta el distrito de APS es la falta de competencia estandarizada de nuestro estudiantado en todas las áreas de lectura, escritura, matemáticas y ciencias. Francamente, los resultados recientes del CMAS son desalentadores. La tasa de graduación entre nuestros estudiantes de secundaria está en 65%, el nivel más bajo de todos los tiempos, algo inaceptable y ambos deben resolverse de inmediato. La gobernanza establecida por el consejo y los documentos fundacionales claramente enfatiza los “resultados académicos de los estudiantes”, y si el consejo va a ser eficaz, competente y responsable ante sus electores, estos asuntos deben estar primero en la lista de las prioridades que afrontamos como equipo.

A los críticos del distrito les preocupa que Aurora no haya contado históricamente con una buena participación de la comunidad. ¿Cómo sería una buena relación de la comunidad con el consejo y el distrito?

Reinhard: Toda la comunicación de la APS debe ofrecerse como mínimo en los 10 idiomas más hablados por nuestra población. Debe estar disponible en varios medios, como mensajes de teléfono, por escrito y en publicaciones en las redes sociales. La comunicación debe ser frecuente y también incluir tanto los éxitos como las áreas que necesitan mejorar. Cuando se tomen decisiones importantes, debemos ofrecer sesiones de información tanto virtuales como en persona que se adapten a distintos horarios. Las sesiones de preguntas y respuestas deben ofrecerse después de la presentación del tema de actualidad e incluir preguntas espontáneas enviadas por la audiencia, no solamente las que los moderadores hayan seleccionado previamente. Otro medio de acercamiento a nuestra comunidad son las encuestas. APS ha hecho un buen trabajo ofreciendo encuestas sobre las decisiones que se están considerando, pero podemos mejorar la revisión y publicación de las respuestas y cómo hacer seguimiento. Siempre debemos escuchar las opiniones sobre la participación de nuestra comunidad.

Tomwing: Con la diversidad que tenemos también existe el reto de lograr la participación de nuestra comunidad escolar. La participación en foros comunitarios o encuestas de distrito es mínima. En un informe reciente de un proveedor externo para recibir opiniones de las partes interesadas, hubo 2,384 participantes y se notó que hay una gran oportunidad para aumentar la participación y las aportaciones de la comunidad. Participación de la comunidad significa que todas nuestras partes interesadas y comunidades afectadas participen y estén representadas. Tanto nuestra comunidad escolar como los padres están compitiendo con una sobrecarga de información. El distrito necesita ser intencional y creativo con las iniciativas de acercamiento y los mensajes. Tenemos que acercarnos a los padres, familias y nuestra comunidad donde están, y seguir trabajando para fomentar relaciones auténticas en toda nuestra comunidad escolar, ya sea a través de personas que representen a nuestras comunidades escolares y con un el sistema que elimine las barreras de idioma. La simple idea de ofrecer servicio de guardería en las reuniones del consejo puede aumentar la participación de los padres

Tasker: Una buena participación de la comunidad consiste en conectar y tener una comunicación abierta entre familias, maestros, líderes de la comunidad y escuelas; por lo tanto, todos deben tener un asiento en la mesa y debemos escuchar realmente sus preocupaciones con respecto a APS. De este modo estaremos creando un ambiente inclusivo y orientado a la comunidad.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un email a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Watch: Denver school board candidates Scott Baldermann, Kimberlee Sia debate teacher rights and more

2023-10-18T20:43:31+00:00

Denver school board candidates Scott Baldermann and Kimberlee Sia shared the stage at a recent debate, where they disagreed about school autonomy and teacher rights, the leasing of an empty school building to the Archdiocese of Denver, and whether the school board is dysfunctional.

Baldermann is a current school board member and Denver Public Schools parent who is running for re-election to represent southeast Denver’s District 1. Sia is also a DPS parent and the former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network.

The debate, which took place last week at Regis University, was co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting. It will also shape the district’s approach to school safety, declining enrollment, and other challenges.

Below, read some of what Baldermann and Sia had to say at the debate and watch the full 30-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Kimberlee, is there a vote that Scott took as a sitting board member that you disagreed with? And Scott, is there a position of Kimberlee’s that you disagree with?

Sia: There are actually two that I would comment on. The first is … the proposal of the policy that limited the flexibilities that our innovation schools had. [Editor’s note: Innovation schools are semi-autonomous district-run schools that can waive certain district rules and parts of the teachers union contract. The board voted to limit those waivers.]

Many of our innovation schools have sat with community and with teachers and with families and students and been really thoughtful about the [innovation] plans that they have created. Teachers have to vote on those plans and to put those waivers into place. In discussing how [the board’s vote] is to help protect teachers’ rights, I think that that actually diminishes the innovations that teachers themselves had voted on.

The second vote that I did not agree with that Scott made was to lease the Rosedale property of the school district to the Archdiocese [of Denver] during a time when the district had declining enrollment.

And you’ve now created a school that can recruit students from the district. And additionally, they are now suing the state because they’re not receiving funds from UPK. [Editor’s note: UPK is is the state’s universal preschool program. The Archdiocese is suing for the right to exclude LGBTQ families from its preschools].

Baldermann: Kimberlee and I have done many debates over the last few weeks, and I’ve been surprised that we agree on a lot of things when it comes to values and on equity.

Where you’ll see us go in different directions is when it comes to teacher rights, when it comes to governance models. The vote that she’s referring to is Executive Limitation 12.10. That is something that I drafted. It prevents our innovation schools from waiving statutory collective bargaining rights of our teachers. It was supported by a large majority of our teachers. I support innovation schools. I don’t support certain waivers, especially when it’s around teacher rights.

If I can use my rebuttal on Rosedale? When we were looking at all the available options for Rosedale, there was a discussion around, ‘Will Rosedale be pulling kids that would have otherwise gone to a DPS high school?’

And our facilities team and the portfolio office felt that that was not going to happen because the students that would have attended the Archdiocese already most likely would have either gone to Regis [Jesuit High School] or to Mullen [High School, both of which are private religious schools]. And so there was no risk of really losing any students because … they never would have attended a DPS school.

Sia: At that time, that might have been the information that you all had received. And I would also say that the number of families I have spoken to, particularly coming into this school year, who have now made those choices to go to a religious school or private school because they are so dissatisfied with what’s happening in DPS, actually makes me wonder if the numbers are much higher than were projected at that time.

Denver gained national attention for its “family of schools,” which includes traditional district-run schools, semi-autonomous innovation schools. and independent public charter schools. This current board has been less inclined to champion charters, and has limited innovation. What is your opinion on strengthening traditional schools versus reimagining them as innovation or charter schools?

Baldermann: I want to be very clear that I want our innovation schools and our charter schools to be successful. I mean, why wouldn’t we?

Where I get concerned is around the charter and innovation zone — very different from innovation schools — … model because it is shifting accountability to boards that are ultimately not elected by the people and ultimately not accountable to all of us.

In my first term, nine charter schools closed. One of them, I got a 24-hour notice, which is very surprising. Each one of those schools served high populations of vulnerable students. I think it is too risky for us to continue down the path where we have alternate governance models that function more as businesses that close [schools] as if they are a business. It’s just too risky.

Sia: I believe that we should strengthen all of our schools. I think we have such a unique opportunity in Denver for our families to attend different types of schools. My own children have attended traditional DPS schools, have attended charter schools, have attended a BOCES with Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning.

What we should do is provide supports to all of our schools that ensure that they are the best that they can be, that we are holding all of our schools to the same levels of accountability, and that we are working with the teachers, families, students at those schools to figure out, ‘How can we collaborate and learn from each other?’

I, as a parent, have kids at two different types of schools. I know those schools could learn from each other if they were … collaborating with each other.

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Sia: The first change that I would propose is that the board has a singular focus, and they understand that that focus is our kids. And that when we are coming together as a board, the decisions that are being made are being made in the best interest of students. And we’re not letting individual interests govern the decisions that we’re making.

The second item that I would really like to see for us as a board is to think about our role in rebuilding trust with our community. Folks are so frustrated with seeing the board in the newspaper, seeing the infighting that has been happening on the board. And I think if we want our teachers and our families and our students to believe that we are doing what is right and best for them, we as a board have to take the responsibility for that.

Baldermann: I would actually not describe the board as dysfunctional. What we are seeing — and I’m just as frustrated with this as everybody else — is interpersonal dynamics that are overshadowing a lot of the good work that the board has done.

We’ve implemented a whole new policy governance framework. And we’ve made great progress on making sure that our values are reflected in our … policies.

If I was truly a dysfunctional board member, I wouldn’t be the only board member that has currently elected public officials that have endorsed me. I’ve been [endorsed] by Councilman Paul Kashmann, Rep. Emily Sirota, Rep. Steven Woodrow, Rep. Meg Froelich — all elected officials that currently overlap with District 1. I think that says a lot. They would not put their name behind me if I was unprofessional and I’ve not been keeping my head down and focusing on what is important, and that is our policy work to improve student outcomes.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Mike Johnston endorses Youngquist, De La Rosa, Sia for open Denver school board seats

2023-10-17T17:47:18+00:00

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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who called the current school board “a public embarrassment” earlier this year, endorsed three candidates Tuesday for open board seats in the Nov. 7 election.

These are the first school board endorsements that Johnston, a former educator, has made as mayor. His picks signal that he wants to see change on the board.

For an at-large seat representing the entire city, Johnston endorsed John Youngquist, the former principal of Denver’s East High School and the parent of two East High students. The at-large seat is currently held by board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who is not running for re-election.

“When I first became a school principal, John was one of my role models for what a great school leader can do, and I know he is the right leader at the right time to put DPS back on track,” Johnston said of Youngquist in a statement.

For a seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5, Johnston endorsed Marlene De La Rosa, a longtime Denver Public Schools volunteer whose two children are DPS graduates.

“Marlene De La Rosa has dedicated her life to lifting up and giving voice to Denverites on the Northside and across the city through public service,” Johnston said.

For a seat representing southeast Denver’s District 1, Johnston endorsed Kimberlee Sia, a DPS parent and former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network.

“I have known her for decades and admire how she has proven again and again that every child in every community can achieve academic excellence,” Johnston said of Sia.

Johnston did not endorse the two incumbents in the race: Charmaine Lindsay, who represents District 5, and Scott Baldermann, who represents District 1.

Lindsay and Baldermann have been endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. In the at-large race, the teachers union endorsed candidate Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, which recently filed for bankruptcy.

All seven members of the current school board were backed by the teachers union. With just three seats up for grabs, November’s election won’t shift the balance of power on the board. But the election could change the board’s political and interpersonal divisions and shape its policies on controversial topics including declining enrollment and school safety.

In addition to gaining the support of the mayor, Youngquist, De La Rosa, and Sia have been endorsed by Denver Families Action. The group is the political arm of Denver Families for Public Schools, an organization formed with the backing of several local charter school networks.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Watch: Charmaine Lindsay, Marlene De La Rosa, Adam Slutzker face off in Denver school board debate

2023-10-17T16:55:54+00:00

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Asked to name a decision by Denver school board member Charmaine Lindsay that they disagreed with, the two candidates challenging Lindsay for her seat pointed to different votes.

Marlene De La Rosa said she opposed Lindsay’s vote to close Fairview Elementary due to low enrollment. And Adam Slutzker said he disagreed with her vote to return police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, to some Denver schools.

Lindsay defended her vote on SROs, arguing that the officers deter crime and build trusting relationships with students who may be experiencing violence themselves. She said her Fairview closure vote was based on data that showed the small school wouldn’t have enough students to fill a kindergarten classroom this fall.

Those were among the key exchanges at a recent debate between the three candidates at Regis University co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

Lindsay, a family law attorney with grandchildren in Denver Public Schools, was appointed by the board last year to fill the seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5 and is now running in the Nov. 7 election to keep it. Challenger De La Rosa is a longtime DPS volunteer and advocate. Slutzker is a former teacher and father of three DPS students.

Below, read some of what Lindsay, De La Rosa, and Slutzker had to say at the debate, and watch the full 30-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

For Marlene and Adam, is there any decision that Charmaine has made as a sitting board member that you disagree with? And for Charmaine, is there a position of Marlene’s or Adam’s that you’ve heard throughout the campaign that you disagree with?

Slutzker: I would say reinstituting SROs. I don’t personally believe that SROs make our schools a safer place. I am willing to be convinced otherwise via data, but I have not seen any data to the contrary. I think the unfortunate reality is if somebody wants to harm our children in our schools in America, they are going to be able to harm our children in our schools.

Lindsay: I disagree with that, obviously, about the SROs. There’s a lot of benefits to SROs, including being somebody that is a confident and trusted person in the school for children that are … experiencing violence themselves. There’s also evidence that there’s a deterrent.

Even then, it’s looking at each individual school. We have 200 schools, approximately, in DPS. We have [SROs] in 13 because those schools decided that they wanted them and all we did was say, ‘We’re not going to be the people that decide. We’re going to leave it up to you.’

De La Rosa: I disagree with the vote to close Fairview Elementary. The process was not really engaging with the community. I think that the district did not spend sufficient enough time working with that community and preparing them, looking at the data, the projected enrollment, working with the Denver Housing Authority. That affected one of our most disadvantaged populations in our city, and I think that they suffered very tremendously in that decision.

Lindsay: Can I use my rebuttal for that? I think that one of the things that went into that decision was the numbers — the numbers that actually were, not the numbers that are going to be. And I’m really optimistic that those numbers are going to increase and we’re going to be able to reopen Fairview. But at the time being, we did not have enough kids to open a kindergarten class in that school. We really need to re-envision that school when people are actually living in the neighborhood and not based on [the] future.

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Lindsay: The board’s reputation and the board’s image has suffered because of a lack of collegiality and a lack of professionalism. Since I’ve been on the board in the last 15 months, I have worked really hard to improve on that. I have not been part of the drama or the theatrics of the board. I’ve been working behind the scenes to do what’s in the best interests of the kids of DPS and the teachers of DPS. As a board, there are several of us that are coming from that position, and we’re getting highlighted a lot by other people that are out there creating a chaotic atmosphere that isn’t necessarily what we’re actually accomplishing on the board.

De La Rosa: First and foremost, we need to remember why we’re there and that’s student outcomes. But I do want to point out one thing: When you sit in a space where things you know are not going the way they should, and you don’t speak up and acknowledge that, you are also part of that dysfunction. And so I definitely want to focus on working with my fellow board members on how we can understand each other’s goals and priorities, and how we can work best towards that bottom line, which is the student outcomes.

Slutzker: I don’t think it’s so much with how the board does business. It’s just trying to assume best intent. Ideally, everybody that shows up in a board meeting, whether that’s board members or the public coming to speak, is there because they genuinely care about student outcomes and family outcomes, and want to do the right thing by our student population.

I consider myself a practical problem solver. I consider myself a great listener who’s always willing to listen and learn. And I think most of the board wants to see that happen as well. I think everybody on the board will tell you they would happily be out of the news cycle. What we do is vitally important, but it should not be full of sound bites.

Denver gained national attention for its “family of schools,” which includes traditional district-run schools, semi-autonomous innovation schools, and independent public charter schools. The current board has been less inclined to champion charters, and has limited innovation. What is your opinion on strengthening traditional schools versus reimagining them as innovation or charter schools?

De La Rosa: We need to focus on strengthening each and every one of our schools. I believe in that portfolio of schools — that we have different models for different parents, different students. They each have their own learning needs and focusing on that and how we can strengthen all of those. And having transparency and accountability too, so that parents can accurately make a choice in where they want to send their kids to school.

My own son went to three different high schools. We had to work through that as a family. And as for him, I had to evaluate what his needs were and choosing the right school environment for him, whether it was a charter or a traditional or an innovation [school].

Lindsay: One of the things we need to do is when a school has a really popular program, and that’s why a lot of people want to go across town or choice into that school, we need to take that program and try to put it in a local place so that people don’t have to travel across town.

With declining enrollment, it’s been very difficult for any charter schools to get off the ground because there just isn’t the numbers of students that are out there to really fill the schools.

The secret to fixing the problem on this is to have smaller class sizes, which also supports teachers, and to try to make the neighborhood schools more attractive.

Slutzker: Our school choice system is broken. It is absolutely used more by affluent families across the district who opt their kids into a school of choice.

I am a former educator. I spent time in a lot of these different learning environments: expeditionary learning schools, IB schools, arts integration schools. We absolutely should be offering a variety of learning environments, but we need to do it in a thoughtful way.

We’ve opened almost 80 new charters, I believe, in the last decade, while we’ve been facing declining enrollment. There’s a reason that we’re having to talk about school consolidations. [Fact check: Between 2001-02 and 2021-22, Denver opened 72 new charter schools.]

And we need to evaluate the current charter schools we have operating [to] make sure they’re living up to the expectations and the agreements that they’re putting forth as far as providing viable learning outcomes for their students,

De La Rosa: I want to use my rebuttal. According to the choice data in DPS, 45% of the students and families that use choice are from families of color.

Slutzker: I do not want to get rid of school choice. I want to be very clear about that. What I would like to do is reimagine our school of choice so that we give first round of open enrollment to students of lower income and students with documented social, emotional, or educational needs, so that they can have the first option to get to the school of choice before affluent families are making those decisions.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Watch: Kwame Spearman, John Youngquist spar in lively debate for Denver school board at-large seat

2023-10-16T20:32:25+00:00

Kwame Spearman and John Youngquist, who both are running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board, said police officers should not have been removed from Denver schools in 2020. Both also supported the decision to bring the officers back this year.

But Spearman said he’d like to see the police officers — which are known as school resource officers, or SROs — out of schools again in the next four years.

That was one key difference from a lively candidate debate last week at Regis University co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

Spearman, a Denver Public Schools graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, which recently filed for bankruptcy, and Youngquist, a DPS parent and former principal of East High School, are two of the three candidates in the race. The winner will replace board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and represent the entire city.

The third candidate in the race, Brittni Johnson, did not attend the debate due to illness.

Below, read some of what Spearman and Youngquist had to say at the debate, and watch the full 45-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length.

Do you agree with the board’s decision to reinstate police officers known as SROs in certain schools? Would you ever vote to remove them again, and under what circumstances?

Spearman: We should not have removed SROs in 2020 without any plan. It was a colossal mistake. I am supportive of having SROs in our schools right now.

But I’m the only candidate in the race that by the end of my first term, I actually want SROs out of our schools. And the way that we get there is we need to change our discipline matrix right now. We need to have alternative schools.

Right now we’re in a situation in which we have students who need education but maybe not in the schools that we categorize as our traditional schools. By the end of my first term, we’re going to have community officers in our schools to help us move forward.

Youngquist: I’ve been a principal in schools that have had SROs and those that have not had SROs. And I believe there are ways to make schools safe either way.

I agree fully with the decision that the board made to bring the SROs back. I was one of 17 principals three years ago that wrote a letter to the board of education asking them not to take SROs out of schools because they did not have a plan.

Right now, SROs will continue to be a part of that plan. Over time, we need to ensure we develop an understanding of how they best fit in our schools and where it is that we’re gaining value from them with a full complement of mental health and safety services.

As measured by standardized tests, DPS is serving white students better than it’s serving Black and Latinx students. What can the board do to better serve Black and Latinx students?

Youngquist: To better serve Black and Latinx students in the Denver Public Schools, we need to acknowledge that they don’t feel welcome in our schools and in our classrooms as much as we need for them to be. We need to acknowledge that we don’t prioritize the most experienced teachers to be in our classrooms with Black or Latino students.

We need to acknowledge that we are not yet good enough with our instructional practices to accelerate the learning of our Black and Latinx students.

And what we have to do is what the district did not do with their most recent annual report. When you look at that report, our district used aggregate data to take a look at how we’re doing across the district. And it looks like we’re doing fine … because we failed to disaggregate the data, which will allow us to begin to understand really how bad we are and some of the places and how much work we need to do to be great for our Latinx and our Black learners.

Spearman: If you’re a white student in Denver Public Schools, we are the second highest performing school district in the entire state. The gap between our white, Black, and Latino students is 43% [meaning 43 percentage points between the percent of white students and the percent of Black and Latino students scoring at grade level on standardized tests].

We’ve got to understand what’s working for our white students, because actually, we should applaud that. And what I think is working is it’s access to choice. It’s different educational environments. Parents, lo and behold, when they get to decide what is the right environment for their kid, their kid learns more, performance goes up.

We need to give our Black and Latino students the same access. The way that we do that is we’ve got to have great [schools] in every [neighborhood].

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Spearman: I think those polls are, by and large, talking about one member of the school board.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with our school board members, and here’s what I can tell you: They care about our students, they care about our teachers, they’re trying to get us to the right place. But we do need new leadership, and I plan to be there.

The one thing that we’ve got to do is we’ve got to have a compelling vision. I think as far as safety, we’ve got to talk about what we aspire to get to. We are in a crisis of confidence right now. And of course, if people don’t feel comfortable or safe sending their kids to school, we’re going to lose board support. But once again, I believe that the night is darkest before the dawn, and that we are going to rally the community back together.

Youngquist: I am interested in seeing a board of education that is not invested so deeply into two things. One is individual interests that are ruling the day. And then a kind of groupthink that leads to inaction, that we cannot get our ideas together and develop ideas so that we’re able to secure an understanding of what our next actions are going to be.

So I would propose, most certainly, that we have significant change on this board. I don’t believe it’s just one person. I believe it is a context and a culture that’s been developed over time. And we need to make certain that we engage the leadership immediately that allows us to take the kind of turn and change over the course of the next several months where we have direction and we’re taking steps toward a focus on safety and student learning.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: We asked Aurora school board candidates some questions. Here’s what they said.

2023-10-13T23:48:09+00:00

Voters in Aurora this year are selecting up to three new members to sit on the school board for Aurora Public Schools.

Aurora school board seats are all at-large, meaning every voter in the district gets to vote for their top three candidates, and the top vote-getters win the seats. The board has seven members.

Five candidates are running for the three seats on the Nov. 7 ballot: Max Garcia, incumbent Vicki Reinhard, Maria Saucedo, Danielle Tomwing, and Tiffany Tasker.

The Aurora teachers union, which has struggled to reach a pay agreement with the district this year, has endorsed Reinhard, Tomwing, and Tasker.

We asked school board candidates the same set of questions to help voters know more about each candidate before voting. Read their answers below. Responses may have been edited for formatting, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Saucedo did not respond to any of the questions.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: Jeffco school board candidates answer 7 questions about the issues

2023-10-13T22:36:39+00:00

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In Jefferson Public Schools, voters are selecting two new school board members this year.

There are five candidates running in total. Two, Michelle Applegate and Thomas Wicke, are running for a seat representing Jeffco’s District 3. Three candidates, Amara Hildebrand, Joel Newton, and Erin Kenworthy, are running to represent District 4.

All Jeffco voters will get to select one candidate for each race in the Nov. 7 election.

Applegate and Kenworthy have the endorsement of the Jefferson County Educators Association, the teachers union.

Since this election will only bring two new members to the five-member school board, the current union-led majority of the board will not change, but could still add new perspectives.

To help readers learn more about the candidates, we asked them each the same set of questions. Read their answers below. Responses may have been edited for formatting, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: We asked the Westminster school board candidates 6 questions ahead of the election. Here’s what they said.

2023-10-13T15:59:00+00:00

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This November, voters in Westminster will select three new school board members from six candidates.

It’s the first time in six years that the school board will have enough candidates for an election.

The candidates are organized into two opposing groups. One group, which says the district is headed in the right direction and should stay the course, includes incumbent Christine Martinez, joined by Audrey Yanos and Mary Beth Murphy. The second group, which says it’s time for some change, includes Anthony Sisneros and husband-and-wife team Charles and Brenda Gallegos.

The candidates are elected “at large” — meaning they represent the entire district. All six candidates will appear on the ballot for the Nov. 7 election, and voters can choose three of them. The top vote-getters will join the board.

The board has five members in all. In addition to the three new board members, the district will also have a new superintendent next year, as Superintendent Pam Swanson announced she will retire at the end of this school year.

We asked school board candidates some questions to help voters know more about each candidate before voting. Read their answers below. Responses may have been edited for formatting or trimmed for length, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

To learn more about what school board members do, read our story here.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: 2023 Denver school board candidates answer 6 questions about their priorities

2023-10-11T18:59:07+00:00

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Voters will choose three Denver school board members on Nov. 7.

Eight candidates are running for the three seats. Two of the three races — in southeast Denver’s District 1 and northwest Denver’s District 5 — feature incumbents.

The third seat is at-large, meaning the board member represents the entire city. That race does not feature an incumbent since board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson dropped out of the running.

The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting between some members. It could also change the board’s approach to solving the problems of declining enrollment in Denver Public Schools and school safety, which has become a topic of debate after a shooting at East High School.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed the two incumbents: Scott Baldermann in District 1 and Charmaine Lindsay in District 5. The teachers union also endorsed Kwame Spearman for the at-large seat.

Denver Families Action, a group that supports education reform and charter schools, has endorsed a different set of candidates: Kimberlee Sia in District 1, Marlene De La Rosa in District 5, and John Youngquist in the at-large race. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston also endorsed these candidates.

To help voters make their decisions, Chalkbeat sent all of the candidates the same set of questions. Their answers are below. Responses may have been edited for formatting or trimmed for length, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Note: Former at-large candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race but will still appear on the ballot. We did not include him in our voter guide because votes for Ballenger won’t count.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: These Indiana school districts are seeking tax increases in the November elections

2023-10-11T17:28:13+00:00

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This story has been updated with information about Sheridan schools’ referendum.

Smaller class sizes. School buses. Low-cost preschool.

These are some of the things that eleven Indiana districts are hoping to fund via property tax increases that voters will consider in the November election.

That includes three districts in Hamilton County, which has long been ranked as Indiana’s wealthiest county, as well as another three districts in Lake County — the second most populous county in the state behind Marion County.

Local tax increases are a mainstay of school funding in Indiana, and schools rely on them to pay teacher salaries and offer an array of programming and transportation services.

But they can be controversial. In 2021, legislators mandated changes to ballot language that emphasized the percentage by which school property taxes would increase from the base, not from what voters were currently paying. Some school leaders have said the change gives voters an exaggerated picture of how much their taxes will change.

Still, districts have not shied away from the funding measures: The number of Indiana school districts seeking tax increases has rebounded after dropping in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.

This year, the funding requests come as schools face a fiscal cliff due to the upcoming end of emergency federal funding. And due to a new state law, school districts in Marion, St. Joseph, Vanderburg, and Lake counties will also have to proportionally share revenue from operating referendums with charter schools. That applies to three districts this year.

School districts can also seek construction referendums to pay for building and renovation projects, as well as safety referendums to pay for additional school resource officers, security improvements, and other staff.

The only construction referendum on the ballot this year is from the school city of Hammond, which is also seeking an operating referendum. The $84 million construction referendum is partially earmarked for renovating and expanding the district’s two high schools, according to the district’s ballot language.

Early voting is underway and the referendums need a simple majority to pass.

Here are the school districts seeking approval from voters in the November election for new tax increases or extensions of past rates.

Operating referendums

Carmel-Clay Schools, Hamilton County

Rate: $0.19 per $100 of assessed property value for eight years

Annual revenue: $24 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $23 million dedicated to retaining and attracting teachers and staff

Hamilton Southeastern Schools, Hamilton County

Rate: $0.1995 per $100 of assessed property value for eight years

Annual revenue: $24 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $9 million for attracting and retaining teachers and $5.9 million for maintaining class sizes

Lake Station Community School Corporation, Lake County

Rate: $0.54 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $1.3 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $466,000 for school bus transportation

Monroe County Community School Corporation, Monroe County

Rate: $0.085 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $8.5 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $6 million for funding low-cost preschool, $1.25 million for eliminating K-12 student fees

Northeast Dubois County School Corporation, Dubois County

Rate: $0.18 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $703,000

Highlights from the spending plan: $390,000 for academic programming

School City of Hammond, Lake County

Rate: $0.44 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $14.6 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4.8 million for school bus transportation

School City of Whiting, Lake County

Rate: $0.17 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $1.1 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $418,000 staff recruitment

West Lafayette Community Schools, Tippecanoe County

Rate: $0.37 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $7 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4.4 million for teacher and staff compensation for managing class sizes

Sheridan Community School Corporation, Boone & Hamilton Counties

Rate: $0.25 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $1.3 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $896,000 for retaining and attracting teachers and staff

Safety referendums

Bluffton Harrison MSD, Wells County

Rate: $0.075 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $445,000

Highlights from the spending plan: $254,000 for additional school resource officers

Fort Wayne Community School Corporation, Allen County

Rate: $0.10 cents per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Annual revenue: $12 million

Highlights from the spending plan: $4 million for student advocates

Construction referendums

School City of Hammond, Lake County

Rate: $0.4357 per $100 of assessed value for eight years

Revenue: $84 million over 25 years

Highlights from the spending plan: Renovations and additions at Hammond Central High School and Morton High School

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Why school board elections matter and why you should vote

2023-10-11T14:39:44+00:00

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Leer en español.

