Denver Public Schools (DPS) School Board Elections 2021

"Denver Public Schools is Colorado’s largest school district, serving about 90,000 students. A little more than half of students are Hispanic, 26% are white, and 14% are Black. Its school board has seven members — five regional and two districtwide." 

The Denver School Board has an "at large" seat and seats for Districts 2, 3 and 4 up for election this year. School board directors serve four year terms with roughly half elected every two years, on a non-partisan single member plurality district basis. 

My district's election was in 2019, so I only have the "at large" seat to consider myself. See also this Axios voter guide.

According to this helpful voter guide:

Five candidates are vying for the at-large seat. Two candidates are competing to represent District 2 in southwest Denver. The District 3 race in central-east Denver also has two candidates. The District 4 race in northeast Denver has four candidates, one of whom, Andrea Mosby, has withdrawn, though her name will still appear on the ballot.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed four candidates: Scott Esserman for the at-large seat, Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán in District 2, current board President Carrie Olson in District 3, and Michelle Quattlebaum in District 4. Olson is the only incumbent in the election.

Meanwhile, the education reform advocacy group Stand for Children Colorado has endorsed Vernon Jones Jr. for the at-large seat, Karolina Villagrana in District 2, and Olson in District 3. Stand has not yet endorsed a candidate for the District 4 seat.

Another education advocacy group, TEN Collective Impact, endorsed Jones for the at-large seat, Villagrana in District 2, and Gene Fashaw in District 4. It did not endorse a candidate in District 3. TEN co-founder Nicholas Martinez is married to Villagrana, who said TEN’s endorsements were made by Denver parents involved in the organization, not its staff.

Your options and my thoughts on them are as follows:

At-large

Esserman and Jones, the two front runners in the race and backed by Denver's main opposing factions in school board politics, Esserman by the teacher's union and Jones by the "reformers", are clearly the best two candidates in the five way race. Unlike many prior years where the factions have advanced relatively extreme candidates with starkly different perspectives on key issues, these two are moderates with a lot of common ground and similar perspectives that are mostly on target. I'm still not decided on which of the two I prefer.

Marla Benavides Hard No.

The eight words of her linked profile immediately ruled her out in my opinion: "A Denver mother who home-schools her son[.]" I get that home schooling can make sense. My brother and my sister-in-law have both home schooled their children at times. But if you are opting out of the system for your own children, you have no business running for the school board.

Scott Esserman He would be fine.

Scott Esserman is probably the front runner in the "at large" race and is a more credible and more even handed and moderate candidate than many that the teacher's union has endorsed in the past.

He was a teacher for twelve years at Cherry Creek High School, "was on the founding staff of Denver’s Northfield High School, which opened in 2015 in northeast Denver", has been a private school teachers. 

Esserman is now an independent consultant specializing in diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. He is the volunteer chairperson of the Denver Public Schools accountability committee, an advisory group of parents and community members. He has also served on school-level advisory committees at four district-run schools. . . . Esserman, 55, has two children, one of whom graduated last year from Denver’s Manual High School. His other child is an eighth grader at a charter school, DSST: Montview Middle School. 

He is endorsed by the teacher's union and by controversial sitting DPS Board Member Tay Anderson who did $5,000 of IT contract work for Esserman.

"Esserman said his primary focus would be improving student outcomes and erasing disparities. He believes strongly in the concept of “community schools.” He describes them as having several attributes, including culturally relevant curriculum, discipline practices focused on repairing harm rather than punishing students, and partnerships between schools and community organizations. Esserman helped a struggling middle school called Denver Discovery School write an innovation plan incorporating those elements. . . . Esserman said he would not consider closing or consolidating schools without talking with impacted communities first. But instead of simply asking for community members’ opinions on a potential closure, Esserman said the district should lay out all the facts and ask communities to come up with possible solutions that may or may not involve closing schools. . . . Esserman is more interested in whether a school is serving students well than in whether it’s a traditional district school, an independent charter school, a semi-autonomous innovation school, or part of a larger innovation zone, he said.

Vernon Jones Jr. He would be fine.

Vernon Jones Jr. is the runner up in the "at large" race with endorsements from both of the other major groups other than the teacher's union that function as quasi-political parties in DPS races.

