Meet The Candidates
10 Running For At-Large, Districts 3 And 4 On The DPS Board Of Education
Editor’s Note: On Nov. 2, Park Hill voters will help decide who will serve on three of the four open board seats overseeing Denver Public Schools. An open At-large seat is being vacated by term-limited Barbara O’Brien. In District 3, which includes much of Park Hill south of Montview Boulevard, current board President Carrie Olson is being challenged in her bid for reelection. District 4, which includes Park Hill north of Montview Boulevard, is an open seat, as the incumbent, Jennifer Bacon, has opted to not run for a second term.
The following are the complete questions the Greater Park Hill News asked all candidates (questions have been shortened in the body of the Q&As for space):
1. Greater Park Hill News: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a tremendous disruption to K-12 education, bringing intense challenges to students, faculty, and staff. With this in mind, please identify your top three priorities for the district over the next four years.
2. GPHN: What existing DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
3. GPHN: Identify one policy or change that the current DPS board has adopted over the past two years that you agree with.
District 3
Mike DeGuire
Website: drmike4dps.com
Personal bio: I live in Mayfair with my partner, and I have four children and four grandchildren. I am a lifelong educator, having served as a teacher, district reading coordinator, elementary/middle school principal, and principal coach/consultant. I work part time as a realtor, leadership coach, and a regional educational specialist with CDE.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Mike DeGuire:
1. Well-Being: Ensure full attention to the mental and social-emotional health of students and staff through budget reallocations, advocacy for mental health services with city, community, and state agencies; and a reexamination of the current evaluation systems for all employees. Increase counselors and reduce class size caps to establish comprehensive systems to address students’ academic, social, emotional, cognitive, and physical needs. Initiate wellness councils in every school community to retain quality staff and ensure that employees are respected and valued for their contributions to overall student learning.
2. Learning: Guarantee resources for consistent student participation in art, music, and PE in elementary schools. Design programmatic experiences for secondary students to learn essential life skills and to learn about the trades, including apprenticeships, internships, and other job-related experiences. Provide student-centered learning to develop students as responsible citizens by focusing on citizenship, collaboration, complex problem solving, and creativity.
3. Measurement of learning: Eliminate the use of standardized testing results as a primary determinant of student achievement and school quality. Establish formative assessment systems in all subject areas including measures on key indicators to demonstrate overall evidence of student learning.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
MD: Reduce class size numbers at all levels. A cap of 35 students at the elementary level and 175 students at secondary level with five class periods severely limits teachers’ ability to differentiate effectively for varying student needs.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
MD: The “Know Justice, Know Peace” student-initiated resolution mandates that all Denver schools teach the historical and contemporary contributions of Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities.
Carrie Olson
Website: carrieaolson.com
Personal bio: Carrie Olson has served on the DPS Board since 2017 and is the current president. She was an elementary, middle, and high school teacher in DPS for over 30 years. She is now an adjunct professor at the University of Denver and is a Holocaust and genocide educator. Her daughter, Katya, is a DPS graduate.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Carrie Olson: I will focus on restructuring our district to new priorities: accelerating learning, social emotional supports, and creating equitable opportunities for all schools.
We need to focus on prioritizing our budget in an equitable manner so that all students have the resources that they need to succeed. We need to be sure we provide the resources to support them, including social workers, psychologists, and nurses.
Now is the time to get equity and inclusion right. I have spent the last 18 months focused on ensuring equitable access to food, technology, and services for our students experiencing poverty and students of color. As we move forward, we need to find ways to engage our communities and partners to strategically use our resources to strengthen our neighborhood schools including transportation, school based resources, enrollment, and recruiting and retaining teachers of color.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
CO: During my first term I worked on the School Performance Framework because I experienced firsthand as a teacher how complicated it was to understand. I am proud that we got rid of the overly complicated SPF that focused primarily on standardized test scores, but our work is not done. We are in a perfect position to prioritize what teachers and school based staff know about what their students know and are able to do. How can we use what we are learning from schools to define success and better support them?
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
CO: I strongly agreed with the passage of the Black Excellence Resolution, which set expectations for our schools and our central teams that lifts up our Black students and educators, improves educational opportunities and work environments, and deepens our collective expertise around culturally responsive and relevant education and equity.
District 4
On Facebook: Jose Silva for Denver
Personal bio: Jose Silva’s key strengths are his demonstrated comprehension of complex factors when conceptualizing systems of domination and oppression and appropriately addressing these systems. Silva has the ability to recognize areas of privilege and domination when working with communities. He is a premier education advocate in Denver.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Jose Silva: I will lead a SWOT Analysis and metrics for change, creating a strategic plan regarding all policies, laws, and regulations that impact our district; and implement policies that help improve the work of DPS Schools.
BUDGET! With the decrease in DPS student population, we need to become fiscally smart and only focused on the work of DPS.
