Episode 17: Caron Blanke, DPS board candidate

Transcript

Alan Gottlieb: 0:07

Hi everybody and welcome back to the Board Hawk Podcast. Continuing in our series of interviews of Denver School Board candidates today we have Karen Blank, who is running for the seat, currently held by Carrie Olson, who is term Limited, which is District three, and we are happy to have her on and we will have her introduce herself in a moment. But just first, welcome Karen.

Caron Blanke: 0:30

Thank you. Hi, Alan. Hi, Alexis. I'm so excited to be with you because I'm like such a fan that I, I'm just very excited to be here and thank you for everything you do to inform the Denver community about what's happening in our school district. Oh, thank you. We're so happy to have you on.

Alan Gottlieb: 0:45

Yeah. And before we start questions just a little bit of semi breaking news that came out this morning, which is that Karen, along with three other candidates were endorsed. Today by Denver Family Action, which is the kind of heavy power player on one side of Denver School Board elections. Who brings a. Good amount of logistical support and some funding to candidates to endorse. The other endorsed candidates, all of whom we have already interviewed are Tamaya Jackson, running in Northeast Denver, Mariana Dero in District two in Southwest Denver, and Alex Magia at large. All three of, or all four of these candidates are either current or recently graduated DPS parents. So I think that's an interesting fact about the current crop of candidates. So with that out of the way, Karen, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself to our audience, a little bit about your background and what made you decide to run for school board this year.

Caron Blanke: 1:43

Thank you, Alan. I, as you mentioned, I am a DPS parent. I have two graduates and one rising freshman in a DPS school, and I've had a lot of wonderful opportunities to get involved and be in leadership spaces, both in the school and through that, learn a lot about what's happening at a district level and. My background, which I'll get to in a moment, really allowed me to look through some different lenses at what's happening in the district and see that there is a real need for the school board to have leaders who truly see. Children and what they need and who have a strong desire to engage with the community in an authentic way, and to listen to what they have to say to the students and their families and teachers about what do our schools need to be stronger in serving students in Denver and. I also have a background that allows me to understand what governance looks like and what accountability means. And so I wanna bring a stronger sense of accountability to the school board, to holding the superintendent accountable to improving achievement for our kids. My background is in early childhood education. Community organizing and nonprofit leadership. I primarily worked in JCCs around the country, Jewish community centers, both locally and throughout the country. And for about 20 over 20 years and the last eight years I've spent as a coach and consultant working in early childhood and nonprofit spaces around the country, working with both educators, school directors. Senior leadership and their boards in areas of leadership, governance and specifically focusing on identifying organizational and school values and vision and aligning that to the practice of the people who work in this space. So I am really excited. It's been an energizing. Six weeks, I would say of meeting with so many families and learning about the opportunities that we should be taking advantage of in our district. And I am just so thrilled to have the opportunity to run for district 3D PS Board of Education.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 3:59

Thanks so much Karen, and thank you for putting yourself out there like that. I know it's a big leap to, to take and do that. And I hope your petition signing is going well'cause I know a lot of the candidates are in the midst of that right now too. So with that in mind, how, and thank you for your introduction, how would you differentiate, maybe your approach to governance, as you said or even your approach to being a board member from. The current incumbent who is running in this seat? Not incumbent to the seat, but somebody who's currently on the board. Scott Esserman, and then your other opponent, DJ Torres. Thanks for the question.

Caron Blanke: 4:35

First of all, I've sat on both sides of the boardroom table as a professional who was being held accountable by board members, and that's where I really learned about the power of transparency and. Partnership with between volunteers who serve on a board and professionals. And I've served on the other side as a volunteer, a board member, and most recently as an organizational board president. So I've learned a lot through that process and I think that is the. Most significant differentiator between me and Scott and dj, who I am running against, who are, have a strong background in education. I do have a background in early childhood education, but I think first and foremost, what needs to happen. At a district level is for the board to establish a healthier governance model and to identify what their shared values are so that decisions are really grounded in those values. And that's the work I've done for 30 years as well as. Especially being in community in authentic, meaningful relationships with families to better serve their children, and particularly at the youngest ages. My, my work started in zero to three and expanded from there. And so I understand the importance of why we need to work with our youngest learners as soon as possible so that we're able to create lifelong learning success for them.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 6:01

