Nate Easley Resigns from School Board to Head Denver Scholarship Foundation

By Erin Vanderberg, Editor

In order to focus his full attention on his new position as Denver Scholarship Foundation Executive Director, which he will begin in March, Nate Easley resigned in January as the District 4 School Board representative, where he had served since November 2009.

“I didn’t really leave,” said Easley of his move from the board to the DSF. “I’m just serving Denver in a different capacity now.”

Easley, who grew up in Park Hill, had previously worked in the Federal TRIO Programs since 1987 before he went to work for the Denver Scholarship Foundation in 2008. He jumped at the school board opening the following year – just meeting the residency requirement – because he saw it as a chance to have input on Denver Public Schools’ academics.

“You can take a $50 million dollar gift and invest it in only one high school and still not get the results we’re looking for,” said Easley. “We don’t play on the academic side in the Denver Scholarship Foundation – that academic readiness is up to the district. Our survival as an organization is dependent on Tom Boasberg and his team producing college-ready students. Money is not the only thing that will determine if a student completes a post-secondary degree.”

When he ran for school board in 2009, Easley had the teachers union’s support and won with around 4,500 votes. Once elected and board president, Easley voted on the side of school reform.

“Some people say I’ve changed, but I didn’t think I did,” said Easley of his school board politics. “When I campaigned, I talked about real reform. I came in with the idea that kids can learn, and if they’re not, there’s something wrong systemically.”

It was the idea that systemic changes could be made – changes that went beyond slight changes to the status quo, like professional development, making class sizes smaller and trying to retain teachers – that caused Easley to become the tie-breaking vote on the reform side of the board, he said.

“I spent most of my life helping individuals adjust to a broken system, and what I loved about what I was hearing from people who are identifying with school reform is that it was time to make the system accommodate students who are disadvantaged as opposed to students having to accommodate to a broken system,” said Easley. “That is what sold me on school reform.”

According to Easley, all board members agree on the need to improve academic achievement, they just have different ideas of how to do that.

“I think we are very highly functional,” Easley said the board. “Most of the time the things we voted on were a 7-0 vote. It was just that we disagreed heavily on the process when it came to things like innovation and charters. Those, in particular, were two of the issues.”

The board is obligated by state law to fill Easley’s vacancy within 60 days. Applications were accepted through January 25 and interviews will begin on February 7. The board will vote on February 19 and, if consensus is reached on a candidate, the new board member will take oath on February 21. If not, Board President Mary Seawell must appoint the new board member by March.

“I didn’t want to leave the district in the lurch,” said Easley. “When I knew that it was a possibility for me to be (DSF) Executive Director, I started talking to people right away.”

Easley has no plans to make any endorsements, though.

“From what I understand there are some really great people who are vying for my seat,” said Easley. “I think it’s great, I think it’s awesome. I wish there was more competition when I ran for school board.
Northeast Denver residents Happy Haynes and Mary Seawell are the school board’s At-Large representatives for those residents interested in contacting their school board representative in the interim. For general information on the Denver Public Schools’ Board of Education, visit board.dpsk12.org.