Every other November, Colorado voters choose the people who make important decisions about their local schools. But in most school districts, very few people vote in these school board elections — and most of them aren’t parents of current students.

What exactly is a school board? And why should you care about voting in these odd-year elections?

In this story:

Why do school board elections matter, and should you vote?
What does a school board do?
Examples of school board responsibilities
How is a school board member different from a superintendent or other school administrators?
How are school board members chosen in Colorado?
Who do school board members represent?
Do school board members in Colorado get paid?
How can I learn more about my local school board and the school board candidates?
When is the next school board election in Colorado?

Why do school board elections matter, and should you vote?

Voting for school board members who share your values or perspective makes it more likely schools will run in a way that you think is good for kids and your community. If you don’t vote, you give that power to other people. In many school district elections, less than a third of eligible voters vote. Sometimes just a few hundred or even a few dozen votes separate the winners and losers. That means every vote matters.

What does a school board do?

In Colorado, school districts are run by elected officials who serve on the school board. School boards usually have five to seven members. The main function of a school board is hiring the superintendent, who is like the chief executive of the school district and responsible for day-to-day running of local schools. School board members supervise and evaluate the superintendent. School board members also vote on the budget and pay raises for teachers and other staff, and they set policies that control what happens in schools.

Examples of school board responsibilities

A school board might cast the final vote on whether to close a school with low test scores or too few students — or vote to change budget priorities so those schools have more money. Or a school board might vote to adopt a new curriculum if the old one isn’t working well to educate students.

School boards also have the final say on many contentious issues. If a student is expelled and the family appeals to keep that student in school, or if a teacher is fired and appeals to keep their job, the school board makes the final decision. School boards have voted to opt out of Colorado’s comprehensive sex education standards, to remove police from schools, and to bring police back.

Exactly how school boards operate can vary from district to district. For example, in 2020, school boards in some districts voted on whether to move to online learning, while in others, the superintendent made that decision.

How is a school board member different from a superintendent or other school administrator?

School board members don’t typically get involved in the details of running the district. That’s the superintendent’s job.

School board members can’t discipline a teacher or principal or directly tell them what to do. They don’t set bus routes or decide which routes to cut if there’s a driver shortage. School board members don’t directly pick which schools to close.

In most situations, the superintendent will make a recommendation to the school board. The school board can vote to approve or reject the recommendation or ask for other options.

School board members also can raise awareness about problems and ask for policy changes. If enough board members agree, the superintendent will work on that idea.

How are school board members chosen in Colorado?

Most school board members are elected by the registered voters in that district.

School board members serve staggered four-year terms. On a five-member board, three of the seats would be up for election one year. Then two years later, the other two seats would open up. The Denver school board has seven members, with four seats open one year and three seats open two years later.

Most school boards have term limits, so members can’t serve more than eight years total.

School boards always have an odd number of members so they don’t end up with a tie — though ties can still happen if someone skips a meeting or abstains from a vote.

Sometimes a school board member quits in the middle of their term. In that case, the other school board members choose someone to finish the term.

Sometimes school districts cancel school board elections because there aren’t enough candidates for a contested vote. That saves some money but means voters don’t have a choice in who runs the schools. Whoever volunteered becomes the school board member.

Who do school board members represent?

Some school districts elect school board members at large. That means each school board member represents the entire district, rather than a specific region within it.

If your district elects members at large, you’ll see all the candidates on the ballot and can vote for as many candidates as there are open seats. If there are two open seats, you can vote for two candidates. If there are three open seats, you can vote for three candidates, and so on. The top vote-getters serve on the school board.

Other school districts are divided into geographical regions, and each school board member represents a region. These school board members have to live in that region.

In some school districts, only voters who also live in that region get to vote in those school board races. If that’s the case in your district, you’ll see just the candidates for your area on the ballot. You can vote for one candidate, and the top vote-getter will represent that region.

In other school districts, such as Jeffco and Adams 12, school board members have to live in a certain region, but they have to win election districtwide. Every voter in the school district sees multiple school board races on their ballot, and they’ll choose one candidate for each race.

Do school board members in Colorado get paid?

Most Colorado school board members are unpaid volunteers. State law allows school board members to be paid up to $150 a day for official business, and a few school boards, such as Denver and Sheridan, have decided to pay members small stipends.

A school board that wants to pay its members has to hold a public meeting on the idea and then vote on the pay package. Compensation doesn’t go into effect, though, until after the next election. Current board members can’t vote to pay themselves and would only get paid if they win re-election.

How can I learn more about my school board and the school board candidates?

News organizations like Chalkbeat write about many school board elections.

Your local newspaper or TV station might have information about candidates. You can check your school district website. Search for the words “school board” or “board meetings” or “election.” Many school districts list who is running and the dates and times of local candidate forums. Community groups like the League of Women Voters and educational nonprofits often host forums or panels where you can hear from the candidates in their own words or even ask them questions. You can also check out candidate websites and see how candidates describe themselves and talk about their priorities.

Read about the candidates or watch how they answer questions. Think about how their views compare with yours or how their life experience might have prepared them. What connection do they have to local schools? What kinds of work have they done?

At the same time, be aware that school board candidates — like all politicians — sometimes use words that sound good to everyone but can mean different things to different people. If a candidate talks about strong neighborhood schools, listening to parents, or supporting teachers, look for more information about what they mean.

When is the next school board election?

Colorado school board elections take place in odd-numbered years on the first Tuesday in November. The next election is Nov. 7, 2023. If you’re already a registered voter, look for your ballot in the mail the week of Oct. 16. If you’re not a registered voter, you can find more information about voting here.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Everything you need to know about voting in Colorado’s 2023 elections

2023-10-11T14:37:59+00:00

Leer en español.

Election Day is Nov. 7 this year, but since every eligible registered Colorado voter will receive a mail ballot in October, you can vote sooner.

The Colorado News Collaborative compiled answers to frequently asked questions about the voting process in our state in advance of the 2022 election. Chalkbeat updated that information for the 2023 election. This year voters will see two statewide ballot measures and make decisions in school board and city council races, as well as local tax measures.

More information about elections in our state is also available directly from the Colorado Secretary of State Office (at GoVoteColorado.gov).

Registration

How can I register to vote in Colorado?

Colorado has automatic voter registration when you interact with certain state agencies — like the Department of Motor Vehicles — and share personal information like your name, address and date of birth. So you might already be registered.

If you’re not, you can register online or mail in a paper registration form. Voter registration will also be available at voter service and polling centers between Oct. 23 and Election Day on Nov. 7.

Do I have to register to vote every year?

No, as long as your voter registration is active, which you can check online. “Active” means you voted in the most recent election or you recently registered or updated your registration information.

How can I look up my voter registration status?

The Colorado Secretary of State website has a lookup page online. There, you can see your voter status, party affiliation and other key info about your profile, as well as submit changes.

What if I moved within Colorado since the last election?

If you have already changed your address at the Department of Motor Vehicles, your voter registration address should be automatically updated. If that’s not the case, you can change your voter address online. (See the next question about how long you need to have lived in Colorado in order to register.)

Who is eligible to register to vote?

You must be 18 years of age or older to vote (you can actually be as young as 16 to just register). You must be a U.S. citizen, as well as a Colorado resident for at least 22 days before the election. If you’re currently unhoused/homeless, you can list any address the state considers a “home base,” including a shelter.

I have a felony conviction — can I vote in Colorado?

If you’re currently incarcerated, no, you cannot vote. But if you’re on parole, yes, you can vote. If your conviction was in the past and you’ve served your sentence, yes, you can vote.

I’m a college student in a different state who is originally from Colorado. Can I vote in Colorado?

It depends. You can either keep your Colorado residency and vote by mail as a Coloradan. Or if you establish residency (which varies by state, but can include conditions such as getting a new driver’s license or living there for a certain duration) in the different state where you’re going to college, you vote there, not here. You cannot vote in two states.

I’m a college student from a different state going to school in Colorado. Can I vote here?

If you decide to establish residency here in Colorado, yes, you can vote here. But please note that you cannot vote in two states and, by establishing residence here, give up your residency elsewhere.

I’m actively serving in the military outside Colorado or living overseas. How can I vote?

Under the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens and Absentee Voting Act (“UOCAVA”), you, your spouse/partner and dependents are permitted to vote and get extra time to do so. Your mail ballot can be sent to your current mailing address 45 days before the election (so earlier than most voters) and you get extra time to send it back. It can reach Colorado as late as the eighth day after the election — Nov. 15, this year. You also have an online option to securely upload and send an image of your ballot

Voting by mail

Who gets a mail-in ballot?

All active registered voters in Colorado automatically get a mail ballot, which is sometimes also called an absentee ballot.

When will I receive my mail-in ballot?

Ballots begin to be mailed out to active registered voters starting Oct. 16. Counties are supposed to mail overseas and military voters ballots 45 days before the election, but those voters have an online option to upload and send an image of their ballot, as well.

Where will my ballot be sent?

Your mail ballot will be sent to the mailing address you provided during voter registration or when you updated your registration.

Do I have to vote by mail just because I get a mail ballot?

No. You can still vote in person (see FAQs on in-person voting below), but most of your fellow Coloradans choose the mail option. In 2021, about 98% of Republican, Democrat and unaffiliated voters used mail ballots, according to the Colorado Secretary of State office.

If I don’t get a mail-in ballot, how can I request one?

You can register to vote or update your registration by Oct. 30 and can then get a mail ballot. After Oct. 30, you can pick up a ballot at your county clerk’s office or at a polling center. Also, you can vote in person, instead. Call your specific county’s election office – or see its website – for details.

When do I have to send my mail-in ballot back by?

Unless you’re stationed or temporarily living overseas, your county clerk office has to receive your mail ballot by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 7 in order for it be counted. That means if you’re mailing your ballot via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), you’ll want to put it in the mail at least a week before Election Day (ask your local USPS branch when the cutoff is for your community). If you’ve missed the cutoff to mail it, your county will have secure drop boxes in which you can deposit your completed ballot or you can drop it off at a polling center. See a list on your county website, but here, for example, is information about drop box locations in Denver, Douglas, Jeffco and Mesa counties.

The only deadline exception is for military and overseas voters who must mail or upload their ballot by 7 p.m. on Nov. 7, but it can reach your county election office as late as the eighth day after the election — Nov. 15, this year.

Don’t forget to sign the envelope of your mail ballot or it won’t get counted. If your signature is missing on your envelope, you’ll get a letter letting you know and you’ll have to provide your signature within eight days after Election Day. If you decide not to drop off your ballot at a drop box and want to mail your ballot via the USPS, be sure to include postage (the amount varies county to county but many counties include the postage amount in the ballot instructions).

Are ballots available in languages other than English?

Colorado’s Secretary of State’s office has set up a multilingual hotline where interpreters can explain ballot content to voters in their preferred language. For Spanish-language voters, some counties might also provide a ballot in Spanish.

How do I learn more about the issues and candidates?

In addition to reputable local news outlets, the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Colorado has put together a guide on the statewide propositions on the ballot. The state also mails all registered voters a blue, paper election booklet that explains each statewide proposition and amendment on the ballot, as well as what a “yes” or “no” vote means for each.

Voting in person

When can I vote in person?

Between Oct. 23 and Nov. 7 (except Oct. 28, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5). See the state’s election calendar for more details and deadlines.

Where do I vote in person?

Check online to see your polling place in your community.

When is Election Day?

Election Day 2023 is Nov. 7, but you don’t have to wait until that day to vote (see above). If you do decide to wait until Election Day to vote in person, polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mountain time. If there are long queues on Election Day and you’re still waiting in line at 7 p.m., you’ll still be allowed to vote. Same-day voter registration is available, if needed. Under Colorado law, if you have to vote during the workday with some conditions, your employer must pay you for up to two hours to do so.

What should I bring to vote in-person?

You must bring an acceptable ID. If your ID lists an address, it must be in Colorado.

Are there voting options for voters with special needs?

Yes. Every polling location must have at least one accessible option, such as accessible voting machines or wheelchair-accessible paths.

Election security

How secret is my vote? Does anyone know who or what I voted for?

Your ballot and whomever or whatever you voted for is totally anonymous. The only thing that is public information is your party affiliation associated with your voter registration, which you can update online.

How common is voter fraud in Colorado?

Not common at all. The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation has documented only 16 cases of fraud in Colorado since 2005. That’s 16 cases out of millions of ballots cast.

How can I be sure my ballot is counted?

Colorado has one of the most advanced and secure voting processes in the United States. Some experts have characterized it as the “gold standard” nationally.

Colorado counties use BallotTrax, a free service for voters that allows you to track the point from which it is mailed or gathered from a collection box to when it is counted. You can get text or email notifications. Think of it like tracking an online shopping order.

After the election, bipartisan teams and county clerks across Colorado do audits of paper ballots to confirm results. “No bipartisan audit has ever found a ballot that wasn’t tabulated correctly,” according to the Colorado Secretary of State office.

Other security measures in Colorado include: background checks for election staff, bipartisan teams conducting tests of election machines, signature verification, and a partnership with the National Guard to monitor critical elections technologies, like the statewide voter registration system, for cyber threats.

Can I be a poll watcher?

Yes. Poll watchers are members of the community who volunteer to observe the conduct of an election. Call any county clerk and recorder office to find out how to get involved. You’re allowed to watch in any county, not just the one you live in.

Is Colorado taking any steps to improve election security?

Colorado’s new Election Security Act creates additional measures to protect our vote, including but not limited to: year-round video surveillance of voting system components, felony prosecutions for tampering with voting equipment, whistleblower protections for reports of election law breaches and a $1 million grant program for counties to upgrade security around voting equipment.

Have more questions about voting in Colorado? Email us at info@colabnews.co and put “Elections” in the subject line. You can also find more information directly from the state at GoVoteColorado.gov.

This story is brought to you by COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative, a nonprofit coalition of more than 170 newsrooms across Colorado working together to better serve the public. Chalkbeat is a founding member of COLab. Learn more at https://colabnews.co

Youth-led workshops push school board candidates to address student needs

2023-10-11T02:46:40+00:00

Students may be the people with the most at stake in any school board election, but most of them can’t vote.

For youth leaders with YAASPA — Young Aspiring Americans for Social and Political Activism — that’s all the more reason to ask candidates’ hard questions and push for real answers.

“Potential candidates for the school board hold a lot of power. They’re involved in making very pivotal changes that affect both staff and youth,” said Jason Hoang, a youth leader with YAASPA and a graduate of Aurora’s Hinkley High School who now attends the University of Southern California.

YAASPA youth have been organizing and leading candidate workshops since 2017, starting in Aurora. This year, they’re holding workshops in Aurora on Wednesday, in Denver on Oct. 20, and in the Cherry Creek School District on Oct. 25. Community members can attend virtually.

When Hoang first got involved in organizing an Aurora candidate workshop in 2021, he didn’t know much about the school board, but he did know that changing anything significant would probably have to go through them.

“Most concerns are coming from the voices of youth,” he said, “but if they don’t even know who their school board is, how can they convey their concerns to the school board?”

In the months leading up to the workshops, youth leaders research the candidates and how their school board could influence the issues they care about, such as better academic resources for their schools, diverse curriculum, retaining educators of color, and student mental health.

By design, these events are not debates or forums. The format encourages interaction between students and potential school board members rather than arguments between the candidates. Some questions are fun and spontaneous, designed to help the candidates relax and be themselves. Others are specific to the candidates, their proposals, and their approach to the job.

Sakari Mackey, a senior at Cherokee Trail High School, said students want to get a feel for why the person wants to be a school board member. What drives them to do the work and what is their purpose?

Mackey said she wants to see how candidates will connect with families and students and prioritize student needs.

“I feel like oftentimes, we’re only focusing on the schools and what the principal needs as opposed to what the students’ needs are and how the school can provide for the students,” she said.

Candidates are often eager to participate, said Ameya Kamani, a graduate of the Cherry Creek district who now attends Cornell University, but they are sometimes thrown off when students enforce the format and time limits. When the candidates can’t give their rehearsed speeches, they are less polished, he said, but they’re also more authentic.

The questions young people have for school board members are sometimes different than those adults ask. Students care about getting a good education, Hoang said, but talking about test scores feels dehumanizing, especially for students who attend schools that have been labeled as bad.

“The lack of resources is usually dismissed,” he said. “But I think that it’s somewhat traumatizing, just being so driven in school, but not being given the resources to fully succeed.”

School safety, the presence of school resource officers, mental health support, and curriculum are all important issues for students, YAASPA youth leaders said. So is supporting teachers so they can do their best work. They also want elected officials who will treat students like real constituents with valid concerns that deserve attention.

“We have always had a goal as an organization to not just be civically engaged but have a mechanism to build relationships with people who desire to govern,” said YAASPA co-founder and CEO Janiece Mackey. “We have to stop romanticizing youth voice and civic engagement and be in partnership with them and honor their labor.”

Hoang said the experience of organizing the workshops have made him and his peers more informed, sophisticated voters in national elections. Kamani said it helped him talk to his immigrant parents about what a school board does and why they should vote.

Sakari Mackey, Janiece Mackey’s daughter, is excited to vote in her first election this fall.

“These quote-unquote small elections, they do matter because those small policies will directly affect you and your students and your kids,” she said.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Sakari Mackey attends Cherokee Trail High School. A previous version named the wrong school.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor. What will that mean for education?

2023-10-06T16:39:26+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Memphis-Shelby County Schools and statewide education policy.

Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.

Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement.

“We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that,” Young told Chalkbeat in September.

Those funds would support capital investments and upgrades to MSCS buildings, Young said, a proposal that aligns with the interests of the MSCS school board and interim Superintendent Toni Williams. A 14-person committee of government officials and nonprofit sector leaders is set to convene later this fall to develop the new facilities plan.

Young will take office on Jan. 1. The success of his plans would depend on support from the Memphis City Council, whose makeup will be settled after runoff elections in November. And the MSCS school board will need to carry the torch for the district’s infrastructure plans through the expected leadership transition this spring, when Williams’ tenure ends and a permanent superintendent takes over.

Young’s proposals distinguished him from several other frontrunners in the race, which he won with 28% of the vote Thursday, according to unofficial results from the Shelby County Election Commission. (There are no runoffs in Memphis mayoral elections.)

Others who got more than 20% of the vote include Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner (23%), former Memphis Mayor and school Superintendent Willie Herenton (22%), and attorney and former Shelby County Commission Chair Van Turner (21%).

Among them, only Turner proposed that the city fund MSCS through annual appropriations, the same way the county currently does.

Candidate Michelle McKissack, a current MSCS board member, received less than 2% of the vote.

Chalkbeat posed questions to all the candidates about their positions on education, and published the responses it received in a mayoral voter guide. Here are the responses Young submitted on Sept. 1:

In 150 words or less, describe your campaign platform and positions concerning Memphis’ youth and education.

I am committed to providing a strong foundation for our youth through quality education and investing in youth development. This means equitable access to resources, teacher support, and innovative learning environments that empower every student to succeed. I believe in engaging directly with educators, parents, and community members to collaborate on and champion effective policies that address the unique challenges our students and young people face.

Who and what will inform your mayoral administration about education and youth-related issues? How will you ensure and measure progress toward your administration’s goals?

My mayoral administration will draw insights from a diverse range of stakeholders including educators, students, parents, and community advocates. Through open dialogue and collaboration, we will craft informed policies to continue to do better by our young people. Progress will be measured through data-driven indicators such as improved graduation rates, literacy and test scores, and increased community engagement. Transparency and accountability will guide us toward achieving our educational goals.

Students and families in Memphis deal with barriers to learning caused by poverty, gun violence, policing and related ripple effects. How would your administration help alleviate these barriers?

Many Memphis students and families confront barriers like poverty, gun violence, and over-policing that hinder learning. By offering comprehensive support services such as mental health programs, after-school initiatives, and community-centered efforts, we will create safer environments where learning can thrive. Collaborating with local organizations and promoting restorative justice practices will contribute to holistic development and improved educational outcomes for our youth.

What should the funding relationship be between the City of Memphis and Memphis-Shelby County Schools? Do you support new revenue sources for education funding? If you support reallocating existing funds, how would you suggest doing it?

I believe that the city can support MSCS through capital investments, and also through improving and upgrading facilities’ infrastructure. The city can also support through after school enrichment and extracurricular programs. We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that.

The City of Memphis contributes funds to universal preschool through a public-private partnership overseen by First 8 Memphis. How would this programming continue or change under your administration?

We would continue to support early childhood efforts and seek to grow the number of spaces available for young people in our community. Our efforts would be informed by MSCS and our partners.

The City of Memphis is inextricably linked to Memphis-Shelby County Schools. What do you think should change or stay the same about the way the city and MSCS work together? How would you describe the ideal relationship between the MSCS superintendent and the mayor?

I think that MSCS should have a strong collaborative working relationship on the types of programming that is taught to children in our community. The city should support investment in facilities, infrastructure, and extracurricular activities. The relationship between the mayor and the superintendent should be a strong partnership where they advocate for Memphis children together at every level.

Describe a high quality school. (For example: How many people work there? What are students taught? What programs or extracurriculars are offered? What support services are available? What does the facility look like?) How many Memphis-Shelby County Schools schools meet your definition of a high quality school?

A high quality school is one where there are various approaches to educating children where they are. We must meet the individual needs of children while not holding them back. This work must take place in and out of the classroom, and schools can and should offer holistic services to help support the whole child and their unique needs. Crosstown High, East High School, White Station are a few schools that come to mind.

This is Memphis, after all. So: Where did you go to high school? Is there a teacher who made an impact on the way you would lead? Who is it and what did you learn from them?

I went to East High School — Ms. Foster was my geometry teacher there and she made the subject matter fun and interesting to me. She pushed me further than I thought I could go. As far as leadership, she showed me we can always be better, we can always do more. I learned from her that intellectual curiosity can make work seem like fun, and I try to bring that spirit to everyone on the team with me.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: Indianapolis mayoral candidates’ views on education

2023-10-06T13:09:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Incumbent Joe Hogsett and challenger Jefferson Shreve are vying to be Indianapolis mayor in the Nov. 7 election.

Hogsett, a Democrat, is running for a third term against Shreve, a Republican, who is a businessman and former Indianapolis city-county councilor. Both candidates won their respective May primary elections with more than half of the vote.

Throughout the campaign, public safety has been in the spotlight, and the two candidates shared a stage for the first time during this year’s race at a forum hosted by Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis and Indiana Landmarks at the end of September.

They went back-and-forth about public safety, infrastructure, housing, and more in response to audience questions. But outside of one question regarding the upcoming split of IUPUI into Indiana University Indianapolis and Purdue University in Indianapolis, education wasn’t mentioned during the forum.

The two candidates are scheduled to debate several more times this month.

The mayor’s leadership of Indianapolis and the townships impacts the educators, students and families who live in and attend school in Marion County. Additionally, the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation which includes the Indianapolis Charter School Board, approves and oversees charter schools.

So to better understand each candidates’ views and priorities on education, we asked each of them the same seven questions on topics including charter schools and authorizers, youth gun violence and more.

Here is what they said, in their own words:

Answers are as candidates submitted them and were not edited.

How to vote in the November elections

In addition to Indianapolis mayor, elections for city-county council are also on the ballot. And outside of Marion County, multiple school districts are asking voters to approve referendums.

Voter registration ends Oct. 10. Register to vote and/or check your registration at indianavoters.in.gov.

Early voting starts Oct. 11 at the Indianapolis City-County Building. Additional early voting sites are open from October 28 to November 5.

On Election Day, Nov. 7, polls are open 6 a.m to 6 p.m., and Marion County residents can vote at any of the county’s voting centers.

To find voting center locations for early voting and Election Day, apply for an absentee ballot and to see a sample ballot, visit vote.indy.gov.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief and covers higher education. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers union finalizes school board election endorsements: Lindsay, Baldermann, Spearman

2023-10-04T21:45:38+00:00

With five weeks to go before Election Day, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association made its final endorsement Wednesday in the Denver school board race by backing incumbent Charmaine Lindsay for the District 5 seat representing northwest Denver.

Lindsay, a family law attorney with grandchildren in Denver Public Schools, was appointed by the board last year to fill a vacancy in District 5. After initially saying she wouldn’t run for election to keep the seat, Lindsay said she changed her mind because she feels there’s more work to do.

Endorsements are key to winning school board races in Denver because they come with financial support for the candidates. While a recent national study found that teachers union endorsements are most influential in school board races, endorsements from organizations that back education reform and charter schools tend to come with more money.

Denver Families Action, the political arm of a relatively new organization formed with the backing of several local charter school networks, has endorsed longtime DPS volunteer and advocate Marlene De La Rosa for the District 5 seat. De La Rosa is a recently retired U.S. immigration court specialist whose two children graduated from DPS.

In endorsing De La Rosa, Denver Families Action noted she is a leader in the Latino community who “is committed to closing the achievement gap and ensuring that every student, regardless of their background, has access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. All seven members of the current board have received union support. With just three seats open, the election won’t change that overall balance of power.

In endorsing Lindsay, the teachers union called her a “deep and thoughtful thinker” who “understands that we must work together to ensure that all students, regardless of their race, background or zip code have equitable access to the support they need to thrive.”

“Charmaine Lindsay has consistently demonstrated her commitment to listening to educators and the DPS community to make informed decisions that enhance school safety in Denver Public Schools,” union President Rob Gould said in a press release.

Lindsay was one of four board members who voted in June to return police officers to DPS schools on a permanent basis following a shooting inside East High School in March.

The teachers union endorsements have come later than usual this year. Gould told Chalkbeat earlier this week that the union wanted to take its time because some of the candidates it endorsed in previous years did not live up to their campaign promises.

In addition to endorsing Lindsay for the District 5 seat, the teachers union has endorsed incumbent Scott Baldermann for the District 1 seat representing southeast Denver and Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, for an at-large seat.

Denver Families Action endorsed former KIPP Colorado charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia for the District 1 seat and former East High principal John Youngquist for the at-large seat.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers union backs Spearman for school board seat, while reform group endorses Youngquist

2023-10-02T23:24:04+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to keep up with education news in Denver and around the state.

The Denver teachers union on Monday endorsed Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Another organization — Denver Families Action, which was formed with the backing of several local charter school networks — has endorsed candidate John Youngquist, the former principal of Denver’s East High School, for the at-large seat representing the entire city.

A third candidate, Brittni Johnson, was not endorsed by either group.

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. The union’s latest endorsement helps define a race that has been in flux due in part to candidates dropping out, not making the ballot, or jumping into the race later than usual.

The current board, made up of six union-backed members and one who was appointed to fill a vacancy, has been criticized as dysfunctional for infighting among some members. The incumbent in the at-large seat, board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, is not seeking re-election, leaving the race for that seat wide open.

“We were taking our time to really make some careful considerations,” union President Rob Gould said about this year’s endorsements, which are coming later than in past years.

“We’ve made some endorsements in the past where we’ve seen that candidates that we’ve endorsed have followed through with their promises and some that haven’t,” he said. “And we’ve taken the time to make sure we were right.”

In endorsing Spearman, DCTA cited Spearman’s experience as a DPS student and graduate. The union also noted that Spearman comes from a long line of educators. In a press release, Gould said Spearman “deeply understands that when educators have the vital support that they need, students are able to reach their full potential.”

In endorsing Youngquist, Denver Families Action cited Youngquist’s 30-year career as a teacher and administrator, and his experience as current DPS parent. The organization also noted Youngquist’s commitment to equity, school safety, “and guaranteeing that every student, irrespective of their background or geographical location, receives a high-quality education.”

Endorsements have been key to winning school board races in Denver because they come with money, both in the form of direct donations to the candidates and spending by outside groups. Volunteers also knock doors and make calls and texts on behalf of endorsed candidates.

Typically, the teachers union endorses one set of candidates, and organizations that favor education reform and charter schools endorse a different set of candidates. Reform organizations tend to have deeper pockets than the teachers union, though a recent national study found that teachers union endorsements are the most influential.

This year, just one pro-reform organization is endorsing. In addition to backing Youngquist for the at-large seat, Denver Families Action endorsed former KIPP Colorado charter network CEO Kimberlee Sia in District 1 seat and longtime DPS advocate Marlene De La Rosa in District 5.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, meanwhile, endorsed Scott Baldermann, an incumbent who represents southeast Denver’s District 1, for a second term.

The union has yet to endorse a candidate for a seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5. That race features three candidates: De La Rosa, parent and former teacher Adam Slutzker, and current District 5 representative Charmaine Lindsay, an attorney with grandchildren in DPS who was appointed to the seat last year after the former member resigned.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Candidate Paul Ballenger drops out of the Denver school board at-large race

2023-09-29T19:36:06+00:00

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Candidate Paul Ballenger announced Friday that he’s dropping out of the race for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Ballenger, a 46-year-old Denver Public Schools parent who works as a security consultant, said in an interview that the decision to exit the race was strategic.