Thanks Karen. You talked a little bit about transparency there and also earlier you had mentioned, the community meetings you've been having. I'm curious to hear the feedback you're getting and going out and speaking to to folks within your district. How are you hearing them? Talk about transparency on the board. What are they frustrated about and how are your, how will your approach look different than what we've maybe seen previously from the current board?

Caron Blanke: 6:27

Thanks. I think that's such an important question because that is what I feel is the question not being asked by the current board sometimes or not. As a whole, and that's been my experience as a parent in the work I did to engage with other families at my kids' school was what is happening at the district. And that's when we and I started speaking at public comment meetings because it seemed to be the only way to be heard and to ask questions. And it has felt through the conversations and speaking with many families. Parents in particular and I would say teachers as well, feel that there is a lot of missing information, gaps in data. Information is collected but not shared. And I think that the policy on the board of requiring three board members to vote on a particular topic, just to get access to critical data to inform their decisions, is unacceptable when children's learning is at stake. So transparency. I think is crucial in building trust and school board leaders need to hold the trust of our stakeholders, the families, and the teachers and the students, and we do that by. Having honest conversations no matter how difficult or no matter how challenging the information may be. But that is essential in building community partnerships and really doing the work and creating stronger schools. We've gotta be able to have access to more and better information and then be really comfortable sharing that out so that together we can work towards solutions in support of our kids.

Alan Gottlieb: 8:11

Just a quick follow up to that. I did notice that back at in the spring when the board decided to extend the superintendent's contract, one of your opponents, Scott Esserman, said that some decisions required community input and others didn't, and this was one that didn't. How would you have differed in your approach to that? Had you been in his position at that time?

Caron Blanke: 8:34

Thanks. I believe in parallel process in our schools and in organizational spaces, which means that if teachers and school principals are being evaluated by multiple sources and from student feedback and parent feedback, then the same should go for the superintendent. I, I think that is a, a. Crucial piece and missing piece currently in his evaluation, and there has to be community input. I also think that the process leading up to his contract extension happened both prematurely and. Absence of a performance evaluation entirely, which is really concerning and that is a perfect example of what leads people to lose trust and feel. There is no transparency with the school board leaders.

Alan Gottlieb: 9:30

When you've had conversations with people in your time out there doing this, have you heard that expressed as a direct concern, that kind of transparency? And if so, like what kinds of things have you heard from people about that?

Caron Blanke: 9:41

I have heard that and I, again, it's more of just what's going on. Why did that happen? I think people who don't regularly follow DPS news and politics that is the one piece of information that they did here and in their desperation to try and put the pieces together and understand how that decision came to be. They aren't finding any trail of information and. There is plenty of information on the DPS school board website providing access to, to theoretically how decisions are made, and one, I think could likely make the assumption that a performance evaluation would be part of the process, and people don't often know that no performance evaluation is actually tied to the superintendent's contract. Period. And that's an alarming piece of information for people to learn and I think they just wanna understand what happened and why that was necessary. And for those people who did either attend or tune in or watch later the recording of the April meeting that you referenced, Alan, they're wondering why when more than a dozen people came forward to speak out. Not necessarily against Dr. Marrero himself, but against the process of prematurely extending and without performance evaluation. It just compounds their confusion. And I think people are really asking questions about whether their kids are going to be in a place where they're gonna get their needs met, given the people in decision making position right now are making decisions that without explanation.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 11:25