Update: Vernon Jones Jr. resigned as the executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone on Oct. 8.

A Christian pastor who has worked in Denver schools for years and currently leads a district innovation zone is running for an at-large seat on the school board.

Vernon Jones Jr. is the executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, a group of six semi-autonomous schools in the northeast part of the city.

He’s also a father of five, two of them Denver Public Schools graduates and two current students, one in elementary and another in high school. Another of his children graduated from neighboring Aurora Public Schools, as did Jones himself.

Jones, 43, previously ran for the board in 2009 but did not win. He lives in the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood in far northeast Denver but is running to represent the entire city.

“The message that I have is a message for the city, not just one part of it,” Jones said. “We have to do right by Black students across the city. We have to do right by brown students across the city. And you need somebody who can champion that message.”

Jones has worked at all types of schools in Denver. Before leading the innovation zone, he was a teacher and assistant principal at northeast Denver’s storied Manual High School and executive director of Omar D. Blair Charter School in Green Valley Ranch. Jones said he’s prepared to leave his job as innovation zone director if he’s elected.

He’s running to ensure the district is focused on four things, he said: equity, wellness, achievement, and responsibility. With regard to responsibility, Jones wants the city and community organizations to partner with the district to support students.

“When I hear some of the struggles my mother went through as a Black student in DPS, and the struggles that my own kids went through … they are some of the same struggles,” said Jones, whose mother graduated in 1978. “And for me, that’s not okay

“We need boldness on our board that will ensure that the influence of structural and systemic racism and white supremacy is no longer driving that in DPS.”

He said he’s also running to ensure there is Black representation on the board. There are currently two Black board members, one of whom, Jennifer Bacon, is not running for reelection. The other member, Tay Anderson, has two years left of his four-year term. . . . 

The district shouldn’t villainize small schools, Jones said, noting that each of his five children learns differently and some thrived at smaller schools. But in a district where schools are funded per student, he said Denver needs to figure out how to support schools with lower enrollment. . . . 

School closures, he said, should be a last resort and only considered if “the neighbors tell you, ‘Oh yeah, we’re all good over here. Take that building,’” and perhaps repurpose it as a community center, Jones said. He added that Denver needs to “set a clear vision for what we want to be as a city for our kids and then that will dictate to you what we do with the small schools. Right now it’s going to be hit or miss because we don’t have a clear vision.” 

Jones said he likes charter and innovation schools because as public schools with autonomy from some state and district rules, they can “blow up the box of traditional education,” which hasn’t served students of color well.

Jane Shirley Not bad, but not as promising as either Esserman or Jones in my view. Lacking in vision.

Jane Shirley was a middle school math and science teacher in Aurora Public Schools before becoming a district administrator and then principal of Aurora’s William Smith High School, where students demonstrate their learning through projects. She also worked for an organization that provided leadership training to principals, and now does executive coaching for a consulting firm.

Shirley, 61, lives in east Denver near the Aurora border. Her son attended a Denver charter school from kindergarten through eighth grade, but graduated from high school in Aurora. . . .

“I haven’t seen ‘effective’ from the board,” she said, noting that a school board’s biggest responsibility is to manage the superintendent. “They either don’t hold them accountable or they hold them too accountable, or they don’t tie the goals to the actual strategy.”

In addition to her work in Aurora Public Schools, Shirley worked at the Catapult Inc. leadership program, which has since closed, with outgoing school board member Barbara O’Brien. Catapult coached principals at both district-run and charter schools, including in Denver.

Currently, Shirley is an independent contractor, working with companies to improve their culture. She also volunteers as president of the governing board of High Point Academy, a charter school in Aurora authorized by the state Charter School Institute. Shirley formerly sat on the board of RiseUp Community School, a charter authorized by Denver Public Schools.

Shirley is also an improv actor who has written and produced several shows. She and her husband Dave opened a cabaret theater that’s now known as The Clocktower Cabaret.

“We’re killing our kids’ souls with this over-emphasis on competition and test scores and getting into good colleges,” Shirley said. “And we’re killing off the creativity in our educators. .... Nobody goes into this business to raise third-grade test scores. That’s a byproduct of good teaching.”