“To really see it through — and especially for an at-large race, and it’s a big city — to have that reach, I just felt like we didn’t have what it takes to see it through effectively,” he said.

Ballenger’s exit leaves three candidates vying for an at-large seat representing the entire city: John Youngquist, a former principal of Denver’s East High School and a DPS parent; Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and part-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores; and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student.

Two other school board seats, representing southeast Denver’s District 1 and northwest Denver’s District 5, are also up for grabs on Nov. 7.

Ballenger lagged behind Youngquist and Spearman in fundraising as of Sept. 18, the date of the last campaign finance reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State. Ballenger had raised about $13,850, compared to more than $57,000 by Youngquist and more than $59,000 by Spearman. Johnson had raised less than $1,000.

Ballenger said he is endorsing Youngquist for the at-large seat. Youngquist has gotten several endorsements, including from pro-education reform organization Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of an organization that was started with the backing of local charter school networks. Reform organizations have historically spent big to try to get their candidates elected.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association also spends big in school board elections. But the union has not yet endorsed a candidate for the at-large seat.

In the last Denver school board election two years ago, the teachers union released its endorsements piecemeal in June, July, and early September. But as of late September this year, the union has only endorsed one candidate: incumbent Scott Baldermann in District 1.

Ballenger is the second candidate to drop out of this year’s at-large race. Ulcca Joshi Hansen exited the race last month after she did not get the endorsement from Denver Families Action.

Ballenger said he entered the school board race because he was concerned about DPS’ response to a shooting inside East High in March.

“I’m proud we made sure safety was a top priority this election,” Ballenger said in an interview Friday. “Hopefully good things come from that.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Five candidates seek two open seats on Jeffco school board

2023-09-28T00:47:06+00:00

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Five candidates are running for two open seats on the Jeffco school board, where they would help shape policy in a diverse school district facing declining enrollment, significant academic gaps, and long-term budget problems.

Since 2015, when voters recalled a conservative board, members backed by the teachers union have led the district. With just two open seats on the five-member board, that won’t change this year — but regardless of the outcome, the board will see new perspectives and approaches. Incumbents Stephanie Schooley and Susan Miller are not running for re-election.

Jeffco Public Schools, Colorado’s second largest school district, stretches from the Denver border to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and serves a mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities.

While the county largely votes Democratic in state and legislative races — a sharp contrast from 20 years ago — Jefferson County remains politically diverse and has seen heated school board meetings over masks, quarantines, and how teachers handle issues related to race and gender identity. There have also been wrenching decisions to close schools and questions of cost overruns in recent construction projects.

In District 3, currently represented by Schooley, engineer Michelle Applegate is running against college president Thomas Wicke.

In District 4, currently represented by Miller, engineer Amara Hildebrand, educator Erin Kenworthy, and advocate Joel Newton are seeking the seat.

Applegate and Kenworthy have the endorsement of the Jefferson County Educators Association, the teachers union, and fueled by contributions from political committees associated with the union, have raised the most money so far, with $18,600 and $21,800 in contributions respectively, according to campaign finance filings.

Wicke — who said he is proud not to have the endorsement of the teachers union — is close behind with almost $16,000 in contributions as of the most recent filing.

In addition to the teachers union, Jeffco could see outside spending from other independent issue committees. Often known as outside money or dark money because they don’t have to disclose their donors, these groups are legally barred from coordinating with candidates but often send mailers or make calls and texts in support or opposition.

On Wednesday, Marge Klein, who often supports conservative candidates, registered an independent expenditure committee called Better Jeffco Schools, according to Secretary of State records.

Chalkbeat spoke with each of the five candidates. They all talked about the need to engage better with the community, ensure all voices are heard, and build trust between the community and the district. There were notable differences among the candidates as well.

The election is Nov. 7.

Here’s a closer look at who’s running:

District 3 includes portions of Wheat Ridge and Arvada and northern Lakewood and stretches northwest from the Denver border to the Gilpin County line.

Michelle Applegate is an engineer who has worked extensively in public policy and the mother of three children who attend Jeffco Public Schools. She described herself as a lifelong believer in public education who will bring a thoughtful approach to leadership. She’s served as PTA president at two elementary schools. As a parent, she’s experienced her child’s school being considered for closure (Stober Elementary was ultimately spared in 2017) and another child’s school working hard this year to accommodate children from a closed school.

“To me, this is one of the most important ways I can serve my community,” she said of serving on the school board. “I am invested in this district, I have been for many years, and I will be for as many years more.”

Applegate said her priorities would be ensuring thriving schools throughout the district, making sure safety is part of the student experience, and improving community trust through budget transparency.

She said she would work to improve the hiring and retention of high-quality educators and make sure schools have the resources they need. Helping the district navigate budget challenges and ensure there is money for teacher pay and classroom needs is part of that, she said.

After the Columbine massacre, Jeffco Public Schools invested heavily in the physical safety of school buildings and has generally been supportive of school resource officers. Applegate said the district needs to think about safety more broadly and find a balance that includes the right relationship with SROs and support for student mental health.

Michelle Applegate is married to Robert Applegate, who ran unsuccessfully for school board in 2019. While Robert Applegate was endorsed by the now-inactive education reform group Jeffco Students First, Michelle Applegate is endorsed by the teachers union.

Thomas Wicke is the Aurora campus president for for-profit Concorde Career College, which trains students for health care careers. He’s also the parent of two graduates of Jeffco Public Schools and a high school freshman. His wife teaches at Drake Middle School, and he said he sees how teachers bring their work home — literally and emotionally — and how they aren’t always supported by administrators.

Wicke said he’s been watching past board meetings and believes board members could be more engaged in critical issues.

“I’ve learned that the school board, though highly important, does not control everything,” he said. “At the same time, they seem to be spending a ton of time talking about how the furniture should be arranged on the Titanic deck. I have to believe we can become a more involved and accountability-holding board.”

Wicke said his priorities would be improving academic achievement and addressing major fiscal challenges facing the district. He’s concerned that less than half of students meet academic expectations on state tests and said it’s time for new leadership after union-backed candidates have controlled the board for most of the last decade. At the same time, he said he doesn’t blame teachers and has gathered a teachers advisory board to give him input.

Wicke said his college is held to high standards by its accrediting body — required to ensure most graduates earn their professional licenses and secure jobs in their field — and he wants to see Jeffco schools held to similarly high standards based on student outcomes.

He said parents need more insight into what’s being taught in schools — ”not to mention the stuff you might lump into woke ideologies, which is a secondary point” — and that parent distrust of how teachers handle politically sensitive topics is contributing to lower enrollment, as parents with the means to do so enroll elsewhere.

District 4 includes Edgewater and central and southern Lakewood from roughly 32nd Street and Sheridan stretching southwest to Bear Creek Reservoir.

Amara Hildebrand said she’s running because she worries that public school no longer prepares most children for success in college or in the workforce.

“Kids are really not thriving,” she said. “Public school was a springboard for my success and I want every kid to be able to have that, to take their education and thrive in life.”

Hildebrand is an engineer and the mother of a sixth and a ninth grader. Hildebrand removed her children from public school during virtual learning and enrolled them in Catholic school. Her daughter is back in public school now, while her son remains in private school.

Hildebrand said she’s concerned about low academic achievement and the fiscal health of the district. She described herself as fiscally-minded and said she enjoys working with budgets. She believes Jeffco has enough money to better support teachers and learning if less money were better managed. As a school board member, she said she would visit schools and talk to principals to learn what they need to be successful.

Now 4½ years sober, Hildebrand has experienced her own struggles with addiction and mental health, and she wants to focus more attention on student mental health. She blames online communication for degrading both civil discourse and mental health and even contributing to violence.

At the same time, Hildebrand said she doesn’t see a need for more counselors in schools. Instead, she thinks giving kids a greater sense of purpose with community service projects and hands-on learning, raising academic achievement, and reducing the time children spend online will improve their overall well-being.

Erin Kenworthy is a former public school teacher turned religious educator, and the parent of two Jeffco students, a first grader and a sixth grader. Kenworthy has served on school and district accountability committees, groups made up of appointed community members who provide oversight of public schools.

As a parent, Kenworthy said she has found Jeffco schools to be “incredibly supportive,” and she wants all students and families to have that experience.

While she’s now been out of the classroom longer than she was in it, Kenworthy said she still has a strong understanding of the gaps between theory and reality that classroom teachers must manage and the heavy burden teachers are carrying.

Kenworthy said the current superintendent has done a good job shifting more resources to the classroom and she wants to support and expand on those efforts. Kenworthy said she’s passionate about community engagement and hearing from parents who traditionally have been marginalized. She wants to make it easier for parents to participate in the accountability process.

And as a former social studies teacher, she wants to see more opportunities for students to express themselves and have agency in their learning.

“If there is anything we could focus on moving forward, we need to center voices that have generally been kept at the margins or denied a seat at the table,” she said.

Joel Newton is the father of two Jeffco students and a longtime education advocate. His experience founding and running the Edgewater Collective for the last 10 years shaped his decision to run. The organization works with families from Title I schools with high rates of poverty in the eastern part of the district near the Denver border. Newton saw students at those schools posting lower academic scores — and having access to far fewer resources, such as afterschool programming and advanced coursework.

The district’s overall demographics — whiter and more middle-class than neighboring Denver — obscure some significant gaps that affect students of color and those from low-income families, Newton said. Newton wants to push the district to do more to close those gaps.

“For the longest time, I thought the way to move the needle was to advocate from the outside,” he said. “The more I watch school board meetings, I think there needs to be someone at the board table who brings the perspective of Title I families, especially as school budgets are declining.”

Newton emphasized he doesn’t blame teachers — these are systemic problems that need to be solved at the district level, he said. Newton sought the teachers union endorsement but didn’t get it. While that was a disappointment, Newton said, he hopes the lack of endorsement gives him more ability to talk to people across the political spectrum and find consensus.

As he has traveled around the district as a candidate, Newton said he’s heard many LGBTQ students and students of color don’t feel safe or heard at school. He wants to bring more parents into conversations about education and work to find consensus and build trust. His top priority in that work, though, will be ensuring students feel safe at school — otherwise they can’t learn, he said.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Michelle Applegate’s husband is Robert Applegate, not Bob Applegate, and that Thomas Wicke is president at Concorde Career College, not Concordia.

What education questions should we ask Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates?

2023-09-27T20:15:42+00:00

In deep-blue Philadelphia, where registered Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans, it can feel like the mayoral race ended with Cherelle Parker’s primary win in May.

But voters do have a choice in the general election this November, and the winner will have the strongest degree of mayoral control over education in the city in decades.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Two candidates are running for mayor: Democrat Cherelle Parker, who is a former City Council member and former member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The winner will have the power to appoint the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. Whoever steps into the role can opt to keep some, all, or none of the current members.

While Parker has not said whether she would consider replacing any of the current board members, Oh said on his campaign website he favors an elected school board where as many as five of the nine members could be elected by Philadelphians.

The mayor also sets the policy tone and conversation around education in the city. During the lead-up to the primary election, Parker campaigned on a pledge for “year-round school” which, despite lacking details, was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington and incorporated into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

We’re building a Chalkbeat voter guide for the election, and we want to know what’s on your mind. Let us know what questions to ask the candidates, and issues to raise with them, using the form below:

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

8 candidates are vying for 3 open seats on the Denver school board

2023-09-26T16:31:09+00:00

Eight candidates are running for three open seats on the Denver school board at a time when gun violence around schools and infighting on the board has raised its profile in a critical way.

Some of the eight candidates said they decided to run after a March shooting inside East High School highlighted safety concerns in Denver Public Schools. Others were spurred by a rocky process to close schools with low enrollment, and still others are former DPS employees or longtime volunteers who said the timing was right for them this year.

At stake is how the board will deal with high-profile issues such as declining enrollment and the impacts of returning police officers to some high schools. The election also has the potential to change the dynamic among board members. Recent polls of parents and voters found widespread distrust and unfavorable views of the board.

Though several candidates said they want to see a change in how board members treat each other, the Nov. 7 election won’t shift the balance of power on the board. No matter the outcome, union-backed members will still hold a majority of seats on the board.

Six of the seven seats are currently held by members who were endorsed by the Denver teachers union as candidates. The seventh seat is occupied by a member who was appointed by the board to fill a vacancy last year.

The appointed member, Charmaine Lindsay, is running to keep her seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5. Lindsay, an attorney with grandchildren in DPS, has two challengers: longtime DPS volunteer Marlene De La Rosa and parent and former teacher Adam Slutzker.

Scott Baldermann, who was elected in 2019 to represent southeast Denver’s District 1, is the other incumbent in the race. Baldermann, a DPS parent who runs a small software company, has one challenger: parent and former charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia.

The third seat up for grabs has no incumbent since board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who represents the entire city at large, dropped out of the race.

The at-large race has three candidates: parent and doctoral student Brittni Johnson, DPS graduate and bookstore owner Kwame Spearman, and parent and former East High principal John Youngquist. A fourth candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

Endorsements and fundraising so far

Endorsements from either the teachers union or education reform organizations have been key to winning in Denver. Both have deep pockets and spend big to support their chosen candidates.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed Spearman for the at-large seat. The union also endorsed Baldermann for reelection to the District 1 seat, and it endorsed Lindsay to keep her seat in District 5.

Meanwhile, pro-education reform organization Denver Families Action has endorsed Youngquist for the at-large seat, Sia for the District 1 seat, and De La Rosa for the District 5 seat.

Denver Families Action is the political arm of the nonprofit Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families launched in 2021 with the backing of local charter school networks and gets funding from The City Fund, a pro-reform national organization.

The teachers union often gives money directly to its slate of candidates and also funds an independent expenditure committee, which is a committee that can spend unlimited amounts of money but can’t coordinate with candidates. In the last election in 2021, the Denver and Colorado teachers unions spent more than $400,000 to back four candidates who won: Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, Scott Esserman, Michelle Quattlebaum, and Carrie Olson.

Reform organizations funnel most of their money into independent expenditure committees. In 2021, reform-backed committees spent a little more than $1 million on mailers, digital ads, phone calls, text messages, and door knocking in support of three candidates who lost.

Spending by independent expenditure committees, which is sometimes referred to as outside spending or dark money, hasn’t yet ramped up this year. But many of the candidates themselves have been raising money, almost all of it from individual donors.

At-large candidate Spearman was the top fundraiser with about $59,000 as of Sept. 18, the date of the last campaign finance report filed with the Colorado Secretary of State. Youngquist, who’s also running at-large, and Sia, who’s running in District 1, were close behind with $57,000 each.

Current District 1 board member Baldermann had contributed $21,000 to his re-election campaign. He won in 2019 with the help of more than $330,000 of his own money, far more than any Denver candidate has contributed to their own campaign before or since.

Some candidates this year have raised very little money or none at all. Slutzker, who’s vying for the District 5 seat, hadn’t raised anything as of Sept. 18.

Where candidates stand on the issues

School board elections are nonpartisan, so candidates aren’t divided into Democrats and Republicans. Instead, Denver candidates’ views on education reform strategies, such as the expansion of independent charter schools within DPS, have historically divided them.

The teachers union generally opposes reform. Ever since the board flipped to union control in 2019, members have undone many reform policies. For example, board members reopened two comprehensive high schools, West and Montbello, that previous reform-backed boards closed for low test scores, which was a common reform strategy.

The board also approved a new labor union for principals, got rid of a controversial school ratings system, limited autonomy for district-run innovation schools, and rejected several new charter schools that applied to open in DPS.

Declining enrollment has also muted the reform debate, because even pro-reform candidates are hesitant to open new charter schools. Fourteen DPS charters have closed in the past four years, only one due to a board vote. The others closed on their own, largely because of declining enrollment.

The differences between pro-reform and anti-reform candidates are now subtler. Pro-reform candidates are more likely to defend school choice, which allows students to request to attend any school in the district. They are also more likely to say they support all DPS schools, regardless of type, as long as the schools are serving students well.

Anti-reform candidates are more likely to criticize the school choice system as broken and in need of improvement. They often say the district should prioritize supporting neighborhood schools, meaning traditional district-run schools, before approving new charters.

The school board race where the differences are starkest this year is in District 1. Sia is the former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network and a strong supporter of school choice. Baldermann is the board’s harshest critic of school choice and charters.

Another high-profile topic on which some board members disagree is the reinstatement of school resource officers. While most candidates support SROs, Slutzker and Johnson said at a recent forum hosted by the DPS Black Family Advisory Council that they would have voted no.

On many other topics, the candidates agree. Most candidates have acknowledged that declining enrollment may require some schools to be closed, but that DPS should do a better job including families, teachers, and community members in that decision making.

Many candidates also agree that DPS should prioritize hiring and retaining educators of color and closing test score gaps between Black and Hispanic students and white students.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race for the at-large seat in late September. It has also been updated with endorsements.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s local school council elections are happening in April 2024. Here’s how to run.

2023-09-22T20:00:42+00:00

Interested in having a say in choosing your community school’s principal, greenlighting the school’s budget, and local curriculum priorities?

Run to be a member of your local school council. And bring a friend, too.

That was the message Thursday night to hundreds of parents, community members, and teachers who signed on for a crash course on what local school councils do and how to become a member.

Starting Oct. 16, people can file paperwork to become a candidate in next April’s LSC elections. Applications are due Feb. 8, 2024. Despite numerous vacancies, during the 2022-23 school year a record number of more than 6,000 candidates applied to become LSC members, according to CPS.

After last year’s election, more than 1,400 seats for LSCs across the city of Chicago remained open, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat. This year, Chicago Public Schools is trying to get ahead of the curve and provide as much information — and encouragement — as possible to parents and community members who might be interested in having a louder voice in how their child’s school is run.

“Serving on an LSC is one of the most important, most impactful ways you can make a difference in your school,” said Kishasha Williams-Ford, director of LSC relations, during the virtual meeting.

With 374 vacant seats, the majority are up for grabs, according to a map of current local school council members from CPS. That includes open seats all across Chicago — from the South and West Sides to the North Side.

Next November, voters will also elect 10 members to the Chicago Board of Education as Chicago moves to a 21-member school board that will eventually be fully elected.

One of the most important jobs for LSCs is agreeing on who will lead the school: Members have a voice in determining local schools’ next principal. They also vote on budget priorities and curriculum decisions that aren’t determined by the school district.

CPS officials reminded attendees of these powers and responsibilities during the virtual meeting Thursday, encouraging everyone with an interest to run and to persuade their friends to do the same after the heavy slate of vacancies in 2022, mostly on Chicago’s majority Black and Latino South and West sides.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez lauded parent and community involvement in local schools as being instrumental to recent student performance improvements. More Chicago students met state math and reading standards this year, but a majority of schools are still falling short of where they were pre-pandemic.

“The results are promising, why? Because we’re investing in our schools,” Martinez said Thursday night. “We can’t do this work without you. It is your voice, being connected at the local school level … that’s going to continue to make our district stronger.”

In a prepared video statement that aired during the Zoom meeting, Mayor Brandon Johnson praised the people willing to take the time to be on their local school councils and encouraged more to run in the next election.

“We need your voices and ideas to ensure our students receive the highest quality education and have every opportunity for success,” Johnson said.

Every two years, local school districts elect LSC members made up of parents, students, CPS staff, and community members. In order to become a member, people have to fill out an application form, meet the basic qualification criteria. Parent members must have a student enrolled at the school. Community members must live in the school’s attendance boundaries. Student members must be enrolled and teachers must work at the school they wish to represent.

Traditional LSCs are made up of the principal, six parent representatives, two community members, two teachers, one representative of non-teacher staff, three students for high schools, and one student for schools serving up to eighth grade. All positions — other than the one-year student terms — are for two years.

There are no term limits, so students, parents, and community members can run as many times as they want, as long as they still meet the basic qualifications. Anyone who has a child at the school or lives in the school’s attendance boundary can vote in the elections, including undocumented people.

Elections take place April 10, 2024 for elementary schools and April 11, 2024 for high schools.

Clarke Burnett, an eighth grade student at Skinner West Elementary School in the West Loop and a member of the school’s LSC, encouraged fellow students to run.

“If you’re passionate about your opinions about your school and have ideas … no matter what, your thoughts will be heard on the LSC,” Clarke said. “Whatever you have to say, it’ll be heard in some sort of way.”

Michael Gerstein is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

Parent of 3, former teacher Adam Slutzker running for northwest seat on Denver school board

2023-09-20T22:49:07+00:00

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A former elementary school teacher whose three children attend Denver Public Schools is running for a seat on the Denver school board.

Adam Slutzker, who taught in a neighboring district, is running to represent northwest Denver. His children attend Columbian Elementary School, which was one of 10 schools Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended closing last school year for low enrollment. Though Columbian was spared, Slutzker said that experience pushed him to run for the board.

“I don’t really believe that they did their job in effectively communicating with the potentially impacted communities in a way that gave people the opportunity to process and engage in a thoughtful manner,” Slutzker said of the district’s school closure process.

However, he said declining enrollment in DPS means more closures could be coming.

“We are going to have to find a way — whether it’s closures or consolidations or different ways of appropriating our funding” to deal with declining enrollment, he said. “Hard decisions are going to have to be made. We need to be conscious of how we’re making those decisions.”

Slutzker, 39, is one of three candidates running to represent District 5 on the board. He’ll face two opponents: incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and challenger Marlene De La Rosa.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7, and a total of nine candidates are in the running. Two of the seats, including District 5, represent specific regions of the city and the third seat represents the entire city at large.

The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for power struggles and infighting among some members. Also at stake is how DPS will deal with pressing issues including declining enrollment and school safety.

After a shooting inside East High School in March, the school board reinstated police officers in some DPS high schools. A previous board had voted in 2020 to remove school resource officers, or SROs, over concerns that SROs were over-policing students of color.

Slutzker said he’d rather the district spend money on social services and mental health support than on stationing police in buildings.

But since SROs are currently being funded by the city and not by DPS, Slutzker said he would be open to keeping them as long as they’re properly trained, and as long as the SROs are “there to protect and serve our students and not necessarily in a disciplinary fashion.”

Slutzker said he worked as an elementary school teacher from 2009 until 2014, mostly in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools. He said he left teaching when his oldest child was born and has spent the past nine years working part-time as a real estate agent, contractor, and carpenter while his wife works full-time as a nurse practitioner.

For the past two years, Slutzker said, he’s chaired Columbian Elementary’s collaborative school committee, a group of parents and teachers who advise school leaders.

“I left the classroom because it was a better financial decision for me to stay at home with our children,” Slutzker said. “I’ve always wanted to go back … I couldn’t think of a better way to be politically engaged than running for school board and making an impact on the education system.”

Slutzker said he believes it’s important for district decision-makers to listen to teachers.

“I consider myself an educator advocate, first and foremost,” he said. “Before I wear my parent hat, I put on my teacher hat.”

On issues such as how to boost teacher recruitment and retention, Slutzker said DPS needs to base its policies on educator feedback.

“They’re the experts and we need to be listening to them,” he said.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed either by the teachers union or by organizations supportive of education reform and independent charter schools. Asked his opinion on charter schools, Slutzker said that while he supports DPS having a variety of school types, he believes charter schools need more oversight.

He also said the expansion of charter schools in DPS has contributed to the district’s declining enrollment crisis because “we’ve opened too many schools.” In the few parts of the city where new housing is being built and school enrollment is increasing, Slutzker said he’d potentially be open to approving new charter schools, but not districtwide.

“I’m not anti-charter school, but I want to make sure every neighborhood has a thriving neighborhood school their child can attend before we go granting new charters,” he said. The term neighborhood school often refers to traditional, district-run schools.

Slutzker said his dual experience as both a former educator and a current parent make him stand out among candidates for the District 5 school board seat.

“My background in education and living it day to day, dealing with headaches of child care, the pickups and dropoffs, the healthy school start times, and how to get off of work and pick kids up at 2:40, is something I carry that other candidates are not directly experiencing,” Slutzker said.

Healthy start times is a district policy that pushes elementary school start times earlier and middle and high school start times later to ensure teenagers get more sleep.

“I think I can really empathize with other families in the district for the challenges we’re all facing in being parents in 2023,” Slutzker said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Six candidates will vie for three Westminster school board seats in November

2023-09-19T23:17:41+00:00

Leer en español.

Six candidates are running for three open school board seats in the 8,000-student Westminster district’s first contested board election in six years.

One incumbent, Christine Martinez, is running for reelection. Two others, board President Ken Cianco and Vice President Max Math, are term-limited and are not running. That means voters will elect at least two and possibly three newcomers to the five-member board in the Nov. 7 election.

Martinez has joined with candidates Audrey Yanos and Mary Beth Murphy to run as a slate that has the backing of the district’s teachers union. Generally, they say the district is headed in the right direction and should stay the course.

The other three candidates — Anthony Sisneros and husband-and-wife team Charles and Brenda Gallegos — are also running as a slate. They are seeking changes, including to improve student achievement and create more opportunities for parents to be heard and get involved.

Westminster’s board members are elected on an “at large” basis, which means candidates represent the whole school district, not one specific area. The top three vote-getters will win seats.

The board race comes at a time of transition for the suburban school district north of Denver, with longtime Superintendent Pamela Swanson set to leave her post at the end of the school year. It’s unclear if the current board will name a successor before the election or leave the decision to the new board.

Like many Colorado districts, Westminster is also facing declining enrollment as birth rates drop and pricey housing pushes more families outside the metro area. Between 2016 and 2021, the district lost more than 1,400 students — a 15% drop.

The League of Women Voters has tentatively scheduled a school board candidate forum at 7 p.m. Oct. 4 at Westminster Grange Hall, 3935 W. 73rd Ave. The district plans to livestream the event.

Here’s a closer look at the six candidates:

ABC for WPS Slate

Brenda Gallegos describes herself as a concerned parent, not a politician. She said it’s time for a school board with new voices and more debate. Currently, “I feel like we’re kind of spinning our tires in mud,” she said. “We have the same people. We have the same ideas.”

Gallegos, who works at a vision clinic, has three daughters and one son. Two of her daughters attend school in the district. Increasing school security is one of her priorities. She said she wants to have school resource officers placed at the district’s K-8 schools and to ensure more oversight of school hallways and gathering places by officers at the district’s high schools.

Like other members of her slate, Gallegos said she wants to ensure that the district listens to and involves parents. When one of her daughters struggled with reading in elementary school, she said Westminster educators dismissed her concerns, prompting her to move her daughter temporarily to the neighboring Jeffco district, where the girl was tested and given a special education plan.

As a Spanish speaker, Gallegos said she could serve as a liaison between the board and Spanish-speaking parents in the district.

“It takes a village,” she said. “Let’s use our village.”

Charles Gallegos said improving student achievement and increasing parent engagement are his main reasons for running for school board.

An optometrist and navy veteran, he graduated from Westminster High School and was the first in his family to attend college. He has three daughters and one son. Two of his daughters attend district schools.

He said he supports the district’s competency-based system, in which students master a topic before moving to the next one, but said too many students are still struggling.

“If you’re a parent and (you) Google performance, you’re going to see some scores that are really, really bad, frustratingly bad,” he said. “Why are there still so many students at the bottom?”

Gallegos said he wants to help build stronger parent teacher organizations throughout the district. Right now, he said it’s “hit and miss,” with robust PTAs at some schools and barely functioning groups at other schools.

Anthony Sisneros is making his second run for a school board seat, after a loss in 2011. He said if he’s elected, he’ll seek to ensure that students with disabilities get the same school choices as other students and will push for a national search to select the next superintendent.

A Westminster High School graduate, Sisneros is the assistant controller at the MSU Denver Foundation. He has three children, including a son with Down syndrome who was at the center of a complaint filed by the Sisneros family against the district after the boy was denied placement at the family’s preferred school. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights ruled in favor of the district in December 2022, but Sisneros said his family has appealed the decision. In the meantime, the son attends a private school.

“Through all these headaches of trying to find a school for my son, I could have easily put up a for sale sign and moved,” he said. “I’m here to fight for the kids and families that look like mine.”

Sisneros said that if he’s elected, he wants to close a policy loophole that he alleges has allowed a current board member who is an architect to receive lucrative district contracts. He described it as a conflict of interest.

District officials said the district has complied with board policies in awarding contracts to DAO Architecture, which board member Dan Orecchio owns. They also said Orecchio has recused himself from votes on contracts with his firm and filed a conflict of interest disclosure with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office saying that he planned to continue doing business with the district after his election.

MMY for WPS Slate

Christine Martinez, the incumbent, said she’s running again to continue the work begun during her first term, including helping the district recover from COVID and selecting a new superintendent. She said she’s proud of the board’s decision shortly after COVID hit to bring students back for in-person learning at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year.

The vice president of a local property management company, Martinez is a Westminster High School graduate, the daughter of two retired district teachers, and the mother of a seventh-grade son who attends school in the district.