And that's what I find so interesting is I think for many the defense of the superintendent is he's doing a great job. Got all the things he's done, look at, and to his credit. And to their credit, like there are some things that I would absolutely applaud, right? Especially some of the work around, supporting migrant students, some of the approaches they've taken there. But it, you're right, it was never about him or his character or his performance. It was just like, what does good governance look like? What does, should we even be extending the contract without a performance evaluation? And and it is, a little bit reassuring to know that when we have, unfortunately in Denver, especially around school board races, so many disengaged voters who generally don't know what's happening at the school level, that there are things that are certainly resonating with with the electorate. And I guess we, we shall see as we get closer into the fall, like what. What bubbles up and what we're seeing, not only in the news, but also in all these social media chats that exist for, I'm sure many of our listeners are in these subgroups within subgroups about DPS and I feel like that's one way of getting information, but those are like, those are people who are very tuned in. So it's interesting to hear like the general population's view on things as well. So speaking of performance how would you describe the current state of student learning and DPS especially? Thinking about the fact that we do have a majority minority population in the district. Like, how do you think low-income students of color are doing? What's your assessment as a parent or maybe just as somebody who's entering this race?

Caron Blanke: 12:59

I think that is a really important question for all of us to be thinking about. I actually. Get all of my useful information and data from the Denver Explorer the navigator that Oh yeah. Really is like an amazing tool that all families should learn about if they don't already know through, initially through root ed. And now you can find that on the. Denver Families website, but it is the tool that I used, especially to disaggregate data about how students are doing. And when you spend time really doing a deep dive into that, that we are. Not doing an adequate job by any means of serving all students well, but particularly as you said, students of color are black kids and Latino students are really lagging behind their white peers in proficiency around reading and math. And unfortunately we're seeing that by grade three. Which also is unacceptable and connects back to what I said earlier about why we really need to focus on early intervention and think about ways of proactively addressing those challenges. So I think that there is tremendous work to be done and I think that it's deeply connected to. The need to see the students and listen to the people because I think that we've also learned, especially since COVID, that our educators are struggling in so many ways. There are more and more responsibilities being put on them, and I am unclear as to what resources are being provided. Two schools from the district in terms of everything from instruction to social emotional resources, which have a direct impact on kids' ability to learn as well as security and safety, which. We know gets in the way for many students when it comes to showing up at school and feeling like they can engage in their learning. We know that students who don't feel a sense of safety and security aren't gonna be able to focus and engage with the material, but and so how are we also differentiating among different populations, whether it's our kids of color or. Economically disadvantaged students or new to country students, we have a lot of diversity, which should we should be celebrating in our district? And how are we differentiating by school and by area, what each individual set of students and schools need for their kids to be successful learners and deeply improve academic achievement.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 15:39

Thanks Karen. And just as a follow up to that, and Alan, I'll turn it over to you. For our listeners who haven't, don't know what Karen's talking about if you can go to the website, it's denver explorer.org and there's two really interesting tools that as Karen mentioned, formerly rooted, now Denver families has, and one of them is a school Insights, which really has that regional and like citywide dad. And the other one is the Mile High School Guide, which. I really appreciate it.'cause I used that when I was going through the school choice process, which was a fun and complex situation. Maybe fun isn't the word I would use, but it was something. Thanks.

Alan Gottlieb: 16:13

And just to follow up on some of what you just said, Karen, about the performance of the district being deeply concerning. You, despite everything you just said, certain of the current board members incumbents, including one of your opponents, spend a lot of time spinning data saying that the district is actually doing quite well. Graduation rates are up. I asked this question, I'm a broken record, but this is something I'm pretty hung up on. The NAP scores, the na, the nation's report card scores that came out earlier this year. And in particular, the subset that are urban districts, Juda, TUDA showed that DPS actually was one of the highest ranking cities inner city school districts in the country. And. Incumbent board members and the superintendent trumpeted that data, and it was true, but all you had to do was disaggregate down one layer to see all the truths that you just talked about that you can see on the Denver Explorers website, which is that basically it's upper income, mostly white students that are pulling the averages up. And so it looks pretty good. But the kids that the district should be the most concerned about serving are floundering and in fact doing worse than many of these other districts around the country. I don't know. You can't get into other people's heads, but I just would love your reaction to the fact that the district and some board members seem so keen to spin data in what, in my opinion, is a very dishonest way. Not just a different interpretation.