The way districts hold schools and teachers accountable is defeating, she said. Shirley was on a district committee that recommended getting rid of Denver Public Schools’ controversial color-coded school ratings in favor of using the state’s rating system instead. . . .

In deciding whether to close or consolidate some small schools, Shirley said the district should start with a few essential questions: What school attributes do parents want? And what school size is optimal?

Once the district knows those answers, she said it should look at its roster of schools. If parents say they want racially diverse schools, she said, is there a place where two small racially homogenous schools could be combined to make that happen? . . .

Shirley questions the need for so many independent charter schools and semi-autonomous innovation schools. The original idea that these schools could innovate and share best practices with other schools was good, Shirley said. But she said it hasn’t played out that way. Instead, she said, charter schools are often at odds with the district and are “in many ways less progressive” than district-run schools.

Shirley also has concerns with school choice, which allows families to send their children to a school outside their neighborhood. School choice is a state law but Denver heavily promotes it. Shirley said she doesn’t like that it presumes that some schools are good and others are bad.

“We’re putting all of the burden on the families to make a choice because we haven’t done our job of making all the schools good,” she said.

Nicky Yollick Well intentioned, but not effectual enough or experienced enough to serve well. Somewhat aimless and unfocused without a real sense of what is necessary to effectuate change in the District. He'd be nice to have a discussion over a beer with, but needs a stronger command of the system and more leadership experience and a track record of solid accomplishments to be ready to serve on the school board.

A former state legislative candidate and avowed progressive political activist is running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Nicky Yollick did not attend Denver Public Schools, nor is he a current parent. But he said he was inspired to run for the board because he hopes to be a parent soon. He and his partner, Nicki, plan to start a family once she graduates from nursing school, he said. . . . 

Yollick, 35, lives in northeast Denver but said he’s running to represent the entire city in part because he believes the seat in northeast Denver, which is also up for grabs, should be held by a person of color given the demographic makeup of that region.

Yollick moved to Colorado in 2008 to attend graduate school at the University of Denver, where he studied international relations. He became active in progressive politics, working on several federal campaigns and a push to turn out Latino voters.

He ran for a state House seat in 2018 but did not win. That same year, he helped pass a measure at the Colorado Democratic state assembly critical of education reform, a philosophy supportive of independent charter schools that is often at odds with teachers unions. The platform amendment, a symbolic step with no real-world impact, called on Democrats for Education Reform to stop using the term Democrats in their name.

Yollick has also been involved with Denver school board politics, having worked on the campaigns of at least three past board candidates. Two did not win and one withdrew before the election. Yollick helped found a coalition of community groups in 2019 to endorse board candidates, but the group failed to come to consensus. He is currently unemployed. . . . 

“Denver communities know I’m solidly in the progressive camp, and I don’t plan on budging one bit as a candidate or as a director on the board,” Yollick said.

If elected, he said he’d focus on cutting the district administration to funnel more money directly to schools, and giving teachers and community members more power over district decisions. He floated the idea of a community committee that would come up with recommendations for the board every three months. The board would be required to vote them up or down. . . .

If the district has to close a school because of low enrollment, he said he wants it “to have this long-term view so we can give communities at least two full years where we say, ‘I’m sorry, this school is slated for closure, but we want to work with you.’ … We’re not just going to sneak up on the community and close schools.” . . . 

While charters “generally do a good job for students,” Yollick said, he still has some concerns that they encourage competition between schools by asking families to choose them and that, along with many innovation schools, charters don’t provide job protections for teachers.

“I don’t want us to go around vilifying the school model,” Yollick said. “We need to get into the details of, what are our concerns with charter and innovation schools as far as potentially exacerbating inequality in the district among students and staff.” . . . 

The district should cut spending on central administration and marketing, among other things, to redirect resources toward carrying out the Black Excellence resolution and improving programming for students learning English as a second language, he said.

District 2

Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán She is sincerely devoted to trying to do the right thing but too rigid in her outlook formed primarily from her own personal experience alone, and doesn't have enough background with education policymaking. We could do far worse than her on the DPS Board but she is not the better choice for this position.

A real estate agent who grew up in southwest Denver, graduated from a neighborhood high school, and raised her own family in the region is running to represent it on the school board.

Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said she was motivated by a desire to change some of the education reform policies adopted by previous boards that she believes were detrimental, such as closing schools with low test scores. If elected, she said one of her priorities would be “strengthening our neighborhood schools so we strengthen our communities.”

Gaytán, 46, has two sons — one who graduated from Denver Center for International Studies high school and another who is in eighth grade at a district-run school. She previously ran for school board in 2017 but lost to current board member Angela Cobián, who is not seeking re-election. In Gaytán’s bid for the seat, she is once again emphasizing her decades-long connection to southwest Denver, which is home to a large Hispanic community. . . .

Gaytán was born in Mexico, came to the United States as a child, and became a citizen as a young adult. . . . “My mother always said the major reason — the main reason — why we ended up in the United States and in Denver is because I wanted you to have a public education,” Gaytán said.

Gaytán attended seven public schools as her family moved around the city in search of affordable housing. She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in southwest Denver and earned a business degree from Metropolitan State University of Denver. After she and her husband bought their first home in southwest Denver as a young couple, Gaytán said she was inspired to become a real estate agent to help other Latino families do the same.

When her oldest son was getting ready to go into kindergarten, the family moved to the Harvey Park neighborhood in part because the local elementary school had a good reputation, she said. They still live there, and Gaytán volunteered for years as president of the Harvey Park Community Organization. She is co-chair of the Colorado Latino Forum, a nonprofit whose mission is to increase the political and social strength of the Latino community.

In that capacity, she has weighed in on Denver Public Schools matters, including rebuffing accusations by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock that a dysfunctional school board pushed out former superintendent Susana Cordova. In an op-ed in the Colorado Sun, Gaytán and co-author Arturo Jiménez called that claim “a far-fetched racist and sexist conspiracy theory.”

If elected to the school board, Gaytán said she would focus on reallocating funding to classrooms, reducing class sizes, increasing access to arts, music, and sports programming, and strengthening relationships between schools and nonprofit organizations.

Southwest Denver has been particularly hard hit by declining enrollment, in part because of gentrification. Gaytán said she wants to be “a voice for one of the communities that has been pushed out of our city — a community specifically of Latino, Mexicano, Chicano [families].”

To deal with declining enrollment, the Denver school board is considering closing some schools. But Gaytán strongly opposes school closure because of her family’s experience. She and her husband had to rearrange their work schedules so they could leave the house at 6:45 in the morning to drive their oldest son to a middle school across town and then pick him up after school because two middle schools in their own region were facing closure. The arrangement left her son feeling disconnected from his home and sent a disheartening message to families and students in southwest Denver, Gaytán said.

“That was the message: ‘You’re failing. Your community is failing. Your students are failing,’” she said. “The negative connotation of a school closure impacted not only me, my husband, my children, but entire neighborhoods in southwest Denver. To put families and teachers through something like that and retraumatize our community is a ‘no’ vote.”

If existing charter schools and innovation schools are working well for students and families, Gaytán said she’d support them. But if a new publicly funded but independently run charter school asks for approval to open, she said she’d “have to seriously consider whether or not that would be a better option. It’s important to me to protect public education and to ensure that we are wisely using tax dollars … so that we’re reallocating funding to our neighborhood schools to make them successful.”

Karolina Villagrana Villagrana is the better choice in District 2. She balances personal experience with a lot of hard won understanding of what works and doesn't at the classroom and school level, and is willing to look beyond her personal experience when making policy.

A former Denver teacher who held bilingual outdoor read-alouds for neighborhood kids during the pandemic is running to represent southwest Denver on the school board.

Karolina Villagrana grew up in Denver attending parochial schools and then the University of Colorado Denver. She said her run for school board was inspired in part by an experience she had in college sitting on a panel for a visiting group of high school students. The high schoolers had written down questions, and one stood out to Villagrana.

“It said, in Spanish, ‘A veces siento que no merezco ir a la universidad,’ which translates to, ‘At times I feel as if I don’t deserve to go to college,’” said Villagrana, 33. “For me, that statement left me broken. … I believe our kids, and our southwest Denver kids, deserve the best.”