Martinez said she wants to promote and share the many positive things that are going on in district schools. She cited a recent trip to South Korea by district high-schoolers participating in a “drone soccer” tournament, a NASA partnership with aerospace and film students, and the planned transformation of a former middle school into a career and technical education hub.

Martinez sees declining enrollment as the biggest challenge facing the district. She said it’s important to bring back students who have left and to recruit new ones as well.

Mary Beth Murphy is a retired teacher who said she’s not coming in with a specific agenda other than to ensure students get the best free public education possible.

“I’m not angry about anything,” she said. “I’m not running on a grievance campaign. I really believe in public education. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to.”

Murphy is the director of the Central Adams UniServ Unit, an organization that supports four local teachers unions. She retired last year after more than 30 years in the Mapleton district, most recently as a math teacher. She has four adult children, two of whom attended schools in the Westminster district.

Shortfalls in school funding and teacher shortages are among the biggest challenges facing the Westminster district, she said.

Murphy said hasn’t thought much about the selection of a new superintendent, but said she hopes for someone who is a good leader and communicator, honest and upfront.

Audrey Yanos said as a Chicana who was the first in her family to finish high school and attend college, she represents the community.

“I know what path our students are walking in,” she said.

Yanos, an operations supervisor at a healthcare nonprofit, attended K-12 schools in the nearby Adams 12 and Adams 14 districts. She has three children in Westminster schools — one each in elementary, middle, and high school. She volunteered on a committee supporting a 2018 school district tax measure and has been active in the PTAs at her children’s schools.

”I love our school district,” she said. “We’ve had such positive experiences within our school district, and that’s at every level.”

If elected, she wants to continue educating the community about the district’s competency-based system, in which students are grouped by what content they’ve mastered, not necessarily by grade.

Yanos said the district is headed in the right direction and that its biggest challenge is the transition that will come with having a new superintendent.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Where Memphis’ mayoral candidates stand on education issues

2023-09-14T11:00:00+00:00

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The mayor of Memphis doesn’t have a lot of say in how Memphis-Shelby County Schools operates. But candidates running for the position in the Oct. 5 election do have a lot to say about how the city and the district can cooperate to improve outcomes for the city’s students.

Some are calling for the city to take on a direct role in funding the district. Others want to see the city expand its contribution to early childhood education programs as a way to set students up for success.

Seventeen candidates are vying for the post, and early voting begins Friday.

Chalkbeat sent a questionnaire to all 17 candidates asking them, among other things, whether they’d support new funding to MSCS, and whether they would make any changes to universal preschool programming. We also asked how they planned to alleviate many of the barriers students face outside of school.

Fourteen of them responded (Carnita Atwater, Jennings Bernard, and Justina Ragland did not), and we’re sharing their responses in this voter guide. Other than formatting adjustments to improve readability, these responses have not been edited by Chalkbeat.

Click on a candidate’s name to read their responses to each question. To compare candidate responses to a specific question, click on that question.

Check your voter registration status here.

Find a sample ballot and polling locations here by entering your name or address.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Longtime DPS volunteer Marlene De La Rosa running for northwest Denver seat on school board

2023-09-07T22:16:24+00:00

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A longtime Denver Public Schools volunteer and advocate and the mother of two DPS graduates is running to represent northwest Denver on the school board.

Marlene De La Rosa began serving on school committees when her twins, who are now 29, were in preschool. Her advocacy continued throughout their school career, from Denison Montessori elementary school to North and East high schools. She also served on several district and citywide committees, advocating for Latino parents and students while working full time as an immigration court specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice.

De La Rosa, 58, said her recent retirement and a lifelong passion for education motivated her to run for school board. She will challenge incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and candidate Adam Slutzker for a seat representing District 5, which encompasses northwest Denver.

“I am a public servant and have been all my life,” De La Rosa told Chalkbeat. “Leadership is a lifelong journey, and that’s the way I envision continuing on this path to serve my community.”

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting. Also at stake is how the board will deal with pressing issues such as declining enrollment and student safety.

De La Rosa said her top priorities include higher pay for teachers, diversifying the teacher workforce, and closing test score gaps between students of color and white students.

Declining enrollment and the possibility of school closures is a pressing topic in northwest Denver, where De La Rosa said her family has lived for four generations. The region has been hit hard by gentrification, which has pushed out families and driven down student counts.

De La Rosa said she understands how fewer students means less per-pupil funding, which often leads small schools to cut programs or staff. But she said DPS’ recent school closure decisions happened too quickly, and the community deserves more time to understand the issues and prepare for their children to switch schools.

Almost a decade ago, De La Rosa said she was hired by DPS to facilitate a community process that ended with the placement of Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High in a vacant elementary building. Some parents wanted the building to remain an elementary school, but De La Rosa said sharing Census data and demographic projections helped change their minds.

On school safety, De La Rosa said the district needs to monitor the effects of the board’s recent decision to return police officers to DPS campuses in the wake of a shooting inside East High. Her son had a positive experience with a school resource officer in high school, but De La Rosa said the board needs to ensure that’s the case districtwide by tracking the number of tickets SROs are issuing to students and for what offenses.

“They have a plan in place, and we should continue to monitor what’s going on with that plan,” De La Rosa said. “Is that meeting the needs of each specific school community? Are those school leaders happy with that plan? Do they think that’s sufficient?”

De La Rosa has been endorsed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of the organization Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families launched in 2021 with the backing of three local charter school networks and gets funding from The City Fund, a national organization that supports charter schools and school reform.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed by reform organizations or the Denver teachers union. Both spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailers and canvassing, making it hard for candidates without endorsements to compete.

Asked her views on charter schools, De La Rosa said, “I don’t follow any specific ideology other than, ‘How do we offer the best we can for every kid?’”

De La Rosa said she supports school choice and used it for her own children, including enrolling her daughter at East High. But she also said that the choice system is not perfect.

“You have to evaluate as the parent: What’s the best for my particular child’s needs?” she said.

Both of De La Rosa’s children were competitive athletes, which influenced the high schools they chose, she said. De La Rosa served as a parent representative on the collaborative school committee at East High, advising school leaders on how to close academic gaps between students of color and white students, she said.

She also ran a student athlete leadership program at North High that aimed to boost students’ grades and self-esteem. One year, she said she got a grant to take five student athletes to a national social justice conference in Washington, D.C., where they shook hands with former President Barack Obama.

When Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet was superintendent of DPS from 2005 to 2009, De La Rosa served on a districtwide parent empowerment council that informed parents about everything from test scores at their children’s schools to how to plan healthy meals for their families.

De La Rosa currently serves as a mayoral appointee to the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Denver Latino Commission. She is also a founder of LatinasGive!, a circle of women who give small grants to organizations that serve the Latino community.

“I give my money, I give my time, I give my knowledge, I give my love,” De La Rosa said. “Passion is mainly what I’ve given over all these years to support the community.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

New poll finds wide-open Denver school board race, little trust in current board

2023-09-05T17:03:00+00:00

Two months ahead of the Denver school board election, a new poll finds widespread distrust in the current board, even as most respondents said the district is providing students an adequate education.

The poll finds the majority of respondents rate school safety as a key concern, alongside recruiting and retaining teachers, while other major challenges facing the district such as declining enrollment don’t attract the same interest.

Colorado Polling Institute, a team made up of Republican polling firm Cygnal and Democratic firm Aspect Strategic, surveyed 414 likely voters in mid-August.

Like voters in off-year school board elections, the poll respondents’ demographics don’t match those of DPS parents. Most Denver students are Latino or Black and come from low-income households. The majority of poll respondents were white and come from middle- or high-income households, similar to the likely voter population. About 18% of poll respondents were DPS parents.

In November, voters will choose three members on the seven-member board. With Auon’tai Anderson withdrawing to pursue a state House seat, no incumbent is running in the at-large race. The poll found 87% of respondents undecided on the at-large race.

Support for all the candidates was within the margin of error, but former East High principal John Youngquist drew the most support, with a little less than 5% of respondents saying he was their preferred candidate. Ulcca Joshi Hansen — who dropped out shortly after the poll was taken — was a close second. The other candidates are Kwame Spearman, Paul Ballenger, and Brittni Johnson. Johnson had not yet filed at the time the poll was taken.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of the Denver school board, compared to just 21.6% with a favorable view. Two-thirds of parents reported an unfavorable view. Respondents of color and older respondents were also more likely to have an unfavorable view.

In contrast, parents were more likely to say DPS is providing a quality education, with 38% saying Denver schools are good or excellent, compared with less than a quarter of overall respondents. Another 35% said Denver schools provide a “fair” education, compared with 31% of overall respondents. This result corresponds with other polls that find parents generally have a favorable view of their children’s schools and see education more positively than non-parents.

Denver parent views of school safety diverged from their view of academics, though. Slightly more than half said they don’t feel kids are safe in school, compared to slightly more than half of non-parents who said kids are safe in school. More than 70% of parent respondents support the return of school resource officers to Denver schools, compared to 63% overall. Latino respondents also supported police in schools at higher than average rates.

The Denver school board voted to bring SROs back after a student shot and wounded two deans at East High School this spring. The incident followed several high-profile safety incidents — including the fatal shooting of a student just outside East — that led to heated debate about safety and discipline policies.

Nearly half of respondents said their top two priorities are recruiting and retaining good teachers, followed closely by school safety. About a third of respondents named student mental health or academic achievement as a top priority. Just 16% said improving outcomes for students of color was a priority, though 44% of African American respondents ranked it highly.

About 40% of Denver third-graders met grade-level expectations in reading and writing on this spring’s state standardized tests. The district has the widest test score gaps in the state based on race and ethnicity, and Spanish-speaking students are doing worse on state tests than before the pandemic.

Fewer than 8% of respondents named declining enrollment and school closures — a major challenge that occupied much of the school board’s time over the last year — as a top priority.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen drops out of Denver school board race, citing outsize role of outside spending

2023-08-30T21:41:01+00:00

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Ulcca Joshi Hansen, one of five candidates running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board, announced this week that she’s dropping out of the race.

Hansen, who works in education philanthropy and has two children in Denver Public Schools, cited money and politics as the reason. For years, outside groups have spent far more in DPS school board races than the candidates themselves. Though it hasn’t always led to victory, it has made it harder for candidates not backed by outside groups to compete.

Hansen calls this type of spending “soft side spending.” It’s also referred to as outside spending or dark money, because the funders of the outside groups often remain secret. New limits passed by state lawmakers on the amount of money individual donors can give to school board candidates will make outside spending even more significant this election cycle.

“Last week, it became clear that I would not have that soft side support,” Hansen wrote in a letter announcing her decision. “After careful consideration and reflection, I’ve decided to withdraw from the current race.”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to shape the district’s approach to key issues such as school safety and to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized as dysfunctional.

Last week, an organization called Denver Families Action endorsed former East High School Principal John Youngquist for an at-large seat representing the entire city, passing over Hansen and three other candidates in the race.

Denver Families Action is the political arm of Denver Families for Public Schools, which launched in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks. In Denver school board politics, support for independent charter schools and other education reform strategies is often a dividing line.

In the 2021 Denver school board election, outside groups that favor education reform spent more than $1 million to support a slate of candidates who wound up losing to candidates backed by the Denver and Colorado teachers unions, which spent less than half that amount.

The candidates themselves often raise and spend far less. In 2021, the top-spending Denver candidate was Scott Esserman, who spent $67,636 in his bid to win an at-large seat.

Hansen was among the top personal fundraisers so far in this year’s at-large race, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office on Aug. 1. As of that date, she’d raised more than $32,000. In her letter, she said she’d raised even more since then. Her total as of this week was $47,000 from more than 350 donors, she wrote.

But in her letter, Hansen said she expects soft side spending — which occurs through independent expenditure committees that are not allowed to coordinate directly with the candidates — will far outpace candidate spending. Endorsements are key to getting support from committees connected to both education reform and to the teachers unions.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, which also contributes directly to candidates, has not yet endorsed anyone in the at-large race.

Hansen hinted in her letter that she’d run for school board again in 2025. Four of the seven seats will be up for grabs, including the seat representing the region where Hansen lives. That will likely be a less expensive race; candidates running to represent a specific region of the city often have to raise and spend less money than candidates running at large.

As for this year, Hansen said in an interview that she hopes whoever is elected refocuses the board’s attention on students. The current board, she said, “has gotten away from that.”

“I’m hopeful that we get new board members, including in the at-large seat, who are willing to step up and be vocal leaders and advocates for the board to focus on the things that are about students and the experiences students have that allow them to succeed,” she said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

DPS father, graduate, and full-time volunteer running to represent northwest Denver on the school board

2023-08-24T02:16:53+00:00

Update, Sept. 7: Lacy McDonald did not qualify for the ballot to run for Denver school board, according to the Denver Office of the Clerk and Recorder. An office spokesperson said McDonald did not meet the requirement of having been a registered voter in the district he was seeking to represent for at least 12 consecutive months before the Nov. 7 election.

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A father of four who volunteers full time at the Denver middle school where his wife is principal is running for a seat representing northwest Denver on the school board.

Lacy McDonald runs The Outer Haven, a nonprofit organization that mentors students at Lake Middle School, where his wife Amanda is principal.

McDonald takes students into the wilderness to do engineering and carpentry projects, facilitates classes in DJing and podcasting, and promotes physical fitness. He also tends school vegetable gardens at Lake Middle School and Colfax Elementary School.

McDonald, 42, said he decided to run for school board after the contentious process this year to close schools with low enrollment. His youngest three children attend Colfax, which was at risk of closure. Colfax was spared in the last round but could face a closure threat again.

“There was no authentic communication with community,” McDonald said. “It was more of a one-size-fits-all, you gotta do this, sorry, here you go.

“I’m like, whoa! DPS is always drumming this thing about equity and yet you haven’t come to each of our schools to see what each of us individually have to deal with.”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. McDonald will be among the candidates to challenge Charmaine Lindsay, the sitting board member for northwest Denver’s District 5. Lindsay was appointed last year and is now running to keep the seat.

The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been plagued by infighting and power struggles between some members. Also at stake is how the board will deal with pressing issues such as declining enrollment and school safety.

McDonald said the “silencing” of Black and brown people by DPS also pushed him to join the race. He cited the district’s attempt to trademark the name of a podcast, “Know Justice, Know Peace,” that was started by four Black students — a fight DPS eventually dropped. He also cited the district’s ban of an outspoken Black critic, which a judge overturned.

McDonald grew up in Denver and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. He said he joined the U.S. Army after the 9/11 attacks and served two tours in Afghanistan.

As he was transitioning out of the military eight years ago, McDonald heard Denver activist Jeff Fard talking about how Black boys were being disproportionately suspended from an elementary school in Montbello. So, he said, he went to volunteer at the school.

His interaction with a third grade boy changed his life, McDonald said.

“He told me, ‘Staff Sgt. Mac, you can tell me I can make it from A to Z, but you’re not going to be here to show me,’” McDonald recalled. “It was such a mature and deep response. And I took up the challenge from this kiddo, and I told him I would be there next Friday. And then next Friday turned into every other day.”

McDonald said he’s been volunteering in DPS schools ever since. The issues he cares the most about are communication, culture, and accountability, he said.

The district’s lack of communication was evident in the school closure process, McDonald said. He was especially disappointed that Superintendent Alex Marrero didn’t personally attend meetings at each school that was at risk of closure, instead sending other district administrators. He said he disagrees with the pay raise the board recently gave Marrero.

“If you’re going to close down schools like that, you need to come and you need to talk to the people in the community,” McDonald said. “I don’t want to listen to your third-string quarterback.”

McDonald said he doesn’t relish the thought of closing schools, but if it needs to happen, then DPS should think creatively about how to repurpose the buildings. One idea he floated was using vacant buildings as housing for families experiencing homelessness.

School safety has been a high-profile issue in DPS since a March shooting inside East High School and the school board’s decision to bring police officers back to schools. McDonald said that if DPS is going to have SROs, those officers need to get to know the culture of a school and build relationships with students, not criminalize them.

“I don’t want a reactive police force involved with our community,” he said.

Successful candidates for Denver school board have historically gotten endorsements and funding from one of two sources: the teachers’ union or groups supportive of education reform. A dividing line is often candidates’ opinions on independently run charter schools. Most groups haven’t yet endorsed in this election.

McDonald said he understands the purpose of opening innovative charter schools. But he said the way it’s happened in Denver has been problematic at times. His wife’s school shared a building for many years with STRIVE Prep - Lake, a charter that closed this past spring. The arrangement caused a lot of tension and competitiveness in student recruitment, McDonald said.

“If you’re going to have shared campuses like that, it needs to be built with purpose — with authentic, harmonious purpose,” he said.

Paid DPS employees are barred from serving on the school board, but the ban doesn’t include employee spouses or volunteers. If he’s elected, McDonald said he’d refrain from voting on any issues that could be a conflict of interest. Lake Middle School lies within District 5.

McDonald said his collaborative spirit sets him apart from the other candidates in the race. His campaign’s slogan is “Together We Rise.”

“I can be tender and kind, but I can also be extremely dangerous and demanding when needed,” McDonald said. “There’s a time for lambs and there’s a time for lions. And we have to be able to maneuver between the two to get what we want accomplished.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s first day of school is almost here. Here are five things we’re watching this year.

2023-08-18T20:42:43+00:00

Chicago Public Schools’ estimated 320,000 students will head back to class Monday for a school year that will be marked by old issues — and some new concerns.

The district’s enrollment has been dwindling for at least a decade, raising questions about how to best fund schools still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

Funding overall has become more complicated as the city’s federal COVID relief dollars dry up. Much of that money has been used for supporting existing and additional staff, many of them providing extra academic support for students.

As the district decides on how, if at all, to continue funding some of those programs, it must also contend with the continued enrollment of incoming immigrant students.

Here are five issues Chalkbeat Chicago will be watching this school year:

A fiscal cliff is approaching

This is the last full school year before Chicago must earmark how to spend what’s left of nearly $3 billion it received in COVID relief aid from the federal government. The deadline is September 2024.

That means the district will soon be staring down a financial hole that has been filled by that influx of federal funds since the pandemic.

The district spent a large share of pandemic relief money on staff salaries and benefits. The district also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on academic recovery efforts, including after-school programs, an in-house tutor corps, and more counselors, social workers, and other support staff.

District officials have projected a budget shortfall of $628 million by the 2025-26 school year, raising questions about how Chicago will sustain any programs and services supported by the federal dollars.

A financial analysis released under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot noted that CPS “will not have a funding source” to keep up these academic recovery and social-emotional learning efforts.

As the district’s financial picture is becoming more precarious, Mayor Brandon Johnson has shared lofty plans for schools, including expanding the Community Schools model — leaving complicated financial decisions ahead.

The district’s state funding could also be in jeopardy if it fails to comply with a state law requiring that at least two staffers at each school are trained on the use of student restraint and timeout. The deadline for that, coincidentally, is the first day of school.

Student academic needs persist

Three years since the onset of the COVID pandemic, there are still signs Chicago students need extra help in the classroom. Students appear to be improving in reading achievement, but they’re gaining less ground in math, according to recent state test scores obtained by Chalkbeat.

As the district’s COVID dollars fade out, questions remain about how district officials will approach academic recovery, and whether there will be efforts to keep any of the extra support CPS has funded with the federal dollars.

Some of those COVID dollars went toward the creation of a $135 million universal curriculum called Skyline, which has received mixed reviews. The district has pressed schools not yet using the curriculum to prove they’re using another high-quality option, so it’s possible more campuses will use Skyline this year.

Additionally, Illinois’ General Assembly passed a new law requiring the State Board of Education to create a literacy plan for schools, which is due by the end of January 2024.

District grapples with continued dipping enrollment

Chicago’s public school enrollment has dipped by 9% since the pandemic began — a trend also seen among other big-city school districts — and is almost one-fifth smaller than it was a decade ago. Last year’s enrollment dip of 9,000 students was enough to push the district’s ranking from the country’s third largest public school system to the number 4 spot.

This year’s enrollment figures won’t be publicly released until later this fall.

As the district’s student body has thinned out, funding has grown — to $9.4 billion for the upcoming school year. Still, as the district has logged fewer students — including those from low-income families — CPS has in recent years received less state funding than it has projected. And with COVID aid running out, officials must grapple with how to fund schools serving a fraction of the kids they used to. (There is a citywide moratorium on school closures until 2025.)

Some advocacy and interest groups, including the teachers union, believe funding should be divorced from enrollment, in part because investing fewer dollars will only encourage more families to leave or to never enroll in public schools. Just over 40% of new budgets for schools this year was determined by student enrollment, with the rest accounting for other factors, such as student demographics.

Still, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has emphasized that the district can’t factor out enrollment.

“In a large school district where schools serve 40 students, 400 students, and even 4,000 students, enrollment simply has to play a role in our funding formula,” Martinez previously told reporters.

Increase in migrant students poses new challenges

Last year, Texas officials began busing newly arrived migrants to Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. Since then, an estimated 12,000 migrants, many of whom are fleeing economic and political turmoil from South and Central American countries, have arrived in Chicago, While the district won’t say how many such students have enrolled, CPS saw roughly 5,400 new English learners last school year, Chalkbeat found.

Most Chicago schools have previously struggled with providing adequate language instruction for English learners. And with the city expecting more newcomers, educators and immigrant advocates recently told Chalkbeat that schools are not adequately resourced to serve these new students.

Some of these children may arrive without years of formal education and, if they’re learning English as a new language, are legally required to receive extra support.

The district’s number of bilingual teachers has dropped since 2015 even as the English learner population has grown, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. More teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements, which allows them to teach, but it’s unclear whether any of those educators are using those endorsements in the classroom.

District officials will be tasked with how to properly support these students. Officials had previously promised to release a formal plan by the first day of school but have not done so yet.

No district maps yet for the elected school board

As Chicago prepares to begin electing school board members next fall over the next two years, lawmakers have yet to approve maps that would designate which districts each board member would be elected from in the first round of elections. Ten members will be elected in November 2024, while the rest will be elected in November 2026, for a total of 21 members.

Illinois state lawmakers are in charge of approving those maps. In May, they extended their deadline to April 1, 2024, after concerns over whether the maps would match the makeup of the district’s student body or the city’s overall demographics.

Some observers cheered the extension. However, the delay presents new complications. If maps are not approved until April, the campaign season for the first set of districts would last just seven months, making it potentially challenging for candidates to prepare and for voters to have enough information ahead of Election Day.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Turmoil grips NYC schools office that administers parent-led board elections

2023-08-18T15:08:36+00:00

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Queens parent leader Sherée Gibson worried about turnout even before voting began in this spring’s elections for the city’s Community Education Councils, the 32 parent-led boards that oversee school zones and other policy issues.

New York City public school parents cast ballots through their children’s NYC Schools Accounts, but education officials say a third of the city’s roughly 900,000 students aren’t linked to accounts. Gibson, who worked on the last CEC election and was appointed by the Queens borough president to sit the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said she voiced her concerns in numerous meetings and conversations.

She wasn’t the only one raising alarms. Staffers and parent leaders pleaded with the Education Department office that administers the elections — Family and Community Empowerment, known as FACE — to roll out publicity campaigns for account sign-ups and voter awareness in the fall ahead of voting, but a plan never got off the ground, according to interviews with parents and campaign workers. One incoming CEC member even stepped down in protest of the election results and lack of outreach, particularly to non-English-speaking and low-income families.

“The outreach wasn’t there,” said that prospective CEC member, Lilah Mejia.

Meanwhile, election workers were diverted from their duties while unanswered emails piled up in a CEC election inbox, according to several contracted workers.

In the end, only about 19,000 votes were cast across the five boroughs, according to Education Department figures. That’s about 2% of the city’s public school families. The city had a similar turnout last election, but that was earlier in the pandemic when many families may have been grappling with greater challenges.

Ultimately, candidates endorsed by the controversial Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE — which advocates rolling back recent policies that reduce screened school admissions — made big inroads, winning nearly 40% of the roughly 320 seats on the parent councils and capturing all of the seats up for election on the high school council, one of four citywide boards.

Chalkbeat interviewed more than 20 current and former FACE staffers, election campaign contractors, and parent leaders and reviewed numerous documents and emails that painted a picture of an office gripped by strife, with different factions leveling allegations of favoritism and discrimination. Several employees have filed complaints with various agencies against other staffers. Ultimately, observers say, the administration of the CEC elections may have suffered as a result.

“It was chaos,” said Tommy Sarkar, who worked as a contractor hired as a data analyst on the election.

The issues were so pervasive that two citywide parent groups called on the attorney general and city comptroller to audit FACE’s handling of the elections. According to a letter calling for the audit, the elections “were not carried out with fidelity, integrity, transparency and equity.”

Among other complaints was a lack of outreach to high schools, particularly in the Bronx where parents at only nine out of the borough’s 153 high schools voted for high school representatives on the Citywide Council on High Schools, according to the letter.

The attorney general’s office referred calls to the comptroller’s office, which said it was reviewing the groups’ complaints and assessing next steps.

The issues with the CEC elections have put a spotlight on turmoil within the office in charge of holding them. Some observers blame FACE’s leadership, including executive director Cristina Melendez, who took over in January 2022 after serving as a lead on the education transition team for Mayor Eric Adams. Others say that long-time staffers are causing turmoil, particularly those who have been through the turbulence of four executive directors in four years.

Chalkbeat asked the Education Department to comment on the strife inside FACE and the various complaints related to the office, but officials said they can’t comment on personnel issues or investigations. Melendez did not respond for comment.

Education officials said FACE has initiatives in place to help parents access their NYC Schools Account logins, including training school parent coordinators, giving incentives to districts with the highest number of sign-ups, and ensuring that Family Leadership Coordinators — who also help parent leaders and are based in each of the 45 superintendents’ offices — have tools and training to help parents.

“Family engagement is the cornerstone of a successful school system,” Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said in a statement. “We are committed to meeting families where they are and providing the support needed for our students to excel. The Office of Family and Community Empowerment was reorganized to increase transparency, rebuild trust, and deepen partnerships with all families.”

According to parents and staffers, the problems at FACE seem to run deep: The office has had little stability over the past several years, and with each new chancellor comes a new vision for what FACE should look like, causing tension among the staff and consternation among parents.

“Under every administration, you’ve seen different iterations of FACE,” said Brooklyn parent leader NeQuan McLean and president of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s CEC. “All of those administrations looked at parent leaders, parent engagement, and parent empowerment differently.”

He added: “FACE has always been the stepchild of the DOE. Parent engagement has never been a high priority.”

Parents and community members at 2016 Community Education Council meeting in Brooklyn’s District 13, which includes Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill.

Internal strife plagues Family and Community Empowerment office

Over the past few months, infighting at the office has resulted in multiple formal complaints from all sides to various city agencies.

In one case, an employee filed a complaint alleging emotional distress with the Education Department’s Office of Equal Opportunity, according to paperwork obtained by Chalkbeat. The staffer, who said in the complaint that he suffered a panic attack during a meeting with Melendez, alleged that he was being targeted because he previously filed a grievance with his union, DC 37, that promotions were being doled out in violation of civil service rules.

Another complaint was also filed with the Special Commissioner of Investigations office, or SCI, against Melendez alleging that staff members in the FACE office were promoted to jobs in violation of civil service rules, while other employees who had fallen out of favor were targeted and retaliated against, according to people who saw the complaint.

SCI officials said they were aware of the matter, but the office doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of any open or ongoing investigations.

Allies of Melendez, meanwhile, lodged complaints of their own. A parent who worked as a contractor on the election outreach teams filed a complaint against some of the long-time FACE staffers with the Office of Equal Opportunity, alleging mistreatment, according to the complaint shared with Chalkbeat. Another parent contractor also complained about the staffers in emails to Chancellor David Banks and other Education Department officials.

Bronx parent Ilka Rios wrote in a June email to Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd, who oversees FACE, along with Melendez and several others that she was treated poorly by long-time staff. She also claimed that when schools from lower-income areas like the South Bronx’s District 7 asked for presentations before the elections, the consultants were told to send them PowerPoint presentations, but when more affluent areas like Bayside in Queens’ District 26 requested the same presentations, the consultants had to be available.

“They made so many mistakes with that election process,” Rios told Chalkbeat. “They left out so many schools in the Bronx.”

Parents elected to a citywide board representing high school parents were all PLACE members, and more than half of them have children at the city’s specialized high schools — elite schools that require a test for entry and have long been criticized for their low enrollment of Black and Latino students.

Gloria Corsino, another parent leader brought on to work on the elections, filed an Office of Equal Opportunity complaint after a staffer allegedly referred to Corsino “wearing an ankle bracelet” — Corsino doesn’t, and she felt that implied she was a criminal.

Meanwhile, Sarkar, another contractor on the campaign, said he felt discriminated against when a manager urged the consultants to work on Eid, a Muslim holiday that Sarkar celebrates.