Caron Blanke: 17:35

I. I wanna use my social worker hat to answer that question. Be and maybe also as a former early childhood center director who has been in the position of having to admit what's not working. And so I think about, first of all, I wanna just say that it is not easy. I can imagine to be an elected official, to be a school board member. There are many. Areas you need to focus on and a lot of hours spend. And I am grateful for the time that everyone has contributed and I don't wanna disparage anybody's leadership. I will say that I think that what we know to be true in leadership locally, and we see this in our country, is that there is a culture of fear that exists among leaders that can get in the way of transparency. And I. Can imagine from my experience being a school director, that when you fear sharing negative information with stakeholders, it is easy to go to a place of finding different ways of talking about the results. So I. I think that's a possibility. And I also, like I said, this is why I use the Denver Explorer to understand data because as someone who really wants to know and understands, it's, and it's unfortunate and unacceptable that as a parent I have to go figure that out on my own. And I can't really begin to understand. Why that information isn't coming right from the district, but it isn't. And I'd like to really see that change. I wanna pick up on just a

Alan Gottlieb: 19:16

quick follow up. Oh, sorry. Oh, you go ahead. You go

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 19:18

first, Alan, and then I have a follow up as well.

Alan Gottlieb: 19:20

Okay. I did, I'm just curious as how, as a board member talking about that culture of fear that can permeate an organization or a country or whatever. How do you keep, as a board member, if you're elected from falling victim to that yourself, how do you check yourself to make sure you don't. Do that kind of thing.

Caron Blanke: 19:36

I think that's going back to what I said earlier about values identification. I think that this is the work that I do in schools and in organizations with their boards and senior leadership is always start with the values of what do we believe about children and how do we truly value educators? What is the role of parents when we spend meaningful time having those kinds of conversations. Identifying what our short shared values are and what the values of the school district need to be to inform decision going forward. It goes a long way in preemptively allowing us to avoid those. Those conflicts and the fear-based conversations. And it doesn't mean we're always gonna agree, but when we are in alignment around shared values, it makes a big difference in the conversations people can have. We people are com more comfortable in having courageous conversations and admitting when they might not have the answers. So I think that the transparency the. Identifying shared values and really creating a stronger, healthier governance structure are the first steps that have to happen with a new, ideally with a new board going forward. Thank

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 20:51

you. That's great. I, it's funny, I was gonna ask a very similar question to Alan and so I'm gonna ask now a slightly different question that I was formulating as you were talking. Again, going back to that culture of fear. It's such an interesting way to describe it, and I haven't heard anybody, at least on the podcast talk about it that way. But certainly, in, in talking to people who worked for the district, there seems to be a theme and maybe it's not fear, maybe it's frustration, maybe it's, I don't know what you would call the feeling of banging your head against the wall, but I'm certainly hearing that from some people who are still working in the district. Because of your background, both as, a nonprofit leader, a nonprofit board member, there's different approaches to how board members engage with staff. So when I was working for DPS, we had a very much like an open regular conversations. I wasn't necessarily the senior level, but I was in the chief of staff's office. So I was regularly talking to board members and they were asking me for information, right? Some would argue maybe too much information. And in, in some ways, I would say part of my, a lot of my time was spent supporting board members. Other approaches are that board members should not speak to staff, they should just be speaking to, the executive director or one, maybe one other, one other person. And I think there's a mix of that currently. Generally speaking, my understanding is that the current board at DPS has very limited or is supposed to have very limited interaction with staff based on this interpretation of policy governance. I'm curious to get your perspective on. What is the right balance? And this is something we've never asked anybody that I can recall on, on the podcast, but what do you think as somebody who's been in this space of governance before, is the right balance of board members being allowed to engage with staff beyond the executive director?