Implementing Mental Wellness Policies that support the whole child. If we are to end the school to prison pipeline, grow the graduation rate and now with the creation of the EC Division at the state level, we need to be prepared as an educational institution with the reality regarding the diversity in all areas of our students.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
JS: How we award outside contracts and to whom. We need to better understand the Why, the Impact and ROI. I have worked with community members that through CORA have found we are spending millions of dollars that could be going back into the classroom.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
JS: I am a Restorative Practice Expert, so I agree with the removal of SROs, but we need to stop moving the cart before the horse. I would move to codify a framework, training and ensuring professional development for educators on effective Restorative Practice Interventions.
Gene Fashaw
Website: gene4dps.org
Personal bio: I’m a Denver native and graduate of DPS. I grew up, live, and teach math in the Far Northeast. I believe in community. I am dedicated to improving outcomes and opportunities for all children regardless of what they look like, where they are from, or any struggles they may have.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Gene Fashaw: Providing quality mental health support for our students. Immediate access to mental healthcare [will help them] develop the social and emotional skills necessary to overcome the trauma the pandemic has had on them.
It will be important to provide teachers and staff the mental health support to navigate classrooms where students are struggling after spending so much time in disrupted learning environments. This is accomplished by having high quality training and development in trauma informed practices.
It is also of great importance to provide individualized learning plans for all students. That is the only way we can identify gaps and provide differentiated learning while keeping them on track with the rest of their peers.
If we can meet the basic mental health and academic needs, then students can reach their full potential. As a classroom teacher, I see firsthand the difficulties students are having being in a classroom again. We must provide every resource possible to ensure student success.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
GF: The treatment of our Black and Brown students continues to be inequitable. The school board voted to remove school resource officers recently, and replace them with armed security guards. It was a great idea with little substance. An increase in trauma informed training of all staff in DPS, identity work, and creating culturally sustaining environments would be a great place to start.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
GF: The Black Excellence Resolution. It is shown statistically that black students are negatively impacted during their time in Denver Public Schools. Black students are overrepresented in discipline, underrepresented in gifted referrals, and are not having their whole child needs met.
Michelle Quattlebaum
Website: MichelleforDenverKids.org
Personal bio: I am a proud mother of three DPS graduates with over 20 years experience working within the DPS system to bring meaningful change for our students. My approach centers on identifying the real issue, collaboration, and leveraging resources to enact productive change resulting in educational opportunities for all.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Michelle Quattlebaum:
• Social/Emotional support for students, staff, and families
• Ensuring all DPS schools have up-to-date ventilation systems
• Nondiscriminatory learning environments and practices
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
MQ: If elected I would seek to change the grading policy from a punitive system to a restorative system.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
MQ: I am pleased that the DPS Board has been committed to ensuring students and their families have access to meals both during virtual and in-person learning.
At-Large
Scott Esserman
Website: Esserman4denverkids.com
Personal bio: I am a 20-year classroom educator, parent of two DPS students (one graduated) and active community advocate. I have worked on opening schools, preventing school closures and improving equitable outcomes. As a nonprofit board member and by working in philanthropy I have acquired expertise in examining multi-million dollar budgets.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Scott Esserman: The first priority is ensuring that our students have the social/emotional and trauma-informed supports available in their schools. That means hiring and placing increased school psychologists, counselors and social workers in all of our schools so that students and families have access to those services. Students can’t learn if they’re suffering from mental health issues.
The second priority is addressing unfinished and interrupted learning. Students require access to the instructional time and curricular content in order to complete their K-12 education.
Third is my top priority, which is ensuring that we are fulfilling the promise of public education in Denver Public Schools. Every student must graduate high school with the skills and competencies that they require for future success whether that is college or career. That requires that we eliminate the opportunity gaps that prevent so many of our Black and Brown students from even graduating from DPS schools.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
SE: I would work with my fellow board members in order to replace the outdated and obsolete discipline ladder which provides punishments for student behaviors with restorative practice frameworks that truly move DPS to being a restorative practice organization. This requires training and hiring restorative practice coordinators and deans across the district and changing the culture of the district in a manner that acknowledges students, teachers and community members’ humanity and dignity.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
SE: I agree strongly with the dual adoptions of the Black Excellence Resolution and the student-driven Know Justice, Know Peace resolutions that push our district towards representing and serving all of our students and in particular our historically marginalized Black populations.
Marla Fernandez-Benavides
Website: marla4schoolboard.org
Personal bio: Marla is a homeschool mom, certified paralegal, certified mediator, book lady, copywriter, web designer, and marketer outside of her homeschooling. Marla describes herself as an avid reader of law, and history, an “insane, maniacal debater,” and strong in her Christian Faith. God guides her life.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Marla Fernandez-Benavides: If you can read, you can succeed. Unfortunately, the disadvantaged students, Blacks and Latinos, and Native Americans can’t succeed because they can’t read well enough to compete.
In 1984, phonics lost to the look-and-say/whole word unscientific method. This caused the over one million students since then to graduate “functionally illiterate.” Schools are spitting out ignorant and illiterate students who can’t solve problems.
My top priority is to fix the literacy problem. To do this, we need to decentralize education. What I mean by decentralizing is give each school more autonomy to run the school. To do this, we need to shrink the administration at DPS. And put control back in the schools.