“I do not like to come down on anyone but it’s crunch time,” the manager wrote in an email shared with Chalkbeat. Even though the manager wasn’t forcing him to work, Sarkar said it felt like “there would be some kind of repercussion” if he didn’t, so he put in a few hours on the holiday.

Family and Community Empowerment has seen many iterations over the years

The discord in the FACE office comes against the backdrop of concerns that the office — tasked with supporting parent leaders from PTAs on up to CECs — hasn’t been made a priority by education leaders. While parent engagement is one of schools Chancellor David Banks’ “four pillars,” undergirding his vision on “building trust” in city schools, it’s the only one that has no action items under it, many parent leaders pointed out.

The office was created when former Mayor Michael Bloomberg won control over the nation’s largest school system in 2002. At that time, it was called the Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy, and it aimed to improve the relationship between schools and parents.

During the de Blasio administration, the office’s approach shifted. The Education Department merged the office with another one focused on supporting parents in the city’s community school program, which receive wraparound services. FACE held training sessions for parents on such topics as fundraising, collaboration, and governance.

Melendez — who calls herself the “parent whisperer” — is shaking things up again. A former bilingual education teacher in the Bronx and assistant principal, Melendez earned a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania in educational leadership. While there, she wrote a thesis entitled “Dominican parenting across generations” and examined difficulties the city had engaging Black and Latino parents. Prior to that, Melendez was a district supervisor for the city’s controversial renewal initiative aimed to turn around failing schools, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Melendez has been trying to reorganize the office from its borough-based structure into four categories: governance and policy; parent engagement and empowerment; community partnerships; and home-school partnerships, according to presentations shared with Chalkbeat. Some staffers say this is taking away focus from its role in supporting parent governance bodies, particularly the lower-level bodies like PTAs and school leadership teams, or SLTs. Some parent leaders say their governance-related questions have gone unanswered.

But others also welcome changes, hoping they could bring fresh ideas on how to meaningfully engage parents. Gibson, for instance, wants to see FACE involving parents on the city’s new literacy initiative mandating certain curriculums in elementary school. In the meantime, she’s been waiting a year to see the results of the office’s restructuring efforts.

“I think Cristina Melendez is under a lot of pressure to make things happen,” Gibson said. “And others want to stymie it.”

Some parents feel caught in the middle. Mejia, who served since last August as president of the CEC representing Manhattan’s Lower East Side and East Village, had been poised to start her new term as an appointment from the Manhattan borough president, but took her hat out of the ring.

In a conversation with Chalkbeat, Mejia said she was frustrated that FACE gave a NYC School Accounts sign-up presentation to CEC members — who already had accounts — but did not do such presentations more widely to all parents, particularly at schools with low voter participation. She complained about voting hurdles for non-English-speaking families and wondered why the Education Department didn’t distribute paper ballots through schools to help those with less tech literacy or access.

She also felt outraged that two PLACE-endorsed parents from Nest+M, a gifted and talented school located in her district that draws students from across the city, were elected to her CEC. Councils typically don’t include more than one parent from a school. The Education Department, however, upheld the outcome.

“FACE has turned me fully away,” the longtime parent activist said.

Julian Shen-Berro contributed.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Charmaine Lindsay is running to keep her seat representing northwest Denver on the school board

2023-07-31T15:15:00+00:00

Charmaine Lindsay is running to keep her seat on the Denver school board after being appointed more than a year ago to fill a vacancy.

Lindsay represents northwest Denver. The six other board members chose her over three other candidates to serve out the remaining 17 months of the term of Brad Laurvick, who resigned last year.

In her time on the board, Lindsay has been in the majority on votes to reinstate police officers in schools, close three schools with low enrollment, and give Superintendent Alex Marrero a raise. She is a quieter board member who has steered clear of the public infighting that has dogged the board. When she speaks at meetings, she is often blunt and to the point.

A 56-year-old mother and grandmother to one son, three step-children, and 11 grandchildren, all of whom have gone to Denver Public Schools, Lindsay said she’s running because she feels she still has work to do on the board. When she was appointed in June 2022, she said she wouldn’t run when the appointment ended. But Lindsay changed her mind.

“This year has gone by really fast and I haven’t really had a chance to get up the momentum, now that I actually understand how everything works,” Lindsay said. “I feel like I’ve got more knowledge, and I’m ready to go on a lot of issues.”

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. Lindsay, who represents District 5, is one of two incumbents running. She will face two challengers: longtime DPS volunteer and advocate Marlene De La Rosa and DPS parent and former teacher Adam Slutzker.

District 1 board member Scott Baldermann is also running to keep his seat representing southeast Denver.

At stake in the election is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and school closures, as well as how the board will respond to school safety concerns, which were heightened in the wake of a shooting inside East High School this past spring.

Lindsay was not on the school board in 2020 when members voted to remove police officers from Denver schools. But after the East High shooting, she emphatically called for their return.

In a closed-door meeting on March 23, the day after the shooting, Lindsay said two of her grandchildren attend East and “can name at least 20 kids they know that have guns,” according to a recording of the meeting released to Chalkbeat and other media organizations last week.

“I’ve dealt with minority kids who are likely to carry guns, who’ve been in and out of gangs, who are in and out of criminal justice, and these are the kids that would bring a gun to school and might shoot somebody,” Lindsay said in the meeting. “These kids, they should have the police officers there to stop them from doing this to themselves, to stop them from shooting people.”

In an interview, Lindsay said she doesn’t want to see students involved with police for low-level offenses like alcohol or marijuana possession. As the grandmother of Black children, Lindsay said she knows that students of color can be disproportionately targeted by police and that involvement in the criminal justice system can harm a child’s life.

But she said that in her opinion, the school resource officers who were in DPS schools prior to 2020 were “people that the kids could rely on.” She was in favor of putting what she called “safeguards” around their return, including that SROs would not be involved in student discipline. Most of those safeguards were stripped out of the final policy that passed in June.

By trade, Lindsay is a family law attorney. She said she has been practicing law out of her home since 1996 and that all of her clients are low-income. She handles divorce and child custody cases, evictions, restraining orders, and has begun representing students outside Denver in expulsion hearings. She does some work for free and other clients pay what they can, she said.

Two of her grandchildren live with her and attend DPS schools, one at Stedman Elementary and the other at McAuliffe International School, Lindsay said.

If elected, her priorities would be pushing DPS to increase the number of students of color identified as gifted and talented, close academic gaps between students of color and white students, and hire more teachers of color, Lindsay said.

The board may face more school closure decisions due to declining enrollment, an outcome Lindsay said she accepts. “The reality is we’re not going to have any choice,” she said.

“What my goal is in doing it better than we did it last time is to have town halls, is to talk to people, is to get ideas and to bring the schools into discussing what to do from their perspective instead of us telling them what to do,” Lindsay said.

Lindsay describes her education politics as more “traditionalist,” though she supports some issues championed by education reformers. She’s a strong supporter of school choice, she said, but for a more practical reason than the oft-cited philosophy that parents should get to choose the school that best fits their children’s needs.

For many of Lindsay’s clients, school choice allows a family to give their child educational stability even if the family frequently moves or the parents live in different neighborhoods.

Lindsay was new to education politics when she was appointed to the board. She said she was recruited by a family friend, Hashim Coates, who worked on the campaigns of other board members, including Scott Esserman and Auon’tai Anderson, and is now working on Lindsay’s campaign. Esserman, Anderson, and board member Michelle Quattlebaum were most supportive of Lindsay’s appointment.

But Lindsay has voted against Esserman, Anderson, and Quattlebaum on some key issues, such as reinstating SROs. Lindsay emphasized that she makes up her own mind.

“I have not made a decision that I have not put a lot of research into,” she said. “I’ve made well-informed decisions on what I think is in the best interest of the kids in DPS. My heart is with the kids and the teachers and the schools.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the District 5 seat.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Education researcher and DPS parent Ulcca Joshi Hansen is running for Denver school board

2023-07-28T19:15:21+00:00

Update, Aug. 30: Ulcca Joshi Hansen announced she is dropping out of the race.

An education researcher and author who works in education philanthropy and has two children in Denver Public Schools is running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen will face several opponents for the seat, which represents the entire city. The seat is currently held by board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who is not running for re-election.

Hansen, 47, said she was partly inspired to run by one of DPS’ most difficult problems: declining enrollment and the possibility of closing more schools. As Hansen sees it, the issue is not that small schools are bad but that they are too expensive for the district to run.

She’d like to think creatively about how to solve that problem and others. For example, she said, what if instead of closing small schools, the district brought them together to save money by sharing curriculum, training sessions, and art and music teachers?

“At this moment, there are challenges and opportunities, and there’s a moment for the board to lead in conversations with the community about what our 10-year vision is for Denver Public Schools,” Hansen said. “How do we allow all students to have access to the kind of education that parents who have choices can make for their children?”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. In addition to declining enrollment, the board will need to respond to safety concerns, which became more prominent after a high-profile shooting inside East High School this past spring.

The election also has the potential to change the dynamic of the board, which has been marked by infighting and power struggles between some members.

Hansen is the chief program officer for Grantmakers for Education, a member organization for education philanthropists. She’s also a longtime education researcher, conducting research in Denver and elsewhere, and author of a book called “The Future of Smart: How Our Education System Needs to Change to Help All Young People Thrive.” She began her education career as a public school teacher in Newark, New Jersey.

Hansen serves on the board of directors of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, a group of semi-autonomous DPS schools that has gone through some tumult recently. She also previously served on the board of Denver charter school network Rocky Mountain Prep.

She is married to state Sen. Chris Hansen, who ran unsuccessfully for Denver mayor this past spring. The family lives in the Montclair neighborhood, and she said their two teenage sons will attend George Washington High School this fall.

Hansen said she’s not entirely opposed to school closures but she’d like DPS to pause and think differently about solving the financial hit caused by declining enrollment: Could the district co-locate small schools with local nonprofit organizations? Would electrifying DPS school buses and buildings save enough money to keep some small schools open?

On school safety, Hansen said she agrees with the board’s recent decision to overturn a 2020 ban on police in schools and reinstate school resource officers in some large high schools. But she said each school should be able to decide whether they want an SRO.

“It should be a decision that leaders, educators, and parents in a community make together,” Hansen said. “The flat banning of it, while I understand why we wanted to do that, I think that was a pendulum too far in one direction.”

Hansen worries about the effect of the pandemic on students’ mental health and said she’d like DPS to take more steps to address it. She’d also like to bring back families who’ve left DPS for private schools by boosting the quality of the public schools, and she’d like to deepen DPS’ partnerships with the city on everything from parks and recreation to child welfare.

In Denver, school board candidates often get sorted into two camps: those supported by the teachers union and those supported by education reform organizations. A dividing line is often whether a candidate supports charter schools and school choice.

Hansen supports both, though she takes issue with the fact that DPS does not provide transportation to most families who choose a school outside their neighborhood.

“If we’re going to do choice, we’ve got to figure out transportation,” Hansen said. “It is not meaningful choice if I cannot get my child to school and back.”

As for charter schools, Hansen said DPS has invested too much in charter school networks and not enough in single-site charter schools, which are more likely to be founded by people of color to serve specific communities. A charter called the American Indian Academy of Denver closed at the end of this past school year due to low enrollment and a lack of funding.

But in general, Hansen said the political debate in Denver too often focuses on the type of school — charter, innovation, or district-run — and not enough on what a school offers.

“We have spent a lot of time having debates about governance models when I actually don’t think that’s what ensures a strong portfolio of choices for families,” Hansen said.

She cited Montessori as an example. Montessori is a curriculum that encourages students to work independently on hands-on tasks in multi-age classrooms.

“You can have really strong Montessori programs that are charter public, that are district public, that are innovation,” Hansen said.

If elected, Hansen said she’d focus on building relationships with her fellow board members as a way to change the board dynamics, which have been fraught.

“I believe first in having people over to have a BBQ and some drinks and talk about your kids and talk about what brought you to this and what do you value,” Hansen said.

After working in education as a teacher, researcher, author, and nonprofit leader for 20 years, Hansen said, “If I can’t step in and bring whatever I know and have learned to work with colleagues and the community in Denver, what’s the point? This is my home.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

School therapists want a better contract deal. The UFT wants them to give up.

2023-07-28T11:45:00+00:00

A United Federation of Teachers chapter representing school therapists stood alone among chapters in rejecting their union’s tentative contract agreement with Mayor Eric Adams earlier this month — and now say UFT leadership is pressuring them to accept the deal in a revote.

In voting down the contract, chapter members expected the next step would be for their bargaining unit — which also includes audiologists, nurses and supervisors — to negotiate with city labor officials for a collective bargaining agreement that addresses their specific concerns, as happened in their last contract. Instead, chapter leaders and members say, UFT President Michael Mulgrew is urging a new vote without further talks or changes.

The 2,900 therapists and nurses are a small unit within the 120,000-member union, whose members include teachers, social workers and other city Department of Education employees. Three-quarters of the UFT membership approved the contract, the union announced earlier this month.

Within the unit, 59% of all members rejected the deal, which guarantees raises of 17.58% to 20.42% by 2026. Most of those dissenting votes came from occupational and physical therapists, who make up the majority of the unit’s members. Two-thirds of the therapists who returned ballots opposed the tentative agreement.

The independent American Arbitration Association conducted, tabulated and certified the contract vote.

Concerns about salary gaps between therapists and teachers are a major source of contention, according to chapter leaders and rank-and-file members who spoke with THE CITY. The gap is considerable: by January, a therapist with a master’s degree and 10 years of experience would earn $17,463 less annually than a teacher with the same credentials and experience, Chalkbeat reported, citing UFT documents.

By rejecting the agreement, the unit voted to not receive raises, bonuses or other benefits that go into effect for teachers and paraprofessionals this summer, and to instead continue working under their expired contract.

Vote again?

But the unit also represents nurses, audiologists, and nurse and therapist supervisors who are eager to ratify the new contract, according to Mulgrew.

Numerous members are asking for a revote, he wrote in a signed July 21 letter to chapter leadership in which he detailed efforts to split the nurses, audiologists and supervisors into their own unit so that in the future they are no longer tied in with the therapists in contract votes.

“They are pushing hard to separate as soon as possible because they feel it is unfair that, although members of each of their chapters voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying the contract, they will not get the new contractual benefits because their particular contract failed to get a majority of the overall votes,” Mulgrew wrote.

“We are trying to get the city and DOE to come back to the bargaining table,” he asserted in the letter even as he highlighted demands from members for an immediate revote.

That position puts him at odds with the therapists’ leadership: By a vote of 5-1 with one abstention last week, their executive board decided against a revote.

In a meeting with the therapists’ chapter on Wednesday afternoon, Mulgrew made repeated attempts to persuade members to give up on pursuing a stronger contract and to persuade them to join in a revote, claiming he had heard from 1,200 members who had demanded a new tally. Melissa Williams, the therapists’ chapter leader, asked Mulgrew for guidance on where and how the union’s constitution lays out rules for revotes.

“I’ve never had a chapter with this many people who are adamantly against the decision of their executive board,” Mulgrew said.

He added: “We have to make a decision. If we decide not to do a revote, fine. But everyone needs to understand the consequences of not revoting.”

Or bargain again?

Mulgrew also urged members to give up on trying to get a better deal. “The city isn’t interested in getting back to the bargaining table right now,” he said, noting that other legal maneuvers could potentially take years. “I can’t express this clear enough to all of you. We don’t have an avenue to get back to the bargaining table right now.”

Rank-and-file workers and union activists who spoke with THE CITY, however, said that union leadership should not entertain the prospect of a revote, but press on in trying to strike a better bargain with Adams.

Pursuing a revote of a certified election, Williams said, “calls into question the integrity of the entire process.

“I just feel bad for the people who took the time to vote,” she said in an interview with THE CITY. “I trusted that this vote had integrity, now I see that it’s wrong. It feels like a moral injury, to be honest.”

UFT spokesperson Alison Gendar said in a statement that “more than 1,000” chapter members “have asked — through emails and phone calls — for the opportunity to hold a revote.”

”The UFT leadership is working with the chapter to figure out next steps,” Gendar added.

Vocal dissent

This isn’t the first time that UFT occupational and physical therapists bucked the rest of the union in rejecting a tentative contract deal: The chapter also rejected a tentative agreement in 2018 over wage concerns. On that occasion, UFT leadership returned to the bargaining table and notched modest additional raises.

A revote without fresh contract talks was never entertained as an option after the chapter rejected the agreement in 2018, three chapter members and two union activists told THE CITY.

One reason for the standoff now with Mulgrew, activists say, is that the union’s constitution does not lay out a procedure for renegotiating rejected contracts.

“The chapter voted, and the chapter voted pretty much 2-to-1 against the contract, and to go to a revote sort of negates that process,” said chapter member and DOE physical therapist Chris Griffin, who noted she’s “not a huge ‘no’ advocate.”

Discussion of a revote “undermines that process, which was done according to established rules,” she added.

Some therapists say they would like to see Mulgrew push harder to get the city back to the bargaining table.

“I believe he’s avoiding doing his job,” said a chapter member who asked to be identified only as “E” out of fear of retaliation from her bosses. “His job is to negotiate on our behalf, not to justify the city’s stance. So I feel like he’s using that to scare us into voting yes.”

Daniel Alicea, a teacher and UFT activist, told THE CITY that the union’s leadership should convene a constitutional convention that clearly lays out a renegotiation process for rejected contracts so that “things aren’t done arbitrarily and haphazardly.”

“If we acquiesce here, this can happen in local chapter elections, it can happen in our next general election — that if they’re not happy with the result, they will find some other means.”

Kimberlee Sia, former head of KIPP Colorado charter network, is running for Denver school board

2023-07-25T20:13:40+00:00

The former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network is running to represent southeast Denver on the school board.

Kimberlee Sia will challenge incumbent Scott Baldermann, who is running for re-election. One key difference between the two candidates is their views on charter schools and school choice: Baldermann is an outspoken critic, while Sia is a staunch supporter.

“Every family needs to have access to a school that best meets the needs of their children,” said Sia, whose two children attend Denver Public Schools. “I would love for the narrative to be changed by the board to say, ‘How do we take advantage of these great choices we have?’”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. At stake is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns, especially after a high-profile shooting inside East High School this past spring. The election also has the potential to change the dynamic of the board, which has been criticized as dysfunctional.

Sia, 47, was CEO of KIPP Colorado Public Schools from 2013 to 2019. KIPP is a nationwide charter network with six schools in Denver.

Sia left KIPP to become president and CEO of the Colorado “I Have a Dream” Foundation, a nonprofit organization that runs after-school and summer programming in DPS schools, among other initiatives. She said she recently left the foundation, in part to run for school board.

“Making the decision to run is focused on the fact that we need a change,” Sia said. “The pandemic was a challenge for everyone. As we’ve come out of that, as a parent, I just have not felt like the district has been as responsive to the community as they could be.”

Sia named school safety, declining student enrollment, and a sustainable workload for educators as her top concerns. She said she worries about high educator turnover.

“Working at the foundation, many of our kids would tell us, ‘I don’t have a teacher right now’ or ‘I have a substitute’ or ‘our principal left,’” she said. “For a school community to be stable, a huge component of that is the educators in the building every day doing amazing work with the kids.”

Sia said she agrees with the recent board decision to reinstate police officers in some Denver high schools. But police are not the only answer, she said.

“What are we doing to support schools on top of that?” Sia said. “Not every school has [a school resource officer, known as an SRO]. And for schools that do have an SRO, the SRO will not solve all the safety problems at the school.”

If elected, Sia said she’d like to see regular updates on how schools are following the superintendent’s recently released safety plan, which says, for example, that schools can choose to install weapons detection systems.

“How many schools chose to do that?” Sia said. “What are the impacts of that? Did you find 12 kids brought knives to school this week? There’s a lack of reporting and data in terms of, ‘This is what we the district are doing and let’s examine what’s working well and what’s not.’”

She’d also like to see more mental health support in schools, and for DPS to give educators clearer directions on student discipline. In her six years at KIPP, Sia said the network worked to reduce suspension rates and disproportionate discipline based on students’ race.

“When I first joined KIPP In 2013, there was hugely disproportionate discipline data and high suspension rates,” Sia said. “It’s part of what prompted me to say, ‘We need to address this.’ It wasn’t what kids needed. … When I left KIPP, it still wasn’t low enough for my liking. We made strides in the work we were doing and there was still work to do.”

One of the toughest decisions the school board will have to make is whether to close more schools due to declining enrollment. The board voted this past spring to close three small schools, but Superintendent Alex Marrero had originally recommended closing 10.

Sia said she’d support closing small schools if the cost to keep them open drains funding from other schools. But she criticized DPS’s recent approach, which she said didn’t give educators, families, and students enough notice or opportunity to problem solve.

“It is a challenge for me to see a situation where if the district is having to supplement funding for a school to a degree that begins to impact the funding for other schools that there is any decision other than having to close that school,” she said.

Candidates for Denver school board have historically fallen into one of two camps: those backed by the teachers union and those backed by education reform organizations. Candidates’ support or disapproval for independent charter schools has often been a dividing line.

Though Sia is closely tied with charter schools in Colorado, including having served as the board chair of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, she said she also has ties to teachers unions. She has worked as a classroom teacher, principal, and district administrator, and was president of a teachers union in a small district in California, she said. One of her children attends a charter school in DPS while the other attends a district-run school.

The current Denver school board members are all backed by the teachers union, but there has been infighting and power struggles between some members. Sia said she’d like to change that.

“For me, if you are sitting on the board, you are in service to the community and it needs to be about our students and our educators and our schools,” Sia said. “I see myself as a servant leader. It’s what is motivating me to run. I’m a get down, get dirty, and do the work type person.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago swears in new members to city’s last fully appointed Board of Education

2023-07-19T19:58:21+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education ushered in a new era of leadership Wednesday by swearing in five of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointees.

The new members, who include vocal critics of the system, took an oath of office during a meeting to review agenda items ahead of the board’s full meeting next week. They will be part of the last fully appointed board before it shifts to an elected body in 2025.

As board members introduced themselves, Mariela Estrada, director of community engagement at the United Way of Metro Chicago, recounted being a “fierce” parent advocate. New board president Jianan Shi, former executive director of influential advocacy organization Raise Your Hand, noted that he is the first educator appointed as board president.

“I am used to sitting on your side of the glass fence,” new board member Mary Fahey Hughes told the audience at the meeting. Fahey Hughes formerly worked for Raise Your Hand as a parent liaison for special education and is an outspoken advocate for students with disabilities.

The inclusion of board critics at the decision-making table is in some ways similar to Johnson’s path, who rose to power through his teachers union ties.

Earlier this month, Johnson nearly cleaned house by appointing six new board members, who come from advocacy, philanthropy, and business backgrounds. In addition to Shi, Estrada, and Fahey Hughes, the mayor also tapped Michelle Morales, Rudy Lozano, and Tanya Woods (read more about each here). Lozano and Morales were not present at Wednesday’s meeting; a spokesperson for CPS did not explain why but said they will be sworn in at the board’s July 26 meeting.

The only holdover from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is Elizabeth Todd-Breland, who will be the board’s vice president.

All seven members’ terms end Jan. 1, 2025, when the city’s partially elected, 21-member school board will be seated. Several members highlighted that shift. Todd-Breland called her term a “bridge” to that elected board with “so much hope and optimism for Chicago Public Schools.”

Wednesday’s agenda review meeting was the third of its kind, allowing board members to publicly ask questions about agenda items ahead of the meeting where they’ll vote.

During the meeting, members reviewed and asked questions about a slew of agenda items expected to come up for approval next week, including a new agreement for marketing services, the opening of a comment period for a new parental leave policy for CPS employees, and a renewed contract for math tutoring.

One agenda item — about X-ray machines in school — signaled a possible shift in approach that Johnson’s appointees may bring to the board.

Shi asked a school safety official whether there is research that such machines, which are meant to detect weapons, make schools safer. The official said it’s hard to determine exactly what makes schools feel safe, but that such machines have found weapons in the past. Last month, the old board approved a slightly costlier contract for campus police.

Shi asked that district officials engage in “actual community dialogue” on school safety policies as the district continues work on its Whole School Safety initiative. The CPS official said it’s the district’s goal to get more “buy-in” from the community.

Board members like Shi have also previously expressed interest in making meetings more accessible to the public, such as working parents who can’t attend the meetings that are held downtown during weekday mornings.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Former East High principal John Youngquist is running for a seat on the Denver school board

2023-07-05T10:00:00+00:00

John Youngquist, a longtime Denver educator who spent about a decade as principal of East High School, announced Wednesday that he’s running for a seat on the Denver school board.

Youngquist said he will run for an at-large seat representing the entire city. Although he lives in southeast Denver, where a school board seat is also up for election, Youngquist said the work of the at-large seat better reflects his decades-long experience in Denver Public Schools — as a student, a teacher, a principal, a district administrator, and a parent.

“My experience has been across the city over time,” he said, adding that he’s running at large “because it’s every student and every school that really does matter to me in my heart.”

Youngquist, 57, will have two opponents: Kwame Spearman, a former mayoral candidate and part-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstore, and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student. Another candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

The seat is currently held by Auon’tai Anderson, who is running for a state House of Representatives seat instead of seeking re-election to the board.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting. Also at stake is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns, especially after a high-profile shooting inside East High in March.

Youngquist’s two teenage daughters are students at East, where he served two stints as principal, from 2007 to 2012 and 2017 to 2022. He returned to East in 2017 after the previous principal mishandled complaints against the cheerleading coach.

Youngquist said student safety has always been his top concern. When he was principal of Newlon Elementary in southwest Denver in the 1990s, he recalled having to develop his own protocol to deal with the drive-by shootings that were prevalent at the time: sounding an air horn so students on the playground knew to get down.

East had a school resource officer during Youngquist’s tenure — and he said he was among the principals in 2020 who signed a letter asking the school board not to remove police officers from schools. He said he agrees with the board’s recent decision to reinstate them.

But SROs are only one aspect of school safety, Youngquist said.

“My belief is that safety is grounded in the daily operation of the school, in the culture of the school,” he said. “And then you create structures to ensure your responses to behavioral challenges at the school site are responsive and supportive of young people.”

Youngquist was himself a DPS student, graduating from Thomas Jefferson High. He started his career there as a social studies teacher. He’s been principal of three DPS schools: East, Newlon, and the now-closed Smedley Elementary in northwest Denver.

He’s also worked as a principal supervisor and as a central office administrator developing programs to recruit more principals of color and help all principals stay in their jobs longer.

Youngquist also worked in the Cherry Creek School District and in Aurora Public Schools, where he was chief academic officer. He said he’s spent the past year as a consultant for districts including Denver and Aurora, as a principal coach, and as part-time chief operating officer for the Denver Youth Program, a nonprofit that aims to reduce youth violence.

If elected, Youngquist said he’d focus on pulling the board together to craft a clear vision for the district, recruiting and retaining diverse teachers and principals, and ensuring students are academically successful. To do that, Youngquist said he wouldn’t try to write policy as a board member, but rather would set goals and limitations so the experts — the superintendent and his staff — could recommend policy for the school board to consider.

“Every element of work we put into play in a district and in a school has to have the intention of creating successful teaching and learning experiences,” he said.

The board also has to make tough decisions. One recent example was the decision to close three schools with low enrollment, which the board voted on one day after the superintendent publicly recommended it.

Instead of reacting when a school’s enrollment is already too low, Youngquist said the district should develop a plan “for how and when we might engage in school closure conversations” so that parents better understand the process.

“That is an 18-month conversation that moves toward a decision,” Youngquist said. “That is not an 18-day or week-(long) conversation that moves toward closure.”

Although Denver school board candidates historically fall into one of two political groups — those backed by the teachers union and those backed by education reform organizations — Youngquist said he doesn’t see himself as an exclusive member of either camp.

Youngquist said he’s running because DPS is “in a lull.”

“I know the real work that it takes to fully engage a community in the success of a school … and the success of a district,” he said. “I’m fully optimistic that we can pull in that direction again and gain momentum so that over the course of the next several years, we’re seeing the experience turn into a fully positive one and seeing results that matter for kids in their school lives.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that former candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race in late September.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Scott Baldermann is running for re-election to represent southeast Denver on the school board

2023-06-20T15:55:30+00:00

Scott Baldermann, who represents the southeast part of the city, is running for re-election to the Denver school board.

Baldermann filed his candidacy Friday. The 47-year-old father of two Denver Public Schools students was elected in 2019 as part of a historic “flip” of the school board to candidates backed by the Denver teachers union.

Over the past four years, Baldermann has advocated for curtailing school autonomy and ending competition among schools over enrollment and test scores.

He championed ensuring more teachers can earn Colorado’s version of tenure by no longer allowing semi-autonomous innovation schools to waive it, and has taken a harder line with charter schools. Most recently, he proposed bringing police officers back to schools — a contentious policy that won approval on a 4-3 vote.

Baldermann’s seat representing District 1 is one of three seats up for grabs on the seven-member Denver school board on Nov. 7. He’ll face one challenger: DPS parent and former KIPP Colorado charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia.