Caron Blanke: 22:35

I thought about this question a lot as it relates to the school board because obviously that's a different organization than organizations I've been involved in, but I think that there's some very basic principles that don't change, and so much of it, it ha comes back to or starts with trust, and there has to be a culture, not just of trust, but of meaningful relationships between board members and staff at all levels. If. I don't know how I would be a successful board member if I can't go into a school and have a conversation with someone in that school community, whether they're a family or they're a professional. But the same goes for central office staff. I feel like we, if the board is there to make decisions about the future of the district. Which means the work that those people are doing, I wanna know who they are, and I wanna do that not from a place of being punitive or a power position, but as partners who are all aligned and focusing on the, on achieving the same goals. So I believe that the current executive limitations get in the way of creating cultures like that. I would really, it. It's not ideal that every two years as a board potentially changes. We have different roles, but I would strongly advocate for a process where the board can come together, perhaps with the senior level staff at the district and talk about what are the ways that we wanna communicate with each other? How will we get access to information? How would you like to hear from us? When I was a board chair, I. Showed up all the time in different spaces of the employees for their programs and with their board committees. So everybody knew me and I was open to everybody. And I also made sure that the executive director was always aware of everything I was doing, whether it was copying that person on an email or reaching out first to say, just want to let you know I wanna have coffee with one of your staff. Is there anything I should know ahead of time? So when we're open, when we have an open system, which means that we're transparent and we're comfortable and we trust each other, then everything feels safe to have those back and forth conversations, relationships, and partnerships. And I just don't see how we're gonna do the important work that lies ahead in support of children if we can't improve the way that communication is flowing between the board and professionals who work in the district. Thank you.

Alan Gottlieb: 25:04

Thanks. Couple of questions more just about, about the superintendent and his role. First of all just curious in general what your view is from the outside. About how the performance of Alex Murrow's superintendent to date, and then as a follow to that would love your reaction to this. He made the decision, puzzling decision to me to go very, in a very personal way after a sitting board member, John Youngquist, whom he accused of not only racial bias and racial insensitivity, but being out for Marrero job and asking for a censure, which has now led to an investigation that's gonna cost tens of thousands of dollars. So broader question, how do you view the performance of the superintendent from your. As a citizen, at this point, and school board candidate, and then your reaction to that particular still unfolding drama.

Caron Blanke: 26:00

Thank you. I have had opportunities to speak one-on-one with Dr. Marrero, as well as in a small group with him and to have some follow up with him. So I feel good in saying that I have had access to the superintendent to be able to share my concerns as a parent, which were. Quite broad and quite deep along with some other parents that I worked with. And I was really disappointed with the follow up, both from Dr. Marrero and his staff, just in terms of. Accessibility and follow up accessibility and transparency around what is happening? We went through about a year and a half process at my kids' school of advocating at public comment meetings, writing emails to board members, to district professionals, begging for help at our school in a number of different areas and rarely heard from anybody. And when we did meet with people, we didn't get answers, and so I am sure I have a lot more to learn about the superintendent's performance because I'm not intimately acquainted with every part of it. I only can speak as a mom, as my experience in dealing with that. And with regard to your question about John, I've known John for many years. Our kids are friends and I've had. Large number of friends who have both worked for John and sent their kids to East when John was the principal both times, and I think that John is a person who demonstrates incredible integrity and leadership, and I'm really sad for. For him and for us, that is what's happening and that we're spending taxpayer dollars probably at a six figure number to engage in this. It's taking the school board members away and really the community members that are reading about it away from the work at hand and. I would serve as a school board member who brings children back to the center of decision making and does not engage in the adult politics that have continued to divide our school board in issues that really aren't moving the needle in what needs to happen for all of our children in the Denver District.

Alan Gottlieb: 28:20

Thanks. Thanks for the candid answer.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 28:23

Thank you. You spoke earlier about the importance of building trust, especially in response to some of the sort of dysfunction that has currently existed, but I'm curious to get a little bit deeper in, into that. If you were elected how would you go about building trust back in the community and not just, your constituents, but broadly, like most people have no idea what district they're in. But certainly I think a lot of parents. Myself included, have felt frustrated by a lot of the things you have referenced here. How would you go about as a new board member, giving parents, especially that confidence that things are changing, that there will be more transparency, that there will be a different way of doing things.