My second priority is to look at the Reading program, make sure all schools teach phonics up to 5th grade and look at the grammar and math program. Make sure that the worldview that is being taught is the American worldview. The Declaration of Independence should be the only worldview being taught.
My third priority is to support the parents. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and teachers must support the parents. The school’s worldview should not contradict the parent’s worldview.
Lastly, I plan to push back against the Denver plan — equity. The equity plan will NOT solve the LITERACY problem.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
MB: See above.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
MB: Did not provide a response to this question.
Vernon Jones, Jr.
Website: jonesfordps.net
Personal Bio: Vernon Jones is executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone (NDIZ). Previously, he served and led at Manual High School and Omar D. Blair Charter School.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Vernon Jones: The struggles that many students face were with us pre-pandemic and new challenges are many. We must prioritize equity as practice and total wellness of students, families and staff. Leading with equity will focus us on knowing students, families, and staff, so that we can effectively, compassionately, and consistently serve toward the direction of our shared vision. In addition, we must create structures, systems, and supports designed for total wellness, helping students to grow, gain proficiency, and truly be ready for success after the graduation stage.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
VJ: Change is always hard, often because it is done to people and not with people. I am committed to working with people so that any type of change is co-created and co-delivered. I will be committed to dialogue, data informed decision making, and decisive action to ensure a better and best reality for students now. All policies that are not yielding practices that help us achieve our goals for students, must be up for consideration to be changed as we press forward. One policy out the gate would be focusing on the equitable, transparent funding of schools to accomplish their wildest dreams for students.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
VJ: I am excited to continue the work of the Black Excellence Resolution. It’s very important that a great policy becomes a regularly monitored practice so that it achieves a better and best reality for students. I am also looking to take recent work related to discipline and safety to a level that deals with the embedded racism within our structures and systems. We must seek the total wellness of our children, our city, and ultimately Colorado.
Jane Shirley
Website: janeshirley.com
Personal bio: My background includes work in education, business and the arts. I’ve used my expertise in design process to develop new schools and turn around struggling schools. My master’s degree is in education with extensive post-graduate work in systems change. My career includes work as a teacher, principal, and district leader.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Jane Shirley: If elected, my top priority will be the collaborative development of a strategic plan which is understood and affirmed by the Denver community. Through this, the district will assess current state and determine priorities. Within a strategic plan these are my priorities:
1. Shift from a market-driven approach to school enrollment, reduce related expenditures and ensure every school is adequately funded to provide rich learning experiences and meet student needs. We will need clear standards for school quality and those standards must effectively assess:
• the well-being of students and staff
• the quality of learning experiences for students
• the growth and development of students and teachers over time
• the quality and comfort of the building.
• the equitable distribution of resources and opportunities for students.
2. Ensure that there is a clear evaluation process in place for the superintendent that includes clear and measurable goals, success criteria and timelines. This will include regular assessment and feedback from the board and from school leaders and teachers on areas related to instructional initiatives.
3. Design an effective system for community participation and input into district decisions utilizing structures such as the Collaborative School Councils. Community input should be solicited against district wide goals in a clear and equitable manner. Surveys, focus groups and committees are inadequate and inequitable.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
JS: The policy framework for accelerating gains in academic achievement for all students. The School Performance Framework. The School Performance Compact.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
JS: I don’t think the board has engaged in significant policy change over the last two years.
Nicky Yollick
Website: nickyfordenverkids.com
Personal Bio: In 2018, Nicky wrote a resolution for the Denver Democratic Party’s platform seeking to reverse the ongoing privatization of public education. Nicky has founded several organizations geared toward building community-leadership for student equity and neighborhood schools in DPS. Nicky lives in the East Colfax neighborhood with his partner, Nicki.
Greater Park Hill News: Identify your top three priorities for the district.
Nicky Yollick:
1. Committing to the neighborhood model of education and providing more resources for our neighborhood schools by simplifying administrative processes and shifting those resources into the classrooms. I believe that by supporting our neighborhood schools we can work towards creating equity for traditionally underserved students, including students of color, English-language learners, and special education students.
2. Partnering with educators in redesigning several aspects of DPS, most notably the accountability systems which should be designed for the welfare of students, not for-profit testing companies.
3. Creating pathways for the community to exercise authority over DPS decision-making and bringing the transparency needed for stakeholders to work with DPS in policy-building.
GPHN: What DPS policy would you seek to change if elected?
NY: I am concerned that the policy governance model on which the Board operates does not provide the Board of Education with sufficient power to tackle the systemic issues facing DPS. As democratically elected officials, I believe the Board should have a larger role in prescribing specific programs to achieve equity while enhancing transparency and community control over district policies.
GPHN: Identify one policy or change that you agree with.
NY: DPS leadership needs to be proactive and specific in its pursuit of equity, which is why I appreciated the progress represented in the Black Excellence Resolution. Now, leadership needs to work ensure every school in DPS has a unique plan to achieve black excellence for their students in partnership with the community, with a timeline of benchmarks for progress and means for accountability to all stakeholders.