Baldermann largely self-funded his 2019 campaign, ultimately spending more than $330,000 to win his seat. He said he must do so again “because of the dark money hovering over the district.” Groups supportive of education reform, which Baldermann opposes, spent more than $1 million in the last Denver school board race.

There’s a lot at stake in this election, including how the largest district in the state will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns after shootings in and around schools.

The election comes at a time when power struggles among some board members have eroded confidence in the board. A recent survey found many Denver voters have an unfavorable view of the board, and some parents have called for the entire board to resign.

Baldermann is the only incumbent currently running for re-election. Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson recently dropped his re-election bid to run for the Colorado House of Representatives instead.

Baldermann has mostly stayed out of the interpersonal conflicts that have dogged the board. A quieter board member, he is a strong supporter of the board’s switch to policy governance, a change that has at times contributed to the turmoil.

Under policy governance, board members set goals and limits but don’t get involved in the day-to-day operations of the district, which is the job of the superintendent.

“This board, I feel, has been very productive,” Baldermann said in an interview. “But a lot of interpersonal dynamics have overshadowed that work.”

An example of that productivity, he said, was the passage of a policy called “Ends 4 Health and Safety,” which the board adopted with no fanfare in February, a month before a student shot and injured two deans at East High School in March. Just three sentences long, the policy says that in light of a recent increase in gun violence, the district will collaborate with law enforcement and others “to proactively mitigate internal and external threats to safety.”

Those three sentences served as the framework for the district’s response to the East shooting, Baldermann said. A memo the board adopted the day after the shooting temporarily suspending its ban of police in schools and directing Superintendent Alex Marrero to develop a long-term safety plan by June 30 was simply telling him “to accelerate that work,” Baldermann said.

“The good work is boring,” Baldermann said of that policy and others that lay out the board’s goals for the district. “But at the end of the day, that’s the stuff that helps me sleep at night [knowing] that we were doing the right stuff and we were being proactive.”

He believes he has more policy work to do.

Baldermann was among the board members who voted unanimously in 2020 to remove police officers from schools in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Three years and several gun incidents later, he said his position changed. Baldermann’s original proposal to bring back school resource officers included training requirements for the officers and limits on their interactions with students, but a majority of his fellow board members stripped out those provisions before the proposal passed.

Baldermann also recently voted to close three district-run schools with low enrollment.

“I do believe that we need to close schools,” he said. “I want to make sure that our marginalized communities aren’t the ones shouldering all of this burden. This needs to be a holistic, citywide solution to address what our schools are going to look like.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the District 1 seat.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

PLACE-endorsed candidates win nearly 40% of seats on NYC’s parent councils

2023-06-17T00:26:37+00:00

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Candidates endorsed by a polarizing group that advocates for screened school admissions won the majority of seats on about half a dozen parent councils this year, according to election results released Friday by the New York City education department.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, endorsed 147 candidates across the city for local district council seats, with 115 of them winning their races. The group’s preferred candidates will make up nearly 40% of the Community Education Council members across the five boroughs, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Established in 2019, PLACE supports the status quo when it comes to academic screening policies that have resulted in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. That includes keeping the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, and expanding gifted and talented programs. The group generally opposes lottery-based admissions and paring back screened admissions to the city’s middle and high schools.

The Community Education Councils, or CECs, have the power to approve or reject school rezoning plans, pass resolutions about various school-related issues, and work with district superintendents. The 32 councils, which each have 10 elected members and two appointed by the local borough president, hold monthly public meetings.

There are also citywide councils for high school students, English learners, students with disabilities, and those enrolled in the city’s District 75 programs, which serve children with the most challenging disabilities.

This was the second CEC election where voting was open to parents citywide. To many watching races across the city, this year’s elections seemed more divisive than ever, with some candidates localizing culture wars playing out across the nation. CEC 2 winner Maud Maron, who co-founded PLACE and was previously on the District 2 parent council, told THE CITY, “Land acknowledgements don’t teach anybody more math,” referring to lessons about Indigenous people who inhabited land before European colonialism.

With her victory Friday, Maron will again sit on a CEC that represents one of the most affluent swaths of Manhattan.

Some of PLACE’s ideas have found favor with schools Chancellor David Banks, such as expanding gifted and talented seats. The organization had Banks’ ear at the very start of his tenure, appearing on his schedule last March.

Some education advocates have grown concerned about PLACE’s influence, pointing to the views of some of their members, including comparing critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism, to Nazi ideology, as reported by THE CITY. Several candidates endorsed by the group backed away from that support during the election season.

PLACE wasn’t alone in endorsing candidates. A group called Parents for Middle School Equity, based in Brooklyn’s District 15 (which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and part of Sunset Park), appears to be ideologically opposed to PLACE. The group’s interest is in preserving the district’s middle school integration plan. But its influence fell far below PLACE’s: Less than a quarter of its endorsed candidates won seats across the city, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

A few districts appeared to be PLACE strongholds: Every person elected to the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 20, which spans Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, and part of Sunset Park, was endorsed by PLACE. All of the group’s preferred candidates also won seats on the CECs representing two large Queens districts — nine people in District 26 (which covers northeast Queens, including Bayside) and seven in District 28, where a controversial push to integrate its middle schools from Forest Hills to Jamaica was derailed by the pandemic.

Still, the Equity group’s preferred candidates outnumbered PLACE’s endorsed candidates in a handful of districts, including East Harlem’s District 4, Harlem’s District 5, Williamsburg’s District 14, and District 15.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that District 26 includes northeast Queens, including Bayside.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Auon’tai Anderson is dropping out of the Denver school board race to run for a state House seat

2023-06-12T16:26:53+00:00

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson is dropping his re-election bid and will run instead for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives.

The 24-year-old is the most high-profile member of the Denver school board, and his exit from the race will mean a change in the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting, including between Anderson and President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán.

“The Anderson era of the school board has been consequential and we’ve made a lot of progress,” Anderson said in an interview. “But it’s also an opportunity to go back to being boring. You won’t have a lightning rod of one person of seven being outspoken on the school board.”

Anderson was elected in 2019 to an at-large seat representing the entire city as part of a historic “flip” of the school board to members backed by the teachers union. His four-year term ends in November. Anderson had announced more than six months ago that he was running for re-election to the board. Two other candidates — Kwame Spearman and Paul Ballenger — announced this spring that they would challenge him for the seat.

But on Monday, Anderson said he plans instead to run for the House District 8 seat representing northeast Denver in 2024. The seat is held by state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat who is barred from running again due to term limits. Four other candidates have already filed to run for the seat, according to the secretary of state’s office database.

Other politicians have simultaneously served in the state legislature and on local school boards, including in Denver, but Anderson said the timing of the races would have made that difficult.

In the wake of a shooting inside East High School in March, Anderson said he began thinking about the limitations of the school board to make broad political changes. For instance, Anderson said the school board can’t enact gun control measures, while state lawmakers can. He recalled a conversation he said he had with a Black mother and student.

“The student said, ‘You’re telling us everything you can’t do. What are you going to do about it?’” Anderson said. That conversation helped push him to run for the legislature, he said, where he hopes to advocate for gun safety, rent control, and reproductive rights, among other issues.

In a campaign video, Anderson said he accomplished everything he set out to do on the school board, a claim he repeated in an interview. In the video, he listed reunifying Montbello and West high schools — two schools in communities of color that the district previously closed for low student test scores. West High reopened in 2021, and Montbello High reopened last year.

Anderson mentioned raising the minimum wage for district employees to $20 an hour, stocking school bathrooms with free menstrual hygiene products, and passing policies inclusive of LGBTQIA students, such as mandating all-gender restrooms — all of which he championed.

“I am walking away with my head held high,” Anderson said in an interview. “Even if I am never elected to another seat in government again, I’m walking away having no regrets.”

Anderson also helped lead the push in 2020 to remove police officers from Denver schools following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But the future of that policy is uncertain. The board voted to temporarily suspend it after the East shooting, and some board members now want to bring school resource officers back more permanently.

Board members Michelle Quattlebaum and Scott Esserman have joined Anderson in publicly opposing the return of SROs. Anderson said he’s confident that Quattlebaum, Esserman, and others will “keep that work going” after he leaves the board.

A poll taken in April before other candidates had declared found just 9% of respondents said they planned to vote to re-elect Anderson and more than half said it was “time for someone new.” A third of respondents were undecided.

Anderson’s time on the school board has been controversial. In 2021, his fellow board members censured him for violating expectations of board member behavior.

The censure came after a five-month investigation into sexual assault and misconduct allegations, the most serious of which were not substantiated. But investigators did find that Anderson had flirtatious contact with a student while he was a board member and made social media posts that were coercive and intimidating toward witnesses during the investigation.

“Leadership always comes with bumps, and people make mistakes,” Anderson said. “But it’s about how we learn from those mistakes and keep moving the mantle forward.”

This will be the third time Anderson has run for office. A graduate of Denver’s Manual High School, Anderson first ran for school board in 2017 when he was just a teenager. Though he lost that race, he ran again two years later and won.

In announcing his now-canceled re-election bid last November, Anderson said he’d considered running for a seat on the Denver City Council but changed his mind after the board’s debate last fall on whether to close schools with low enrollment.

Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended closing 10 small schools. Anderson was a vocal opponent of that plan, which Marrero whittled down and the board rejected.

But four months later, in March, the board came back and voted to close three of the 10 schools. Anderson voted to close Math and Science Leadership Academy and Denver Discovery School, however, he cast the sole vote against closing Fairview Elementary, where enrollment projections were in dispute.

Declining enrollment and school closures will be among the issues the next school board will need to tackle, and Anderson left open the possibility that he could run for the board again someday. But he also said that this coming election, when three of the seven seats are up for grabs, “is an opportunity for us to hit a good restart.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Mike Johnston will be Denver’s next mayor. Here’s what he had to say about education.

2023-06-07T23:12:06+00:00

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Mike Johnston, a former state senator and school principal, will be Denver’s next mayor.

Johnston, who was a leader in education reform policies in the state legislature before taking the helm of Gary Community Ventures, won 55% of the vote in a runoff election against Kelly Brough, a former business leader and chief of staff for then-Mayor John Hickenlooper.

“This race was about a big vision for what’s possible for Denver,” Johnston told supporters Tuesday night. “It’s about a dream of Denver. And we know there are cities that have tried to deliver that dream and have failed.”

In one version of that dream he described, a young Latina grows up in north Denver, becomes the first person in her family to go to college, becomes a public school teacher in the neighborhood where she grew up — and can afford to rent an apartment and later buy a home and raise her own children there.

“Maybe just down the block from a place, where, when her daughter gets old enough, she can walk her to school to the very school where she teaches. That is our dream of Denver,” he said.

Here’s what Johnston had to say during a mayoral forum in May about how he’d work with Denver Public Schools and try to have an impact on education, housing, and quality of life.

Youth gun violence is on the rise. After a shooting at East High School in March, the Denver Police Department agreed to station 14 police officers on 13 DPS high school campuses. What’s your position on police in schools? And who should pay for it?

My position from the beginning has been that schools should get to decide whether they need that support. … I think that in terms of who pays for it, that’s a decision we can make together. If the district has the resources, they should pay for it. If the district doesn’t have the resources, then the city needs to step in and figure out how we get it done.

Research shows a correlation between the presence of police in schools and discipline disparities, as well as unclear effects on school safety. If Denver police remain in schools, how would you ensure the district achieves its equity and trauma-informed goals?

This is a matter of who you approve to do this work, what training they have to do this work, and what their scope of authority is in the building to do this work.

When I’m a school principal, I do not need a Denver PD officer to be intervening in two students arguing in the cafeteria. I do not need an officer to be ticketing people for cursing in the hallway.

What you need an officer for is when you have a student that you know has access to a gun, who you are afraid is bringing one to school, and you need someone to assist in a pat-down of that student to make sure they’re not armed.

Would you consider mayoral control of the school board?

No, I don’t think that is a good plan.

I think that the democratic process works. There are a lot of people that are very motivated and very mobilized about the school board elections coming this November, probably more than I’ve ever seen in my adult life, because parents are really paying attention. … And I think their voices will be very powerful in what happens in the school board races and that they will get back the school board that they want and they feel like is responsive to them.

As indicated by the most recent state testing data, Denver Public Schools is not adequately supporting academic achievement among students of color or those who are low-income. What role can the mayor play in addressing the equity gap among students?

It starts with the belief that Denver students are all of our responsibility.

One of the most important ways that we can do that is looking at all of the learning time right now that happens outside of the school building. All the things that happen outside of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., where we know young people’s access to after-school programming to summer school programming to tutoring and arts and athletics and science camps … drive a big part of the passion that makes you who you are as a young person.

I want to expand programming to make sure young people, particularly those on free and reduced [price] lunch, have access to those opportunities to help them find their passion.

The other key area of partnership the city has let us down on is on mental health. … One of the things that Denver does is support Denver Health, which supports school-based health clinics around the city. We’ve not provided enough resources to make sure that in all of Denver’s high schools, we have an adequate supply of mental health counselors.

The DPS school board recently proposed a policy that would exclude standardized test scores from a public-facing information dashboard. Would you support building a platform at the city to share this information with families and community and to hold the district accountable?

I would not support denying parents access to that information any more than I would support denying parents access to information on their kid’s height and weight chart on a yearly physical check-in. And also know that even if you tell my kid he’s in the 15th percentile of height, that I don’t think that’s his total measure of worth as a human being.

There are different data points that you gather, and they tell you different things about the progress of your child. And what you want to look at is a well-rounded group of data that helps inform me on what to do next.

It is getting increasingly expensive to live in the city of Denver. This is causing many lower-income DPS families to relocate outside of the city. How will you address this challenge?

What I would do is build or convert 25,000 units across the city to become permanently affordable units. And what that means is that anybody that makes about $100,000 a year or less can be eligible to move into one of these units. And the way they’re structured is that you would never pay more than 30% of what you make for rent.

The next most important step is homeownership. … There I would do two things. One is to provide down payment assistance, which helps someone be able to buy a home for the first time. … And the other is to partner with organizations like Habitat for Humanity or Elevation Land Trust, where you can create land trusts where there are affordable homes you can buy.

You buy them at a discounted rate, and you sell them at a discounted rate. So you might buy a home for $300,000 instead of $600,000. But when you keep it for 10 years and you sell it at the end, you might only sell it for $350,000 … so that you keep it affordable for the next teacher or the next nurse or the next firefighter.

As mayor, what are the top three things you would do to make Denver the best place to raise children?

I think the three biggest drivers of people leaving the city will be: Do they feel it’s affordable? Do they feel it’s safe? And do they feel like they have access to great schools?

We’ve talked about affordability. And so I want to talk … about safety.

I believe we need 200 more first responders on the streets of our city — and I use the term first responders because what you know is you need different people to respond to different situations based on what the challenge is.

If you have someone in a mental health crisis, you actually don’t want to send an officer at all.

If you have someone who’s in a physical health crisis and potential overdose, you want to have a paramedic or EMT on site. You don’t necessarily need an officer.

But if you have places where there is an assault, or there’s a break-in, or your car’s been stolen, or there’s been a shooting, you do want to make sure that you have officers that can respond. Right now, we are so short-staffed on each of those roles.

Chalkbeat Senior Reporter Melanie Asmar co-moderated the May forum from which these answers are drawn and lightly edited the answers for length.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers push back deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board maps

2023-05-26T20:50:13+00:00

Illinois lawmakers are giving themselves more time to divide Chicago into districts ahead of the city’s first school board elections.

Under a measure passed late Thursday night, the deadline for drawing the maps for the city’s school board moves to April 1, 2024 — seven months before the first elections are scheduled to be held. Chicago will move from a seven-member board appointed by the mayor to a 21-member board, with 10 members elected Nov. 5, 2024 and the rest elected in November 2026.

In a statement, Rep. Ann Willliams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs the state House Democrats’ Chicago Public Schools Districting Working Group, said conversations have been “extremely productive.” But, “in order to create the strongest possible map and ensure all Chicagaons are able to elect the candidates that best represent their values, our work must continue.”

The delay comes after Chicagoans voiced concerns over whether voting districts would reflect CPS enrollment or the city’s overall population.

They also criticized legislators for rushing to create districts that will determine representation for the next several years before adjourning their spring session to meet a previous July 1 deadline.

Several advocates applauded the decision to delay.

“I’m very glad that the voice of reason prevailed and they did not just ram a flawed map down our throats,” said Valerie Leonard, the leader of the Illinois African Americans For Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map based largely on existing City Council Ward boundaries.

Leonard urged lawmakers to use the time wisely. So did Miriam Bhimani, a Chicago Public Schools parent who is part of The FOIA Bakery, a group of parents and data advocates pushing for a transparent map-making process.

“The extra time means that we can engage honestly and transparently with communities across the city about what an elected school board should look like and what their responsibilities are,” Bhimani said.

In an effort to spur more public engagement and conversation, The FOIA Bakery published 2,000 computer-generated maps earlier this month they say comply with the Voting Rights Act, and maximize minority representation, as well as take into account where public school students live.

Drawing a representative map in a segregated city, school district

Lawmakers released two drafts in recent weeks. The most recent draft has seven Black majority districts, five majority Latino, two with a Latino plurality, five majority white, and one with a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality. Currently, one of seven appointed school board members is white.

Typically, electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. In Chicago, the population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the public school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American. The city is also one of the country’s most segregated, making that dissonance even more of a challenge to those trying to draw representative maps.

“It’s a segregated city, the North Side doesn’t know what’s going on in the South Side; a parent who doesn’t have a kid in CPS, they don’t know their needs,” said Vanessa Espinoza, a public school parent who’s part of Kids First Chicago, which submitted a map and testimony to state lawmakers. “Even if you have a good intention, you don’t have the knowledge and experience.”

Espinoza said lawmakers should try to draw a map that considers the public school student population.

Leonard, with African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, said she also wants to see a responsive, representative school board with members who have “lived experience with our schools versus people in ivory towers who have never experienced poverty.”

But she said that giving neighborhoods where more Chicago Public School students live more weight could violate the constitution’s equal protection clause.

“It could fly in the face of the one man, one vote, equal protection under the law, even though it’s a noble idea.” Leonard said.

Jianan Shi, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, a parent group that was part of a coalition of community groups that submitted maps in partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union, said he hopes the extended deadline will allow everyone to “get to the table” to find a compromise.

“There’s no perfect map,” Shi said. “How do we take in as much feedback as possible and keep making versions until we get closer?”

New deadline could shorten school board campaign season

The first-ever Chicago school board elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 5, 2024. So when lawmakers approved the measure to give themselves a new April 1, 2024 deadline, Shi initially thought: “Shoot. I wish I was going to get out this information as soon as possible to our parents.”

“I want as much time as possible to educate people about the maps and where the boundaries are,” Shi said. Raise Your Hand is one of a few community groups that help train parents and community members to run for and serve on Local School Councils in Chicago. The councils are like mini-school boards serving individual campuses that make decisions over school improvement, principal selection, and parts of the budget.

Max Bever, a Chicago Board of Elections spokesman, said Friday the board had been planning to notify voters of their new school board districts through mailers around Labor Day this year, but will now face “a time crunch to get that all done.”

“Our team will be ready, but it’s more just having enough time for people to have awareness of: What’s your district? Who is running?” Bever said. “This also might be a very quick period for candidates.”

Bever said the timeline for candidates to collect the 250 signatures needed to get on the ballot will likely be during summer 2024. Because Chicago’s school board elections are nonpartisan, they will not be on the ballot in the March 2024 primary.

Rep. Ann Williams said the election is still on target for November 2024. The legislature will wrap up their spring session this week, but members are due back for a veto session in the fall when they could take action on a school board map. They could also wait until the next spring session begins in early 2024 to finalize how the city will be divided.

Lawmakers could also decide in the next session to clarify or tweak the law that created the 21-member elected school board for Chicago. There have been questions about whether board members should be compensated or if there should be campaign spending limits that are stricter than Illinois’ broader election limits. Neither exist in the law as it’s currently written.

“I think some of the campaign spending limits that people have talked about would be really helpful to ensure that the everyday Chicago mom and dad could run for the board without having to have either wealth or special interests backing them,” said Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago.

Another concern raised by Kids First Chicago and others is that noncitizens will not be allowed to vote or serve on Chicago’s school board. However, the existing law requires a noncitizen advisory committee be created. Leonard said she would like to see something similar for Black families. Her group is proposing the creation of an African American Affairs Committee.

“If, for some reason, we end up with representation that doesn’t necessarily reflect the school population, at least you’ll have those permanent committees in place to make sure the interests of minorities are represented,” she said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Father and security consultant Paul Ballenger is running for Denver school board

2023-05-25T20:19:36+00:00

Update, Sept. 29: Paul Ballenger announced that he is dropping out of the race for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

A Denver father who served in the military and is concerned about school safety announced Thursday that he’s running for an at-large seat on the school board.

Paul Ballenger, 46, referenced a recent high-profile shooting at East High School in his announcement on the sidewalk in front of Denver Public Schools headquarters. He said the shooting on March 22 “changed everything.”

“That was the day I came to realize the ineffective safety policies my family and our school felt were felt by all,” said Ballenger, who is a single dad to a daughter who finished middle school at McAuliffe International School this week and will attend Northfield High next year.

Ballenger will have three opponents for the seat, which represents the entire city: Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate who was until recently the CEO of independent bookstore chain Tattered Cover; John Youngquist, who was formerly principal of East High; and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral stuent.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who currently holds that seat, is not seeking re-election.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting and power struggles between some members over the past year. Also at stake is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns.

Ballenger said he joined the U.S. Marine Corps more than 20 years ago. After his military service, he worked as a firefighter and EMT. He said he came to Colorado in 2016 to help start a security company. In 2020, he and his daughter moved to Denver, where they live in the Central Park neighborhood. Ballenger still works in security as a consultant.

In an interview, he said his security experience would be an asset to a district struggling with how to keep its schools safe. He said the board’s 2020 decision to remove police officers from schools — which it temporarily reversed in the wake of the East shooting — was made without enough community feedback. Schools should be able to choose whether or not to have a police officer, known as a school resource officer, or SRO, Ballenger said.

“I think there should be much more autonomy at the principal level to make decisions,” he said. “If a principal … says ‘Hey, you know what, there’s a lot of violence in the neighborhood, there’s been gang activity, … I’m a little concerned with guns coming to school, I want to ramp up for a bit until things cool off,’ I think that’s a very reasonable request.”

Ballenger said he’s been frustrated by the school board’s infighting. If elected, he said he wants to “restore some dignity” to the board and get members back to business.

“I want to make school board meetings boring again,” Ballenger said.

He said he knows the board faces tough decisions, including about whether to close schools with low enrollment. But Ballenger said the closure process has fallen short.

“I’ve heard the word ‘blindsided’ over and over again,” he said. “In the event that school closures have to happen, we have to make sure that they are fair, make sure that they are equitable, and that we’re involving the community early on so they can either advocate for their school or at least understand that changes could be happening.”

Ballenger neither aligned himself with nor distanced himself from the philosophy of education reform, which is often a dividing line in Denver school board elections. Rather, he said he believes that “if a school is working well for the children and the staff, it should be left alone.”

In his announcement, Ballenger said his experience as “an Army guy, a businessman, a security expert, and a dad to a really great kid,” makes him “uniquely positioned to assist.”

“More than anything, I want every parent in Denver to be free from worry as to whether their child is in danger, but instead to know in full faith that their child is thriving,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that Auon’tai Anderson is not seeking re-election.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicagoans reject Illinois lawmakers revised draft map for elected school board

2023-05-19T02:13:27+00:00

Chicagoans lambasted Illinois lawmakers for failing to better represent public school families, which are mostly Latino, in a revised draft map for the city’s soon-to-be-elected school board.

They also took the legislators to task for giving the public less than 24 hours notice before holding a virtual hearing Thursday to gather more feedback before the spring legislative session is scheduled to end and ahead of a July 1 deadline for drawing the maps.

“This type of lack of transparency is exactly why so many people, especially people of color, don’t trust our government,” said Eli Brottman, a political consultant who testified Thursday night.

Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to draw districts for the November 2024 election, when Chicago voters are set to elect 10 of 21 school board members.

The new draft, which was released late Wednesday night, tinkers with three districts where no racial group has a 50% majority, tilting two of those in favor of Latinos. Under the current proposal, seven districts have a population that is 50% or more Black, five where Latinos make up 50% or more of the population, and five where the population is 50% or more white. Two districts have a Latino plurality, where roughly 40% of the population is Latino, and one has a white plurality. The initial proposal had two districts with a white plurality and one with a Latino plurality.

Chicago’s population is 33% white, 29% Latino, and 29% Black, but the school district’s student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

Chicagoans have voiced concerns over the last few months about whether voting districts will reflect Chicago Public Schools enrollment or the city’s overall population.

The state senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board and the House Democrats’ CPS Districting Working Group must also strike a delicate balance because electoral districts are drawn – and redrawn – based on voting-age population or total population after every census. They must also draw districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population and also comply with the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts that aim to preserve clusters of minority voters.

A group of local researchers, CPS parents, and open data advocates in Chicago put forward 1,000 alternatives to the first draft and another 1,000 alternatives to the revised map.

Denali Dasgupta said that group has been trying to create maps that account for the student population in Chicago Public Schools, but are still based on voters. She admitted that it’s not easy, but said the current draft has a proposed district covering much of downtown with only about 2,000 public school students living in it.

“I think that people running for office there and people voting there might understand the assignment of electing a member a representative to the school board a little bit differently,” she said.

Vanessa Espinoza, a parent with Kids First Chicago, which has been organizing parents around representation on the school board, said the revised map still perpetuates “systemic advantages to Chicago’s white population at the expense of people of color.”

Chicago City Council’s Latino Caucus opposed the current map as well.

“As it stands now, Springfield has proposed a map that creates a majority white school board which will govern the outcome of black and Latino students,” said Michaela Vargas, executive director of the Chicago Latino Caucus Foundation.

Ald. Nicole Lee, who represents the city’s first and only Asian American ward, said the lack of Asian American representation in the proposed map is disconcerting.

“The current version of this map also does not allow for our community to have a sufficient voice in the school board,” Lee said, before urging lawmakers to postpone a vote.

Jeff Fiedler, executive director with the Chicago Republican Party, raised concerns about gerrymandering and said the map-drawing process should have been done by an independent commission.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting has advocated for a map that aims to follow the City Council’s Ward boundaries. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, said the revisions were disappointing.

“The map breaks up communities,” she said. “In some instances, the districts might include as many as seven wards.”

Leonard also continued to raise questions about how the first election in 2024 will be handled if lawmakers put forward a 20-district map right away.

In November 2024, the law says, 10 members will be elected from 10 districts and the mayor will appoint 10 members from those same districts, as well as a board president. In November 2026, the appointed members will be elected. By January 2027, all 21 members will be elected, with a school board president voted on by all Chicagoans and 20 chosen by district. It will be the country’s largest elected school board.

In her opening remarks on Thursday, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who chairs the special committee, said “lawmakers are seeking guidance on whether current laws should remain the same.”

During the hearing Thursday night, the Illinois House posted notice that it would hold a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Friday on “the creation of the new Chicago Elected School Board districts.”

Dasgupta said lawmakers should not rush to pass something before the spring legislative session ends in the coming days.

“I don’t want us to end up down the road two years where we’re looking at a critical issue like school closures and have people saying, ‘Well, the people spoke and this is what they decided,’ And someone’s saying, ‘How did we get here?’ and me being like, ‘Let me tell you. There was this one day in May …’” Dasgupta said.

Doing so would meet the July 1 deadline for drawing Chicago’s elected school board districts, but would be a “blow to civic life,” she said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Year-round schools and more education funding: What Cherelle Parker could mean for Philadelphia

2023-05-17T21:39:15+00:00

Cherelle Parker’s Democratic primary election win on Tuesday means she is all but certain to be the city’s 100th mayor and first woman to hold the office.

So what would a Parker administration look like for schools?

Parker, who used to be a public school teacher in New Jersey, has proposed keeping school buildings open year-round and lengthening the school day. She’s said she wants to heal the splintered relationship between the Board of Education, the district, and city officials. And she has positioned herself as a bipartisan dealmaker capable of negotiating more money for the city from Harrisburg to help Philadelphia schools fix crumbling buildings and recover from COVID-interrupted learning.

Parker’s ascension to the mayoral seat is not a done deal. She will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election. But in Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, her primary win means she’s heavily favored.

Parker was not available for an interview on Wednesday due to a medical issue, her campaign spokesperson Aren Platt said.

But based on her comments and proposals made on the campaign trail and her responses to our mayoral questionnaire, it’s possible to project what Parker in the mayor’s office could look like for education.

Parker’s big-ticket education idea: Year-round school

Parker’s boldest education campaign proposal was to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” According to her campaign website, Parker said more time in school would allow students to pursue extracurricular activities, sports, and other “enrichment” opportunities, while also providing parents and caregivers more child care flexibility.

