Executive Limitations: Vice President Anderson

First, I must do something others on this Board have refused to do: I want to apologize and take accountability for the unnecessary anguish this has caused. Due to our actions as a Board of Education, we have unintentionally placed our educators, leaders, and communities at odds; this is a failure of effective governance.

I become increasingly frustrated that we are again trying to solve an issue that we don’t understand. The simple question is, “What are we trying to solve for?” Before introducing this executive limitation, we did not have any educators come to us highlighting a concerning pattern of innovation leaders working to erode their rights away from them. The survey data clearly stated that “Teachers who report a good understanding of their school’s waivers are less likely to support the proposed EL.” Therefore, this proposed executive limitation does not address the ongoing lack of education on our innovation renewal processes. It is important to note that the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) has openly stated that they were not involved in crafting this executive limitation, and board members have acknowledged that DCTA did not approach them to introduce this into policy. The DCTA has been somewhat united since the introduction of this policy, and our educators have been unfairly attacked by those that do not support this policy. On the same note, our school leaders have been united in their opposition towards this policy and have been unfairly attacked by those who support it. This was never our intention as a Board, but we must take accountability for the division caused.

Some may argue that this stems from the previous innovation proposal in 2020; I’m afraid I have to disagree with that assertion. In 2020 the Board of Education briefly considered a proposal to re-imagine the innovation process and would have allowed teachers to vote waiver by waiver to decide what was best for their schools. I supported this plan. Are we truly living our values of equity and collaboration when we are attempting to make a unilateral decision without taking the time to actually understand all of the impacts? The executive limitation before us now is not the proposal of 2020. When someone wants to begin the conversation of how to re-imagine the innovation process, I am in. I want to echo the call of Dr. Olson and that is for these stakeholder groups to come to the table and have a meaningful conversation before the Board of Education makes a unilateral decision.

Now I understand the original intent of this executive limitation from the authors and that was to provide protections to our educators throughout our K-12 system; I simply can not endorse this process. It is one thing to be a candidate and another to govern. This is much more than conversations people have had for years, values, and campaign promises. We did not begin community engagement until weeks after this proposal was introduced. At our board retreat, it was revealed that Board members’ feedback about the survey was ignored and that we did not follow the process laid out in GP-14.

As someone who has served on this Board for three years, I know firsthand of making decisions without the proper community engagement; that is why I have been so vocal against this process. For example, in June 2020, the Denver School Board unanimously voted to terminate our $1,000,000 contract with the Denver Police Department. This came out of a decade of advocacy from various community organizations. Yet, in less than two weeks, we moved forward with a vote and did not do our due diligence to solicit stakeholder feedback. As a result, we did not recognize the unintended consequences of this abrupt change to the Denver Public Schools community. I still stand by this resolution as one of the co-authors, but I recognize as a result we have to do better, and I have been committed to ensuring that we do not repeat our past mistakes.

Then there is today; instead of meeting in person and holding our regular board meeting, we are meeting behind zoom screens. The Colorado Legislature does not get to go remote due to long hours of testimony, the Denver City Council chambers did not move to virtual meetings due to the long hours of testimony, and even the Douglas County School Board met in person on Tuesday evening and voted to advance a controversial Superintendent choice after seven hours of meeting as a Board. (One member of the DugCo Board even participated after having a child earlier that morning.) I had planned to show up and still conduct our board meeting, even if I would be the only one at the table, but it was communicated that the public would be restricted to join me in the Boardroom. What type of message does that send to our communities? I was prepared to sit outside the downtown office building and be with folks who decided to show up, but I was invited to join families of those potentially impacted. I was ready to vote yes on this proposal due to the work we put in on Monday night at our work session; however, I am no longer in a position to support this moving forward at this time without more conversations and an in-person voting meeting.

Now make no mistakes; I support teachers. I am the grandson of a 35-year union teacher, and my family has over 110 years of experience in education. I stood with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association members on the picket line. I stayed overnight and was with Dr. Carrie Olson and Representative Jennifer Bacon at 7:00 am when the deal was reached, and the strike ended. As a result of my proven track record of supporting teachers, I earned the endorsement of the DCTA during my 2019 campaign. However, this is not a litmus test on if I support educators or not. I take offense when organizations and individuals attempt to paint us as anti-teacher for ensuring the correct process is followed.

No one person or any organization retains ownership of me; it is 2022, not 1862.

This has to be centered around our students. I am concerned that we have spent more time on this conversation than the data presented to us showing that 6/10 elementary students can not do math on grade level and 7/10 elementary students are not reading on grade level. There were no town halls on this data, there were no surveys on this data, and I had my data request blocked, seeking to get information to help me understand more of this concerning data. This should be where our attention is dedicated.

I would rather lose my re-election and lose support from DCTA than violate my moral compass and vote for something I do not believe we have had the proper time to engage with the community on. We can not be selective when we say that we are “community-led and district supported” I want to vote for something that I believe in. Therefore, today, I will move to table this until a future voting meeting to ensure that we can have more than enough time to talk with our communities regarding this proposal. I have heard concerns about the new draft and I want to ensure we have the time to address them. If we fail to table this, I will be forced to vote ‘NO’ tonight.

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Tay M. Anderson, Vice President

This was emailed to the Board of Education prior to its public release, these views are my own and do not represent the entire Denver School Board.