Villagrana’s parents are Denver Public Schools graduates, but they did not send her to public school because of her oldest brother’s experience, she said. He was placed in a bilingual classroom without their mother’s consent, and Villagrana said the school did nothing to address their mother’s concerns when she saw stark differences in the educational quality between the bilingual and English-speaking classrooms. After that, the family opted for parochial schools.

“That had a forever impact because it really led me to view the value of advocacy and the roles that loved ones can have on a child’s life,” Villagrana said.

Villagrana holds two master’s degrees in education. She began her teaching career at a charter school in Kansas City through Teach for America, a program that trains educators on the job.

Villagrana was on the founding staff of a charter elementary school in San Jose, California, that is part of the Rocketship Public Schools network, later serving as the school’s assistant principal. She has also worked for several charter networks in Denver, most recently as the director of elementary literacy and K-8 language acquisition for KIPP Colorado Schools.

Villagrana was set to be the founding principal of a new KIPP school in the neighboring Adams 14 district, but the Adams 14 school board blocked the school from opening.

Not all of Villagrana’s experience is in charter schools. She also worked as an instructional coach and second grade teacher at district-run Knapp Elementary School in southwest Denver. She currently works for an organization called Camelback Ventures that provides funding and mentorship to women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color in education and other fields.

Villagrana grew up mostly in northeast Denver but now lives in the southwest Athmar Park neighborhood with her husband Nicholas Martinez, who is co-founder of the advocacy group Transform Education Now. During the pandemic, she started a weekly outdoor event called “libros en el parque,” where she read a book aloud in both English and Spanish and then led kids in a craft related to the story or season, like carving pumpkins.

“It was really joyful,” she said.

If elected, Villagrana said she’d focus on pushing the district to improve literacy instruction for young students. She’d also advocate for setting academic benchmarks for students, monitoring to see if they reach them, and communicating to parents their progress.

Villagrana said she’d advocate for doing two things: Asking families what they see as the best pathway forward, and analyzing what’s working and what’s not working at each school. The district needs both types of information before making decisions about consolidating or closing schools, she said.

“It comes down to community voice and then really utilizing data to help create the pathway forward,” Villagrana said. She said she believes in the potential for a “third way” of solving the problem of declining enrollment that isn’t closing small schools or keeping them open, but she doesn’t yet have specific ideas for what that could look like.

Charter and innovation schools: What matters most to her is not the type of school but whether students are learning and families are treated well, Villagrana said.

“When I was having conversations with loved ones, it was more so that they wanted to find a school that was best for their kids, where their kids are learning and being successful,” she said. “And at the end of the day, that’s really my focus point.”

District 3

Mike DeGuire He doesn't bring anything essential or helpful to the Board.

76, former principal and teacher

Believes more infrastructure, such as air flow and ventilation, is needed to mitigate the coronavirus.

Supports spending federal pandemic relief dollars on mental and social needs of students and staff.

He says the current school choice system does not work and needs an overhaul.

Carrie Olson Give Olson another term. She's done a good job. Both factions endorse her.

58, incumbent board member and adjunct professor

She says more needs to be done to address financial and staffing shortages at neighborhood schools.

Touted the current board's work to follow public health guidelines and upgrade equipment.

She supported removing police officers from schools.

District 4

Gene Fashaw Not bad. But, Quattlebaum is better.

37, math teacher

Believes the district's biggest concern is equity and more attention is needed on improving outcomes.

He says the key to improving student achievement is prioritizing their mental health.

Criticized the district for looking to armed security guards to replace police officers, saying more counselors are most needed.

Andrea Mosby - withdrawn

Michelle Quattlebaum Not bad. Deserves the post since she has concrete workable ideas to address the problems the district faces.

51, school community liaison

She says the district's top concern is recruiting and retaining non-white teachers.

Supports educational choice but wants to see more accountability in innovation schools.

Wants ongoing cultural competency training and certification for staff.

José Silva If you don't know what's wrong in advance, without an audit, you aren't ready.

41, nonprofit leader

He says the budget is his top concern and pledged to lead a fiscal audit, saying the district spent millions "on frivolous partnerships."

Wants the district to partner with organizations like his, the Colorado Association for Infant Mental Health, to better focus on mental wellbeing.

Argues his expertise in diversity and inclusion will allow him to lead a re-evaluation of the districts equity policies.