She’d pay for it “by leveraging existing funding” and “with new state and city funding,” according to her campaign site.

It’s not immediately clear what this would look like in practice or how much it would cost. School districts have tried year-round schooling to bolster academics and avoid overcrowded classrooms, among other reasons. But the change can also increase district costs, complicate family schedules, make it harder for teenage students to get summer jobs, and hurt tourism and other industries.

The Los Angeles school district turned to year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school there still had such a schedule, according to Education Week.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is whether the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which endorsed rival Helen Gym in the mayoral campaign, is on board with the idea. At minimum, officials and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024.

PFT President Jerry Jordan offered his congratulations to Parker in a statement Wednesday saying “the first female Mayor in our city’s history will be an important role model for our youth—especially young Black girls.” (Parker is Black.)

At the same time, PFT spokesperson Hillary Linardopoulos said Wednesday that the union was not ready to comment on the idea of year-round school, or any of Parker’s education positions.

Parker confronts tricky school board politics

Philadelphia’s mayor has no direct governing power over schools. But the mayor does appoint the nine Board of Education members, who in turn hire the superintendent and oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

Parker said she wants a superintendent and board that reflect “the diversity of the city, wields the passion for elevating our school system to the prominence that it could be, and whose primary priority is creating quality seats for all of Philadelphia’s students.”

Under outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, a simmering tension has developed between the school board, the district, and city officials around issues of asbestos remediation, funding needs, and community engagement.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said she plans “to be a very active Mayor when it comes to appointing and dealing with the School Board and educating our children in general.”

She said the superintendent, board, and the mayor’s office “cannot work in silos or impose an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality.”

Whether this means she will completely remake the board from scratch or keep some or all of the current Board members remains an open question. The board members’ terms will expire when Kenney leaves office, but they’ll continue to serve until their replacements take over.

Optimism that Philly schools will get more funding

Philadelphia city schools are perpetually seeking more funding. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to overhaul it. According to an Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center analysis, the district schools need an estimated $1.1 billion more each year from the state to properly educate its students.

What’s more, the district doesn’t have the ability to raise tax revenue on its own. The school board is dependent on city and state officials to allocate the funding necessary to operate the district.

Parker, a former state representative, has said she is well-positioned to negotiate with state lawmakers in Harrisburg to get Philadelphia schools the money they need.

On her campaign website, Parker touts her position as former chairwoman of the Philadelphia delegation in Harrisburg. She also says she was able to secure a plan to send the district $148 million and prevent layoffs of some teachers and support staff in 2013, when the “District was on the verge of financial collapse.”

Parker is also optimistic that the court case over the state’s school funding formula will result in more money for the city schools.

“There is almost no scenario where the Philadelphia School District does not receive more funding,” Parker said in her responses to our questionnaire.

She also said she would be open to increasing the city’s share of funding for the district. Currently schools receive 55% of the city’s property tax revenue; she said she would increase it to 58%, which she said would bring an additional $50 million to the district.

“We must prioritize investing in our education system and if that means increasing our share of funding, my Administration will be prepared to do that,” she said in her questionnaire.

In a list of priorities for the next mayor, the school board singled out funding as a top issue.

Some school buildings need to be ‘torn down’

Several school buildings have closed this year due to damaged asbestos, and district leaders have said the growing crisis means more school closures may be coming.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said “it is unconscionable that we ask anybody, but especially children, teachers, and other workers to go to buildings with environmental, structural, and other issues.”

On her plans for remediation, Parker said “many of our school buildings need immediate attention but some are too far gone and need to be torn down, period.”

She also joined the chorus of elected officials and education advocates calling for a comprehensive plan from the district. “While the school district is already implementing an improvement plan, it’s not happening quickly enough for kids and parents who don’t have options, and for the first time in my experience, the money is there to get it done,” Parker said.

Parker: State should restore charter school reimbursements

The Philadelphia Board of Education is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city. It has come under scrutiny concerning racial bias amid allegations from Black-led charter schools that board members have targeted them for closure.

Parker hasn’t said outright whether she wants the number of charter schools to grow, shrink, or stay the same. As a state representative, Parker signaled her support for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Parker said in her mayoral questionnaire responses that she would “insist” the state legislature reinstate the charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget that was removed by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2011. The line item sent state funds to districts to compensate for “stranded costs” because some of their per-pupil state aid went to charters; about half the total went to the Philadelphia district.

Striking that line item “pitted public schools against charter schools unnecessarily by leaving public schools no way to defray the overhead and stranded costs that remained the same despite smaller enrollments,” Parker said in her questionnaire. “Reinstating this will grow the pot of funds and allow for more opportunity for Philadelphia’s students no matter what type of school they attend.”

Getting more librarians into schools

Philadelphia had the worst ratio of school librarians to students in the country as of 2020, according to data from the Pennsylvania Association of School Librarians. The association said there were just six school librarians in a district with more than 125,000 students and 215 district-operated schools.

Parker said she “would ensure that every district school has a certified librarian by drawing upon our funding streams and using my voice to amplify the need for them being more prevalent in our schools.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

2023 election results: Democratic and Republican primary elections for Philadelphia mayor

2023-05-17T03:23:57+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free twice-weekly newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

This post will be updated.

Cherelle Parker, a former City Councilmember and state representative, is poised to become Philadelphia’s first Black woman mayor after securing the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary election.

The Associated Press called the election Tuesday night for Parker, who cleared a crowded Democratic primary race. Parker will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election.

The race was tight. In the lead up to Election Day, public poll forecasts put the top five Democratic candidates within a few points of one another. Philadelphia is a deep-blue city — registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one — meaning whoever wins the Democratic primary has a significant upper hand in the fall’s general election.

Parker was seen by many as the establishment candidate. She garnered support from some of the most powerful labor unions in the city and ran on a campaign promise to be a dealmaker in Harrisburg and bring back more state funding for Philadelphia.

Her election could have big implications for Philadelphia schools. She’s said she wants to reform the much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools, and work toward year-round public schools and a longer school day.

Parker will challenge Oh, the only Republican candidate on the ballot Tuesday.

With 72% of expected votes counted, the unofficial election results are:

Democrats

Cherelle Parker 32.89% (53,906 votes)
Rebecca Rhynhart 22.33% (36,600 votes)
Helen Gym 20.65% (33,842 votes)
Allan Domb 12.16% (19,925 votes)
Jeff Brown 9.47% (15,528 votes)
Amen Brown 1.41% (2,317 votes)
James M. “Jimmy” DeLeon 0.60% (985 votes)
Delscia Gray 0.23% (382 votes)
Warren Bloom 0.19% (310 votes)

Republicans

David Oh 95.77% (10,584 votes)

While the mayor has no direct governing power over schools, the mayor does appoint the nine school Board of Education members who oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the authorizer for all charter schools in Philadelphia.

The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office in January. That means whoever wins in November can choose to remake the board in its entirety, or keep some or all of the current members.

At a 9 p.m. press conference Tuesday, acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said there were “only a few minor and isolated issues” reported “sporadically” across the state at polling locations.

Schmidt said staff at the Department of State responded to an estimated 600 calls to their voter hotline, “which is lower than recent comparable municipal election cycles.”

“We know everyone wants to result of the election as soon as possible,” Schmidt said, “but counties must first make sure that every eligible ballot is accurately and securely counted.”

More than 186,000 voters cast ballots in the primary election Tuesday; 56,394 of those were mail-in ballots and 129,944 were cast at polling locations, per data from the Philadelphia City Commissioners’ office. There are 1,025,354 registered voters in the city.

Tuesday’s election results are unofficial until the Philadelphia City Commissioners, the office that oversees the city’s elections, certifies results 20 days after Election Day.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

From middle school teacher to Chicago mayor: Brandon Johnson sworn in to city’s top office

2023-05-15T20:30:33+00:00

Brandon Johnson, a public school parent, teachers union organizer, and former middle school teacher, has been officially sworn in as Chicago’s 57th mayor.

Johnson defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in a runoff election on April 4 after both candidates surpassed incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot during a Feb. 28 general election, dashing her hopes of a second term.

“We get to write the story of our children’s and our grandchildren’s future,” Johnson said during his inaugural address Monday at the Credit Union 1 Arena at University of Illinois at Chicago on the city’s Near West Side. “What will that story say?”

As the last mayor with control of Chicago Public Schools, Johnson will oversee the city’s transition to an elected school board, which he lobbied for as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. In his speech Monday, he once again promised to double the number of youth jobs, provide “child care for all,” and partner with school district leadership to “provide every single child with a world class education that meets their needs.”

“Let’s create a public education system that resources children based on need and not just on numbers,” Johnson said.

“Let’s have a system that respects its parents, educators and school employees,” he said. “Where the president of the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73 and the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools can work together to advocate for more resources for all of our children.”

Roughly three hours after taking the oath of office, Johnson signed four executive orders — one which directs the budget office to find available money to pay for youth employment this summer and year-round. It also tasks his new Deputy Mayor of Education Jen Johnson to identify entry-level jobs “suitable for young people” within city departments and agencies. Chicago’s youth unemployment rates increased during the pandemic, hitting Black young women particularly hard, according to a new report released last week.

Johnson’s own story from middle school teacher to mayor began more than a decade ago. He left the classroom in 2012 to join a grassroots effort by the Chicago Teachers Union to build political power in order to improve the conditions beyond the classroom walls that impact students and their families, such as housing affordability, poverty, crime, and environmental racism.

“I’m struck by how much work it took to bring us to this moment,” Johnson said, with CTU president, Stacy Davis Gates, and vice president, Jackson Potter, seated behind him on the stage.

While running for mayor, Johnson promised free public transit for students, an expansion of child care programs and health clinics in schools with available space, and an increase in support staff, such as social workers and counselors.

Johnson’s election signals a national shift on education within Democratic politics away from an emphasis on high-stakes accountability and market-based school choice. That view of reform, at times, also vilified teachers and their unions and came with legislation that stripped teachers of their bargaining rights and tried to tie job security to student test scores.

The Chicago Teachers Union began to push back on that thinking in 2010 with the election of the late Karen Lewis as CTU president. Their movement gained momentum and national attention going on strike in 2012, protesting mass school closures in 2013, and electing the first teacher to City Council in 2015. The CTU’s activism galvanized unions in other cities.

In a narrow election in 2018, Johnson upset an incumbent to win a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners, a position he officially resigned on Friday.

Mayor Brandon Johnson shakes hands outside Michele Clark Magnet High School in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood hours before taking the oath of office.

Prior to taking the oath of office on Monday, Johnson stopped at several schools on Chicago’s West Side, including DePriest Elementary, Michele Clark Magnet High School, and Leland Elementary. A drumline and crowd of students, teachers, and elected officials greeted him outside Michele Clark.

Torrence Bell, 15, held up a poster congratulating the new mayor and stood along a fence outside the front entrance, where dozens of elected officials gathered, including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, City Clerk Anna Valencia, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

“He’s a Black male, you know, I’m a Black male, so it’s really very inspiring for me,” Bell said.

Up the street, outside Leland Elementary students cheered and chanted for the new mayor, shaking his hand as he walked through the playground before getting in a black SUV to head to the inauguration ceremony.

“He’s one of our own,” said Alesia Franklin-Allen, acting principal at Leland. “That’s a great asset to have in a leader. He knows the needs of the schools.”

Speaking outside Michele Clark Magnet High School, current union president Davis Gates said she felt like the “personification of joy.”

“We deserve a mayor who’s going to invest in our children, who is going to practice justice and equity, not just as a value, but as a policy imperative,” Davis Gates said. “I am so very happy for us right now.”

Students from Leland Elementary on Chicago’s West Side wait to meet Mayor Brandon Johnson Monday morning before he took the oath of office.

Ten years ago this month, Davis Gates said, she and Johnson were in Springfield lobbying lawmakers to stop then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed Chicago Board of Education from closing 50 schools. Ultimately, the board voted to close those schools, which became a galvanizing moment for the CTU. After the May 22, 2013 vote, then-CTU president Karen Lewis said the union would start training people to run for office.

“Clearly, we have to change the political landscape in this city,” Lewis said at the time.

Davis Gates choked back tears Monday morning as she recalled that moment.

“I’m so happy that teachers and clinicians and paraprofessionals believed their union who said that we could bargain for the common good, that we could be in coalition with the community, that we could transform Chicago,” Davis Gates said standing outside Michele Clark High School before heading downtown for the inauguration. “This is so amazing. And my only regret is that Karen is not here.”

A few hours later in his inaugural address, Johnson nodded to Lewis, calling her his “mentor and dear sister.”

“We all are here because of the work of giants who came before us and without whom this day would not be possible,” he said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Denver mayoral candidates Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston on education, safety in schools

2023-05-15T12:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to keep up with education news from Denver and around the state.

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Neither of Denver’s candidates for mayor favors mayoral control of the school board, which has been beset by infighting and power struggles among board members.

That was one of the takeaways from a recent mayoral forum focused on education and hosted by EDUCATE Denver, Chalkbeat Colorado, and CBS Colorado.

The runoff election between Kelly Brough, the former head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and Mike Johnston, a former educator and state legislator, is set for June 6.

Brough and Johnston won the most votes among a crowded field of 17 candidates in an initial election in April. But neither got more than 50% of the vote, necessitating a runoff election.

Although Denver’s mayor does not control Denver Public Schools, education ranks among the top issues that matter to the city’s voters, according to recent polls. DPS faces several big challenges, including rising youth gun violence in and around schools.

Below, read what Brough and Johnston had to say about that topic and more. The questions and answers have been edited for length. See the full video from the forum at the bottom of this story.

Johnston: My position from the beginning has been that schools should get to decide whether they need that support. … I think that in terms of who pays for it, that’s a decision we can make together. If the district has the resources, they should pay for it. If the district doesn’t have the resources, then the city needs to step in and figure out how we get it done.

Brough: The most fundamental responsibility of government is to keep our residents safe. And so the question of who pays for it is the last concern we should have. Historically, the district has paid for school resource officers. But I said very clearly, as mayor, I would pay for those officers if that’s what a principal and a school have said they would like in their school.

Johnston: This is a matter of who you approve to do this work, what training they have to do this work, and what their scope of authority is in the building to do this work.

Brough: I too, would emphasize making sure you have the right officers in schools with the training and support and feedback.

But I also want to talk about, you know, we’ve built systems throughout every aspect of our society that have bias in them around race in particular. And so I think each of our schools, whether we have a school resource officer in them or not, we have to be monitoring and tracking: What are we doing around discipline … and is there disparity based on race that we’re seeing there, so we can respond and address our own issues.

Would you consider mayoral control of the school board?

Brough: I don’t think you can tell the next mayor: Why don’t you fix the severe challenges we face in the city and county of Denver and take on the largest school district in the state of Colorado and see what you can get done over there too?

So I would not take on the school district.

Johnston: No, I don’t think that is a good plan.

Brough: One is making sure we have a governing body that is focused on nothing else but delivering the education our kids deserve, supporting our teachers to be able to do it, and keeping everybody safe while we get it done.

The second is the role the city plays in supporting delivering our kids to the finish or starting line of graduation. For me that will include things like more partnership between the city and Denver Public Schools. …There’s more opportunity for the city and the schools to work together on maintaining grounds, on a range of issues from purchasing that we can save money.

The third thing I’m really interested in is the city serving as an employer, where we could partner with Denver Public Schools and kids would have paid internships and apprenticeships.

Johnston: It starts with the belief that Denver students are all of our responsibility.

One of the most important ways that we can do that is looking at all of the learning time right now that happens outside of the school building. All the things that happen outside of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., where we know young people’s access to after-school programming to summer school programming to tutoring and arts and athletics and science camps …drive a big part of the passion that makes you who you are as a young person.

I want to expand programming to make sure young people, particularly those on free and reduced [price] lunch, have access to those opportunities to help them find their passion.

Brough: I’m not an expert in standardized testing. Well, actually, I am really terrible at standardized testing because I’m dyslexic. … I don’t think I’m less smart than any other kid, even if my scores were lower, and I don’t think my teachers were any worse if my scores were lower.

I also want to know, though, how a school is overall doing as a parent. And it feels to me like we can find a way to try to communicate that information without oversimplifying it or unfairly … judging or burdening a school or a district or teachers.

Johnston: I would not support denying parents access to that information any more than I would support denying parents access to information on their kid’s height and weight chart on a yearly physical check-in. And also know that even if you tell my kid he’s in the 15th percentile of height, that I don’t think that’s his total measure of worth as a human being.

It is getting increasingly expensive to live in the city of Denver. This is causing many lower-income DPS families to relocate outside of the city. How will you address this challenge?

Johnston: What I would do is build or convert 25,000 units across the city to become permanently affordable units. And what that means is that anybody that makes about $100,000 a year or less can be eligible to move into one of these units. And the way they’re structured is that you would never pay more than 30% of what you make for rent.

Brough: One of the strategies is called master leasing. This is where, as your mayor, you basically put out [a request for proposals], and you say, ‘I’d like 3,000 units for three years. What kind of deal will you give me?’ And in essence, what I’m doing is buying down the price of rent and locking it in for a few years. It also has the added benefit that if somebody gets in trouble and they can’t make their rent, … the city gets a phone call before someone’s evicted, which also helps us start to focus on prevention of people becoming unhoused.

Another example … and this is one that’s most exciting for me, is homeownership. … I got the chance in Munich to tour a building on a surface parking lot. … And when you look around our city, we have quite a bit of surface parking lots that we own as taxpayers. You can think of our police stations, our firehouses, our libraries, our rec centers. But even more valuable would be our Denver public schools, where there could be real opportunities for us to build a for-sale housing product next to schools that if teachers wanted they could live in.

And then the last thing I’ll give an example for is gentrification. … We’ve done some things like approving the option to build an ADU, an accessory dwelling unit. … But the truth is where we haven’t had gentrification yet, those are homeowners who probably can’t afford to [to build one].

I think we as a city can take way more proactive steps: We design the ADU by neighborhood that would fit in. We could even do a precision build where it’s 30% to 50% less expensive. Now we’re helping that homeowner get it in immediately and start to be able to get rent so they can stay on the property they already own and have additional income.

As mayor, what are the top three things you would do to make Denver the best place to raise children?

Brough: Making sure we have a mayor who can restore the safety in our city, throughout our city, because I think families are extremely concerned.

I think affordability is the second issue that is causing, pushing many families to leave our city. … Housing is the No. 1 strategy to address that affordability.

And you don’t have to go very far when you talk to a Realtor about the No. 1 decision of where families choose to buy a home is their school and their confidence in that school. And so I also think really focusing on how do we restore confidence in our residents that we have a school system that will be great for their kids and deliver the results they want.

Johnston: I think the three biggest drivers of people leaving the city will be: Do they feel it’s affordable? Do they feel it’s safe? And do they feel like they have access to great schools?

We’ve talked about affordability. And so I want to talk … about safety.

If you have someone in a mental health crisis, you actually don’t want to send an officer at all.

If you have someone who’s in a physical health crisis and potential overdose, you want to have a paramedic or EMT on site. You don’t necessarily need an officer.

But if you have places where there is an assault, or there’s a break in, or your car’s been stolen, or there’s been a shooting, you do want to make sure that you have officers that can respond. Right now, we are so short-staffed on each of those roles.

What is the main thing that distinguishes you from your opponent? And what is a similarity?

Johnston: I’ll do similarities first. I think we both have leadership experience. We’ve both led large and complex organizations. We’ve both been in the public sector and the private sector.

The key distinguishing characteristic for me … is I think the city faces a large number of very complex problems to solve. And I find solving those complex problems requires having a big vision for what’s possible. And then being able to build a really broad coalition to take that on, often with unlikely partners who don’t get along together. And then being able to stay at it.

That’s what I’ve had the opportunity to do over decades. … That was true as a school principal, working with teachers to get all of our kids to graduate. That was true in the legislature working to help undocumented kids get access to in-state tuition. … That was true when we were working on universal preschool for the first time statewide and had to bring together everyone from big tobacco companies to health industries to preschool advocates.

I think that ability to set a big vision, take on the hardest problems, build broad coalitions, and then deliver really historic results is what makes me unique in this field.

Brough: I was gonna say our sense of humor, but I’m actually funnier than Mike so you can’t do that one. I would say our passion and love for the city I think is a similarity.

For me, the biggest difference I see is I’ve actually run the city before when I was John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff. You’re responsible for the day-to-day operations of a city.

My lived experience has been much of what I think many in Denver are struggling with today. This is relevant because I think I understand how easy it is to give up hope.

When you lose someone you love to violent crime. Or how easy it is to feel so much shame that you’re not willing to keep going because your family receives assistance from the government. Or to believe that you’re the only family struggling with addiction and losing a loved one.

And I would say to every Denver resident, not only is my family resilient and strong, but I see it in you too, and I can help find a path through those issues today.

And then the last thing I would say is, I’ve never run for office before. ... Maybe more importantly, though, I’m not running for another office. Every decision I make will be about the city and its residents and what’s best for us. Never about my political future.

Watch the entire forum below.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Kwame Spearman says he’s running for Denver school board after short bid for mayor

2023-05-08T12:00:00+00:00

After dropping out of Denver’s mayoral race two months ago, Kwame Spearman announced Monday that he is now running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Spearman, 39, was until recently the CEO of the Denver-based independent bookstore chain Tattered Cover, of which he is still part owner. He is also a graduate of Denver’s East High School. His mother is a longtime educator in the system, and Spearman serves on the board of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the district, though he said he’ll step away from that appointment during the campaign.

Spearman will have two opponents for the seat, which represents the entire city: John Youngquist, the former principal of East High and a parent of two East students, and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student. Another candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

School board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who currently holds that seat, is not seeking re-election.

The election is set for Nov. 7. Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs. There’s a lot at stake, including how the largest district in the state will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns after shootings in and around schools.

The election also has the potential to change the dynamics of the board. Power struggles among some members have eroded confidence in the board.

Spearman said he’s running for school board because DPS is “not headed in the right direction.” The board spends too much time infighting and not enough time talking about academic outcomes for students, school safety, and “the mental health quagmire,” he said.

“My belief is that your neighborhood deserves great schools, and foundational to that is representatives from the school board starting and ending every conversation with a focus on student outcomes and academic excellence,” Spearman said.

The community deserves a board member who is going to spend their time listening “rather than tweeting during district meetings or fighting against other board members,” he said.

Spearman shied away from calling himself a reformer but said that school choice has worked. School choice is a key tenet of the education reform philosophy that lets families choose the schools they think best fit their kids’ needs. Board members need to stop focusing on whether a school is district-run or charter, he said, and focus on whether it’s great.

“We can’t get rid of that,” Spearman said of school choice. “That’s what made Denver Public Schools in its heyday so successful — is that parents were finally given the opportunity to figure out the best type of environment for their student.”

Tattered Cover’s flagship store is located across the street from East High, and Spearman is a non-parent member of the Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, a group formed to push for change in the wake of a March shooting inside the school.

After the shooting, the school board suspended a policy banning police from schools and allowed 14 officers to be stationed at 13 campuses, including two at East. If elected, Spearman said he’d support allowing each school to decide whether they want an officer on campus.

But he said it’s not feasible to let all 200 DPS schools come up with their own plan. He said the board should “entrust principals with the ability to make the decision around [school resource officers] and give them guidance on how to make that decision and options to choose from.”

Spearman dropped out of a crowded field of 17 candidates running for Denver mayor in March, just a few weeks before the election. He said he got into the mayoral race late, which is what prompted him to enter the school board race early. His late entry didn’t allow him to build alliances with community groups, he said, which he hopes to do this time around.

As for which groups he’ll seek out, Spearman named both reform groups and the Denver teachers union, which have historically been on opposite sides in school board elections.

“My concern is we’re not focusing on the right outcomes, and you’re seeing a deterioration of the district because of it,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that Auon’tai Anderson is not seeking re-election and that former candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois lawmakers release first draft of Chicago’s elected school board map

2023-05-08T16:00:58+00:00

Under a draft map released Friday, Chicago’s elected school board would eventually be drawn from 20 districts reflecting the demographics of the city overall.

The proposal from Illinois lawmakers is a long-awaited development in the school district’s shift away from mayoral control. If the draft were adopted, the school board would likely end up skewing whiter than the students it would be representing.

That’s because the draft map proposes seven majority white districts, seven majority Black districts, and six majority Latino districts. Chicago Public Schools student population is 46.5% Latino, 36% Black, 11% white, and 4% Asian American.

The public will get a chance to offer feedback before a July 1 deadline for lawmakers to approve the map. The first school board elections are scheduled for Nov. 5, 2024. At that time, 10 members will be elected and 10 members and a school board president will be appointed by the mayor. The 11 appointed seats will switch to being elected in 2026.

The debate about whether the map should reflect the makeup of the city overall or its student population has come up in recent weeks, as Chicagoans testified at public hearings. The city’s population is 33% white, 29% Black, and 29% Latino.

Two groups of Democrats — one from the state Senate and one from the House — have held public hearings about the maps. They jointly released the draft map.

A proposed map dividing Chicago into 20 districts for school board elections.

In a statement, Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and is chair of the Senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the committee took into account testimony from public hearings held in recent weeks.

“This draft map is intended to continue those conversations as the legislature works toward adopting boundaries that will help empower families and uplift children,” Lightford said in a statement.

Kids First Chicago, which collected feedback from hundreds of parents and submitted its own map proposal to lawmakers last month, said the draft map should be thrown out.

“We demand legislators go back to the drawing board and create districts that are more representative of CPS,” Daniel Anello, CEO of Kids First Chicago, said in a statement Saturday.

The Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, which submitted a map with 10 districts that mostly align with current Ward boundaries for City Council, also took issue with the draft map. Valerie Leonard, the group’s leader, called it a “non-starter.”

Leonard raised questions about whether only half the city will vote for school board seats in 2024 under a proposed 20-district map. The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

“Will the Mayor appoint 10 people to fill the vacancies of 10 districts while 10 of the districts will hold elections in 2024? Will the 20 districts be coupled, so that we effectively have 10 districts?” Leonard asked in testimony she submitted at a Saturday hearing and shared with Chalkbeat.

Others took issue with the sprawling nature of some of the proposed districts.

“This map is a gerrymandered disgrace,” Chicago Republican Party Chair Steve Boulton said in a statement. “Parents living at 79th and Western share a board district with parents in Hegewisch, 12 miles away. Parents in the West Loop share a board district with those near Marquette Park, almost nine miles away.”

The elected school board districts have to comply with the Illinois Voting Rights Act and must be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.”

The Senate’s special committee will hold a virtual meeting to gather feedback on the proposed map at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 9. It will be livestreamed on ilga.gov. The public can also provide comment at Additional opportunities to provide comment can be accessed online at www.ilsenateredistricting.com or by sending an email to ChicagoERSBCommittee@senatedem.ilga.gov.

This story has been updated with additional reaction to the draft elected school board map.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s elected school board is coming soon. Here’s what you need to know.

2023-05-04T20:36:02+00:00

Chicago voters will soon see a new office on their ballots: school board.

In November 2024, voters will elect 10 members to the Chicago Board of Education as the city moves to a 21-member school board that will eventually be fully elected.

The transition marks a dramatic change for Chicago Public Schools, which has been under mayoral control since 1995. Before that, school board members were seated through a nomination process.

The law — and its subsequent trailer bill — spells out a number of rules, regulations, and processes that have to be followed before Chicagoans are voting in school board elections every two years.

Here’s a closer look at some of the details – and outstanding questions.

How will the Chicago Board of Education change?

According to the school board’s website, it is “responsible for the governance, organizational and financial oversight of Chicago Public Schools.” Its mission statement promises “to set goals and standards and make policies that make a high quality public education system available to the children of Chicago.”

Currently, seven people are appointed by the mayor. They can step down or be replaced at virtually any time. Under mayoral control, the school board has been criticized by some as a rubber stamp that made decisions behind closed doors.

Advocates who lobbied for the elected school board wanted to change that and after many years of lobbying, lawmakers passed a law in 2021 to transition to an elected school board. That law expands the size of the board from seven members to 21. For two years starting in January 2025, the board will be a mix of elected and appointed members. By January 2027, it will be fully elected.

At that point, the school board will resemble Chicago’s current City Council — except instead of 50 aldermen elected from 50 wards and one mayor elected by all of Chicago, there will be 20 members elected from 20 different districts and one school board president elected at-large.

When and how will school board members be elected?

The first Chicago school board elections will be held Nov. 5, 2024. Ten members will be elected from 10 yet-to-be-determined districts representing different areas of the city. Those members will each serve a four-year term and will be up for re-election in 2028.

By Dec. 16, 2024, Mayor Brandon Johnson must also appoint 10 members from those same 10 districts to serve two-year terms. The 10 mayoral-appointed seats will switch to being elected to four-year terms in November 2026. Those seats will represent different districts at that point and will be up for re-election in 2030.

The mayor will also appoint a school board president by Dec. 16, 2024 from anywhere in the city to serve for two years starting in 2024. In Nov. 2026, all Chicago voters will elect a school board president at-large. That person will also be up for re-election in 2030.

In all, 21 new school board members — half elected, half appointed — will be sworn into office in January 2025. By January 2027, all 21 members will have been elected. From that point on, school board elections will be staggered, with half the seats up for reelection every two years.

Who can — and cannot — run for the elected school board?

Chicagoans who want to run to represent their community on the school board will have to collect 250 signatures from voters who also live in their district. Candidates for school board president will have to collect 2,500 signatures from registered Chicago voters.

Similar to other elected offices, candidates will have to submit those petitions to the Chicago Board of Elections a few months before the election in order to get on the ballot and could face challenges to the validity of their signatures. However, the threshold is far lower than other offices, like mayor, which requires 12,500 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

The dates for when school board candidates can start collecting signatures to get on the November 2024 ballot are not set yet, according to spokespeople with both the city and state Board of Elections.

A number of Chicagoans won’t be able to serve on the school board, according to the legislation.

School board members cannot be employees of Chicago Public Schools or employees or owners of companies that hold contracts with the school district. It is not clear, however, if a candidate could run and then resign from those jobs in order to serve. Like other school boards across Illinois, members also cannot hold other elected offices.

One point of contention that has come up during public hearings is that non-citizens are not allowed to vote in school board elections or run for office. This disqualifies many public school parents in Chicago and is a departure from a separate state law that allows non-citizens to vote in and serve on Local School Councils, which oversee budget and leadership decisions at individual schools. The law does call for the creation of a non-citizen advisory board appointed by the mayor, but it does not spell out what powers or responsibilities that group would have.

How will my school or community be represented?

This is perhaps the most critical — and most up-in-the-air question. The short answer is: No one knows yet.

State lawmakers from both the House and Senate have been hosting public hearings to gather feedback on how they should divide the city into districts from which school board members will be elected. The next hearing will be held virtually on Friday, May 5.

The law states “the City of Chicago shall be subdivided into 10 electoral districts for the 2024 elections and into 20 electoral districts for the 2026 elections.”

It’s not clear if lawmakers plan to draw both a 10-district map and a 20-district map by the statutorily required July 1 deadline.

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, who represents parts of Chicago’s West Side and a handful of near western suburbs and is chairing the senate’s Special Committee on the Chicago Elected Representative School Board, said the group is evaluating input from the public, including “proposals that suggest a map with 10 districts, and submissions that call for 20 districts.”

State Rep. Ann Williams, who represents parts of Chicago’s north side and chairs a working group of House Democrats focused on Chicago’s elected school board maps, said the number of districts drawn in the next two months is still “to be determined.”

Like all electoral maps, the elected school board districts have to be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population and consistent with the Illinois Voting Rights Act.”

Several groups are already advocating for representation and have proposed maps, including Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and Kids First Chicago.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Voters pass Indianapolis Public Schools, Speedway, and Warren school ballot measures

2023-05-03T02:30:52+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools and statewide education news.

Voters on Tuesday night approved property tax increases or renewed existing referendum funds for Indianapolis Public Schools, the School Town of Speedway, and the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township.

Unofficial results for the IPS ballot question showed that roughly 59% of voters supported the $410 million measure, compared to 41% who opposed it. The largest of the three ballot measures, the IPS tax increase will fund upgrades to 23 school campuses.

Superintendent Aleesia Johnson thanked voters in a statement released shortly after the results.

“Their support of our capital referendum means IPS can Rebuild Stronger and immediately get to work on projects across more than 20 schools — from design to construction starting this year — so that every student who walks through our buildings feels valued and loved, knowing that something joyful and important happens inside those walls,” Johnson said.

Voters in the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township narrowly passed that district’s ballot measure with roughly 52% supporting it and 48% opposed, while the ballot measure from the School Town of Speedway succeeded handily, with roughly 79% in favor and 21% against.

Polls closed at 6 p.m. with a total of 78,237 voters casting ballots. That turnout represents a 45% increase over the last municipal primary election in 2019, according to the Marion County Election Board. The number of early voters also rose dramatically, increasing by 306% from the 2019 municipal primary.

Tuesday night’s election results are unofficial until the Marion County Election Board certifies them on May 15.

Johanna Dix, 29, casts her vote with her “almost” 2-year-old daughter on her lap at the Indianapolis City-County Building on May 2.

Indianapolis Public Schools ballot question focuses on buildings

IPS officials have stressed the need for building improvements, which vary by school and include new HVAC and plumbing systems, roof upgrades, new athletic fields, and classroom additions.

“We need to update those things so that students have a safe and welcoming place to spend their day,” Deputy Superintendent Andrew Strope previously told us.

Approval of the $410 million question will allow the school district to issue bonds that the district will pay back over 30 years, using revenue from increased taxes. IPS officials estimate that residents with a home valued at the median value of $138,500 will see an extra $3.18 per month on their property tax bill.

Roughly $66 million of the proposed $410 million will fund a two-story addition to Arlington Middle School as it transforms into a STEM school in 2024-25. The money will also establish science labs and a “makerspace” — a collaborative area for creative projects — and upgrade the school’s athletic fields.

At George Washington Carver School 87, funding will support a building addition, new art and music rooms, a larger parking area, and more green space for the play area.

David Spencer, chief operating officer for KIPP Indy Public Schools, stands in the gym of the elementary and middle school building, which will receive about $800,000 in upgrades after voters approved the $410 million ballot question for Indianapolis Public Schools on Tuesday, May 2.

And at KIPP Indy, one of the school district’s Innovation Network charter schools, funding will help fix the roof, upgrade the gym, and replace old flooring. KIPP officials estimate that replacing the floors will save roughly $30,000 annually in maintenance costs.

Warren Township proposal will fund COVID-era initiatives

Warren Township asked voters for an extra $88 million over eight years to cover the school district police department, 24 school counselors, and a few programs launched with the help of federal coronavirus relief funds that expire in 2024.

The ballot question will raise the property taxes that support the district’s operating expenses from 21 cents per $100 of assessed value to 30 cents.

Eastridge Elementary in Warren Township received a family engagement liaison with the help of federal coronavirus relief funding. On Tuesday, May 2, voters approved The Metropolitan School District of Warren Township’s ballot measure for a tax increase to continue funding that position and other initiatives supported by federal COVID relief funding.

The additional money will help the district pay bus drivers after the district increased the starting wage by $4 per hour last year. It will also help cover support staff pay, which the district boosted to $15 per hour using federal coronavirus relief.

“It’s just simply more expensive to run a school district in 2023 than it was in 2018,” when the last referendum was passed, Matthew Parkinson, the district’s chief financial officer, previously told us.

Speedway schools hope for third renewal of operating referendum

The School Town of Speedway sought a third renewal of its operating referendum, which Superintendent Kyle Trebley previously said will help pay for staff in the small district of roughly 1,850 students.

The approval of the ballot question maintains the current operating tax rate passed in 2016 of 59 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

2023 election results: Democratic and Republican primary elections for Indianapolis mayor

2023-05-03T02:10:49+00:00

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, a Democrat, will face Republican challenger Jefferson Shreve in the November general election.

Both candidates had more than half of the vote in their respective primary elections, despite multiple challengers. Per unofficial election results, Hogsett had 58.37% of the votes in the Democratic primary and Shreve had 65.89% in the GOP primary.

Tonight’s election results are unofficial until the Marion County Election Board certifies results on May 15.

Joe Hogsett

The winners of each of the primary elections will be on the Nov. 7 ballot for the general election. (Independent candidates and minor party candidates have until the summer to declare their candidacy for the general election.)

Voter turnout on Tuesday was around 13% of registered voters. More than 78,000 voters cast ballots in the municipal primary election, an increase of 45% from 2019, per the Marion County Election Board. There were also more than triple the number of early votes.

In the Democratic primary, Hogsett’s closest opponent was state Rep. Robin Shackleford, who had 37.87% of the vote.

The remaining four candidates, including two who stopped campaigning ahead of primary Election Day, each had no more than 1.5% of the vote.

Jefferson Shreve

Similarly in the GOP primary, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz had 26.25% of the vote, while James Jackson and John Couch each had around 4% of the vote.

Mayor has impact on schools in Marion County

The biggest way that the mayor impacts education in the city and its townships is through the Office of Education Innovation, which is a charter school authorizer.

That means the office is responsible for overseeing charter schools and making sure the schools meet the promises in their charters.

Currently, the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation is the authorizer for nearly 50 charter schools, including roughly a dozen schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network.

The mayor also selects six of the nine members of the Indianapolis Charter School Board, which reviews charter school applications and approves or rejects them. The board can also make recommendations on renewals.

Plus, the mayor has a significant impact on crime, the economy, and housing in Indianapolis — all of which affect the educators and students who go to school here.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief and covers higher education. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

City education council elections bring polarizing national issues to local school districts

2023-04-28T15:31:42+00:00

This story was originally published on April 28 by THE CITY.

Starting last Friday and running through May 9, the city’s Community Education Council elections now underway give public school parents a chance to vote on district panels that will represent their interests to their local superintendent.

Parents, local residents, and business owners, and even high school seniors are eligible to run for positions on the 11-member CECs, which can weigh in on topics ranging from academics and budgets to accessibility and diversity.

This is only the second time that public school parents will be able to choose who will represent district interests to the superintendent — prior to 2021, only Parent Teacher Associations nominated CEC members. But only 2% of eligible voters participated in the last election for the volunteer positions two years ago, according to the Department of Education — and in the absence of individual involvement, well-organized networks of parents have increasingly exerted influence.

One such group, Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE), has become particularly powerful — and polarizing.

The group formed in 2019 in opposition to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to widen access to honors programs and selective middle and high schools. Now some rival parent groups say PLACE is skewing rightward, with members using their platform to compare critical race theory to Nazi ideology and accusing the administration of being “woke” oppressors.

On April 21, the first day of voting, PLACE recommended 175 candidates across the city in an emailed newsletter the organization says reaches nearly 10,000 parents.

But reached by THE CITY, several of those candidates distanced themselves from PLACE’s agenda as it ventures into issues beyond testing. Some endorsed candidates said they had never even heard of the organization.

CECs are composed of 11 members: nine are parents elected by other parents, and two are appointed by the borough president. Decisions are entirely advisory, with the exception of binding decisions issued about school zoning.

“For most parents, this is an obscure election. They look at those names and they don’t really recognize them,” said Reyhan Mehran, a parent and member of a group in Brooklyn’s District 15 that opposes PLACE. “It makes those of us who are paying attention nervous that this very vocal, right-wing small group of people have had an undue influence on public school policy.”

PLACE is trying to replicate its success from the last elections — where 60% of the 86 candidates that they recommended are still district CEC members. In Manhattan’s largest public school districts, 2 and 3, PLACE candidates represent a majority or all of the members sitting on the councils, according to THE CITY’s review of district rosters.

The group regularly reaches approximately 15,000 parents citywide through a combination of Facebook, Twitter, a newsletter and group chats on the messaging app WeChat, according to both its leadership and public follower tallies.

“It’s very difficult to motivate your average parent to take part in [CEC elections],” said Yiatin Chu, a public school parent in District 1 and co-vice-president and co-founder of PLACE. “The most active parents are the ones who have been burned by the [school] lottery system. The ones that aren’t really engaging with us may know someone who is — it’s like what marketing people call influencers.”

As parents cast their ballots over the next two weeks, members of rival coalitions are expressing concerns about PLACE’s influence.

Mehran is a member of District 15 Parents for Middle School Equity, which was formed in 2014 to advocate for and implement the district’s diversity plans — including removing admissions screens and prioritizing low-income students and English-learners for admissions in middle schools. For the first time ever on Tuesday, the group released a list of endorsed candidates citywide — an explicit effort to counter PLACE’s sway, Mehran said.

“By just recommending these candidates, PLACE has had a lot of influence,” said Mehran. “And we just felt like maybe we should put something out there that gives people other names to consider.”

Organized outreach

In only four years, PLACE has emerged as the foremost group pushing local district superintendents to preserve and expand gifted and talented programs and to reinstate admissions testing in certain high schools and middle schools.

They’re fighting officials and other parents who have blamed those programs for contributing to racial and economic inequality across the city — which has some of the most segregated public schools across the country, according to a study conducted by UCLA.

But PLACE insists that dismantling testing and accelerated programs would worsen academic standards and unfairly punish Asian students, who tend to be “overrepresented” in selective schools, compared to the city’s general demographic mix. Instead, the group suggests that the DOE correct the factors that might be causing Black and Hispanic students to fall behind in the first place.

PLACE’s most notable success in the last election was in Manhattan’s four largest districts, where every candidate it recommended in Districts 1, 2 and 3 won a seat. In District 2, representing 60,000 students and 121 schools, all but one of the seats was held by a PLACE candidate. Similarly, PLACE won a majority on the Citywide Council on High Schools — a board that represents 300,000 students citywide.

And PLACE’s 15,000-member following dwarfs that of other groups that offered endorsements — who aren’t as active outside of CEC elections, and told THE CITY that their listservs and online followings reach around 1,000 people a piece.

Unlike former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, which said it wanted to scrap the specialized high school tests open to students citywide, Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Education Chancellor David Banks have stressed that most admissions policies should be decided on by local superintendents — giving CECs a path to potentially influence these decisions.

CECs, for instance, made themselves heard on middle school admissions last year, after a two-year pause in academic-based screening for middle schools, related to both the pandemic and the de Blasio administration’s push to move away from grade- and test-based admissions.

In at least two districts, CECs recommended a return to screened middle school admissions. The results were mixed: over 100 schools have decided not to, according to an announcement made by Banks last October. But 60 middle schools have reinstated screened admissions based on course averages from the fourth grade.

Not ‘woke’ but awakened?

In addition to a robust parent network citywide, PLACE Co-president and co-founder Maud Maron attributed the organization’s success to a widespread “parent awakening” in the first year of the pandemic, at a time when the city’s school enrollment was rapidly declining, protests over racial injustice were spreading across the country, and parents debated about virtual schooling and mask mandates.

She suggested a correlation between declining reading and math scores and an increased focus on “social emotional learning” and an “ideological agenda” in schools — but acknowledged that the relationship wasn’t necessarily causal.

“Land acknowledgements don’t teach anybody more math,” Maron, a Manhattan mother of four, told THE CITY — referencing the practice of paying respect to the indigenous people who inhabited the land before European colonialism. “It’s just that this endless fixation on left-wing ideological indoctrination doesn’t do much to improve our nation’s report card.”

PLACE’s prominence in education politics has drawn local and national recognition, especially as a number of its members have aspired to higher office. That includes Maron, a former CEC member herself who ran in the crowded Democratic primary for a rare open seat in U.S. Congress District 10. That’s the area that covers much of school District 15 in Brooklyn, which led the way in removing middle school screenings in the de Blasio years. Maron won just under 1,000 votes, less than 1%.

Members of the Adams administration, including Banks himself, have consulted with PLACE directly, according to Chalkbeat and testimony from the Department of Education’s chief enrollment officer at a City Council hearing in January. Separately, a spokesperson for the DOE told THE CITY that the administration engages PLACE in the same way that it does with other groups representing parents, and continues to prioritize diversity in schools.

In District 2, the largest in Manhattan, PLACE candidates fill all but one elected CEC seat. Conversations about culturally sensitive curriculum and school diversity have caught the attention of national media outlets, while one CEC member there launched her own bid for state Senate.

And PLACE’s work has earned commendation from groups like Parents Defending Education, and leadership positions at the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), national organizations that largely advocate against what they describe as threats to free speech from the left. Chu and Maron made national news for founding FAIR’s New York City chapter.

PLACE leadership has leaned into national discourse online, comparing “critical race theory” (CRT) and “anti-Asian discrimination” in admissions to Nazi ideology, and warning parents of “poisonous” curriculum. In a tweet from March, Maron called city schools an “oppressor woke environment where DOE employees make them pledge allegiance to their LGBTQI+ religion.”

PLACE leadership echoes this in private discussion forums, according to screenshots from private discussion forums obtained by THE CITY, members have promoted local chapters of Mom’s for Liberty, a national group that decries “woke” education as an assault on parental control.

Guadalupe Hernandez, a mother of two who was appointed to District 2’s CEC by the Manhattan borough president and is running for re-election, was one of the candidates endorsed by D15 Parents for Middle School Equity. She said messaging from PLACE officials reminds her of red states.

“It’s so mind boggling,” Hernandez told THE CITY. “Sometimes even when I speak to residents that live in my building or just any New York City parents, and tell them what I’m going through, they’re just like, ‘We’re where? We’re not Alabama, we’re not Florida.’ They don’t believe me.”

Endorsement shuffle

PLACE’s leadership insists their official platform is solely about preserving selective admissions and gifted-and-talented programs.

“I tend to like to be vocal personally on all sorts of things,” Chu said. “But that’s not who I am when I’m advocating for PLACE.”

By and large, national hot-button topics didn’t feature in the 36 candidate forums hosted by the DOE. The vast majority of candidates spoke about supporting the district’s families, fighting school bullying, and promoting learning recovery after the pandemic.

But that hasn’t stopped endorsed candidates from putting distance between themselves and PLACE’s conservative affiliations.

Sarah Sharma, a CEC hopeful in Brooklyn’s District 14, is one of the 175 candidates that PLACE endorsed this year. Yet she says she had never heard of the group. After doing some research, Sharma asked to be removed from their list.

“When I found out about their endorsement, I poked around their website and realized I didn’t really want to be associated with them,” said Sharma, a former teacher and administrator in the district, which spans Williamsburg and Greenpoint. “Because I don’t feel like their views on education represent mine and who they’ve endorsed in the past for general elections.”

Sharma went on to specify that she was uncomfortable with PLACE’s endorsement of conservative candidates like Reps. George Santos (R-Queens/L.I.) and Nicole Maliotakis (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn), and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who were among a bi-partisan slate of 18 statewide candidates PLACE endorsed last year.

Noah Harlan, a current CEC representative for District 1, was also endorsed by PLACE but emphasized that his agreement with organization’s leadership begins and ends with supporting selective admissions, rigorous testing, and gifted and talented programs.

“I think that I have more of a willingness than others to think about the systemic and structural issues that work against student achievement in various neighborhoods in New York, other PLACE candidates might be more dispassionate.” said Harlan, who added that he considers changes to admissions policies to be discriminatory against the Asian community.

Several other parents and CEC candidates who spoke with THE CITY and who favor preserving selective admissions said that they were not interested in national debates about race and gender — even those who have been endorsed by PLACE.

No magic bullet for parent engagement

Even with two years to drum up awareness, a high level of participation is far from guaranteed in this, the second round of parent-involved CEC elections.

Immediately after the 2021 elections, only five seats were unfilled across all CECs, after a 70% increase in the number of candidates from 2019. Today, however, 25% of seats are unfilled, as parents leave their elected positions.

Some districts in Brooklyn have gone months without the minimum six members required to reach quorum, and others have gone years without a designated English Language Learner representative, Bklyner reported.

In the past few months, the DOE has upped its outreach: sending postcards in the mail, making phone calls, emailing parents, hosting information sessions and virtual candidate forums for every district across the city.

But the engaged parents on the ground are still concerned.

“There isn’t a magic bullet,” said Stephen Stowe, president of the District 20 CEC and PLACE endorsed-candidate. “At the end of the day, you’re not gonna see the same kind of interest you do for City Council elections or state Assembly or state Senate because it doesn’t have a lot of power.”

Former CEC 20 president and PLACE co-founder Vito LaBella believes the issues that parents are concerned about don’t have anything to do with larger political discourse.

“Unfortunately is everybody inserting a political perspective in what should be a very simple market perspective: What is the demand for accelerated programs and what is the capacity?” said LaBella, who ran for State Senate in 2021 on a platform that prioritized protecting selective admissions and combatting critical race theory.

“And if we want to stop the bleeding of families leaving New York City, we need to increase capacity to meet demand, not get rid of it altogether.”

Newark voters elect two incumbents and a newcomer to the school board

2023-04-27T10:30:00+00:00

Two incumbents on the Newark Board of Education won Tuesday’s election alongside their newcomer running mate as voters chose to keep the status quo among the board.

With roughly 94% of voting districts reported, 87% of voters also chose to pass Newark Public Schools’ $1.3 billion budget.

The “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate, which was endorsed by Mayor Ras Baraka and other local and state leaders, secured three seats in a landslide win, according to preliminary results posted Tuesday night.

Their victory comes amid growing concern over the board’s transparency in decision-making, increasing rates of chronic absenteeism, and plans to support the district’s most vulnerable students. All eight candidates expressed disappointment in voter turnout and engagement as just over 3% of Newark voters participated in elections again.

Incumbents Josephine Garcia and Hasani Council received the bulk of the votes, each garnering roughly 23%. Their running mate Allison James-Frison, who had an unsuccessful run last year, received 22% as of Tuesday evening.

The latest numbers show sweeping victories over the three-member “Newark Kids Forward” slate, which combined, garnered less than a quarter of votes. Thomas Luna and James Wright Jr. each had roughly 8% of the votes, while Tawana Johnson-Emory had just under 7%, according to preliminary results.

Independent candidates Latoya Jackson, a hair salon owner, received less than 4% of votes and Ade’Kamil Kelly, a real estate agent and team leader at the Boys and Girls Club of Newark had just under 3%, according to the Tuesday night’s results.

Historically, voter turnout for the annual school board election has been low. Last year, roughly 3% of registered voters cast their vote. The county reported that just over 3%, or 4,963 Newark voters, participated in this year’s election. County data showed there were 9,578 in-person votes and 3,652 mail-in votes cast as of Tuesday evening.

Candidates discussed their efforts to engage voters in this year’s election and reverse Newark’s history of low voter participation. Garcia and her team visited churches, knocked on doors, handed out flyers, and recruited dozens of volunteers to help bring residents to the polls. With a third run for the board of education member, Garcia, who secured a third term on the board this year, said school board elections are “the hardest and most exhausting” of all races to get parents and the community to participate. She suggested moving the school board race to November.

In 2012, the state legislature passed a law allowing districts to switch their school board elections to the November general election. Until then, all school board elections were held in the spring and voters had a say on school budgets. Now only voters whose districts hold elections in April get to vote on school budget.

James-Frison also said she was shocked by the low turnout despite her slate’s efforts to get residents to vote. She hopes the community will engage in important school issues such as mental health, which she plans to tackle once she takes her seat on the board.

“I’d like to see more resources and services for not just students, but for the teachers and the parents because we all have to work together to make sure everybody’s mental stability is OK,” James-Frison said.

Like other candidates, Luna and his “Newark Kids Forward” slate knocked on doors and walked around neighborhoods to let people know about Tuesday’s election. Luna wasn’t surprised about the low voter turnout given his history of running in Newark’s school board elections but heard about issues with provisional ballots and people being directed to other voting locations the day of.

“Folks at Avon Avenue School, which is a typical voting location, were told it’s moved to Belmont Runyan. And that was like a very unpleasant surprise because nobody had known,” Luna said.

The Essex County election’s office did not respond to comments about Newark voting discrepancies at the time of publishing.

The issues Luna described could’ve helped increase voter turnout but as a two-time school board candidate, he feels there’s more to getting people engaged. He doesn’t think low voter turnout suggests residents don’t care.

“I think, for all of us involved with any of this work that is one of the underlying questions that we have to figure out because democracy does not survive when less than 10% of people are participating in it,” he said.

Those that ran independently also expressed concern over the community’s lack of engagement during the election. Jackson, who owns a hair salon in the West Ward, said it was hard to spread the word about her run for school board as a team of one. The lack of understanding and awareness about Newark’s school policies made it hard to get people in the neighborhood engaged in the election, Jackson said.

But what inspired her to run was her negative experience with her son’s discipline at Central High School and the need to feel heard as a parent and community member. This year’s election inspired her to go back to school and become more educated on civic matters.

“I don’t want to see our community separated. I don’t want to see us fighting each other,” Jackson added. “I want us to be educated and I feel like anything that makes you mad, should make you change something.”

The Newark Board of Education will meet on Thursday, May 11 for its annual reorganization board meeting.

Correction: April 28, 2023: About 3.1% of voters participated in this year’s school board election and roughly 3% of voters participated in the 2022 school board election. A previous version of this story said that just under 3% of Newark voters participated in this year’s election.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Board of Education 2023 election: ‘Moving Newark Schools Forward’ slate leads in early results

2023-04-26T04:27:40+00:00

Newark school board incumbents Hasani Council and Josephine Garcia and their running mate Allison James-Frison appeared headed to victory in Tuesday’s board of education election, with 161 of 172 voting districts reporting.

The three are part of the heavily-backed “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate, which has a track record of winning school board elections. Garcia and Council received the bulk of the votes with each garnering roughly 23% of votes. James-Frison, who had an unsuccessful run last year, received 22%, as of 9:49 p.m. on Tuesday.

Newark residents were also poised to approve next school year’s $1.3 billion budget, which includes an additional $114 million in state aid and is slated to help fund more teachers and provide more tutoring for students. Early results showed that nearly 87% of voters were in favor of the 2023-24 budget.

In the school board election, Thomas Luna and James Wright Jr. each had roughly 8% of the votes, as of 9:49 p.m., according to the county’s website, while Tawana Johnson-Emory had just under 7%, according to preliminary results. The three made up the “Newark Kids Forward” slate, which comes from charter school backgrounds. Luna is a science teacher at KIPP Rise Academy and Wright Jr. teaches at North Star Academy Washington Park High School.

Latoya Jackson, a hair salon owner, received less than 4% of votes and Ade’Kamil Kelly, a real estate agent and team leader at the Boys and Girls Club of Newark, had just under 3%, according to the preliminary results.

Historically, voter turnout for the annual school board election has been low. Last year, roughly 3% of registered voters cast their vote. The county reported that just over 3% of Newark voters participated in this year’s election.

As of Tuesday evening, 4,963 ballots were cast, according to Essex County data.

During the day on Tuesday, dozens of poll locations across the city were quiet as many sites saw a slow trickle of voters, according to voters and poll workers at various locations in Newark.

In the South Ward, a car with a sign supporting the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” slate drove down Clinton Avenue while playing the song “We Are Family” and encouraging residents to vote. Teenagers walked down residential streets in the city’s various wards, passing out flyers and showing passersby where they could vote.

At Blessed Sacrament Church in the South Ward, roughly 64 voters had cast ballots as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to numbers posted on the church’s basement wall.

“We think we can vote every four years for president, but people need to know there are other things we need to vote on too,” said Syervillia Sumler, a voter outside Blessed Sacrament Church on Tuesday. “Some don’t even know there’s an election today and then they start complaining about things later on.”

Newark school board members help create policies and make decisions for New Jersey’s largest school district. During this year’s budget presentation, superintendent Roger Leon said Newark Public Schools expects to receive more than 38,000 students next school year across its 62 schools with plans to open at least one new school in the fall in the city’s Central Ward.

Newark nonprofit groups have worked to increase voter turnout this year. Some purchased ad space to advertise the 2023 school board election.

Nonprofit groups such as Project Ready, the Newark Trust for Education, and the Newark branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have worked to increase voter turnout this year. Each group has stressed the importance of participating in the school race by canvassing, hosting voter information events, and candidate debates. They’ve also placed multiple billboards and ads across various neighborhoods throughout the city.

The mayor’s field office on Clinton Avenue was also filled with volunteers helping pass out candidate flyers and election day information.

Ihsan Ali, the president of the Clinton Hill Block Club Coalition, said she was disappointed in Newark’s voter turnout history and believes something needs to be done to address the recurring pattern.

“This is for our babies. If we don’t make a change, no one else will,” Ali said. “We have to take the lead and be responsible for our children.”

Lyndon Brown, a 2022 Newark city council candidate and president of the city’s secondary parents council, said he expected another low-turnout election. He cast his vote at the firehouse in the West Ward and didn’t see many people.

“There have been a couple of debates with the candidates but some people just don’t know about the election or even know who’s running,” Brown said.

Melanie Amore was outside Malcolm X Shabazz High School on Tuesday passing out flyers for the mayor-backed slate of candidates. A lifelong Newark resident who attended the city’s public schools, Amore said she volunteered to post outside the high school starting at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday because she loves her community.

Melanie Amore was outside Malcolm X Shabazz High School on Tuesday passing out flyers to encourage Newark residents to vote in the 2023 school board election.

“It’s been a little slow since this morning and it’s kind of picking up but we’re pushing and making sure we all come in one accord to clean up our community,” Amore said.

Newark joins Cliffside Park, Fairview, Passaic, Totowa, Fredon, Montague, Irvington, North Bergen, Weehawken, West New York, and New Brunswick in holding April school board elections.

“People want the politicians to stick to what they’re saying,” Amore added. “They want better communication and more community outreach.”

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.