Caron Blanke: 29:06

I think that's important for people to know. I would really rely on my experience as a community organizer, both in working with families and teachers as well as with community entities and city officials. I think that the trust has to be broad and I'm not afraid to. Ask 20 people to connect me to five 10 of their own friends, and that's really what I've been doing over the last few months in order to meet people and I. As you said I won't just be representing families in district three. I will be responsible for children's wellbeing and families across the district and teachers across the district. So I have an obligation to put myself in spaces where I can hear from them, and that means that I may do that by having a monthly coffee. Where people can share what's happening in their communities. Or I will hold a town hall and share with them updates about what the school board is thinking about so that they have that information. And I hope to meet with every school leader and in, in district three, at least in the next couple of months and beyond, once elected and. It's about showing up and meeting people and not shying away from difficult conversations. I think anyone who knows me would say that sometimes to a fault. I'm really comfortable in courageous conversations that have to take place because that's how we make change. I also just wanna say for a minute that I think the word change makes me think a lot about community and. Organizational change is an area that I work in and I've taught other community leaders about, which is that we have to be in relationship with people because there will be change undoubtedly as we work to improve things. And change can be scary and feel, create disequilibrium for families, people, teachers, community members. And so that's why when we have trust, we can think about. It's not getting to the end result. It's what are we doing between now and the time we get there and how are we forming relationships and reaching out to people who we may not already know, but who have power and influence in the communities they're from, or can leverage resources that are desperately needed for a certain group of students. We have to be willing to do that and get out there and show up in the right places and return emails in a very timely manner and with information. Thank you.

Alan Gottlieb: 31:44

Thanks. A quick follow up and then I think we're probably just about done. And that is simply in terms of transparency and openness to community, what's your feeling as someone who's spoken in public comment about the fact that they've severely curtailed the public's asset? Access to public comment over the last year or two, both in terms of the length of how long a speaker can speak from three minutes down to two. The overall length of the public comment, the fact that you can only speak about something that's on the agenda. Would you like to see that as much of a pain in the butt, as I'm sure it is for the sitting school board members to occasionally have to sit there behind the desk and get railed at for five hours, would you be in favor of rescinding some of those limitations back to the way things were before?

Caron Blanke: 32:27

I would really like to take a look at that. I think we need to do that. As someone who has spent more time editing my public comments than drafting them initially I would really strongly advocate for. Improved experiences for our community members to speak to the board. And you framed it in terms of it's hard for the school board members to sit there and be railed against, but I would love to imagine a future where that wasn't the narrative, where we didn't feel that kind of negativity or animosity because we were in authentic, transparent relationship with one another, and school board members were making themselves more regularly accessible. So the public comment. Could be more than two minutes, but could also be about celebrations and what's going well and saying it was really nice to see you, school board member so and so at our school last week. I wanted to follow up and let you know how that got resolved. But yes, I would strongly advocate to improve the amount of time because as also as someone who has been. Cut off by that time clock and been extremely frustrated that I couldn't share the rest of my comments. And then I would email them and not hear back about where they went. I do think that it is crucial that we are finding effective ways to hear from our community members.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 33:47

Thanks. I love that vision of what public comment could be. And as somebody who watches public comment from time to time, I'm always tickled by the people who are speaking in between these very contentious topics and they're like, I'm just here to say thanks for, this very specific thing at my school. And I just, my heart goes out to those folks. I'm like, what must they be thinking walking into this firestorm? And then they're just like, I just wanna say thanks. So that's so few and far between. But that's an I ideal. World to aspire to. And I'm not totally convinced, but I think Karen, we should have more board members that are seeking to hope for that kind of change or looking for that kind of change. So it's great to hear. Thank you.

Alan Gottlieb: 34:28

Thank you. I don't think we have any more questions unless you do Alexis, but we always like to give our guests a chance to say something that we might not have asked about or just to conclude on their own. So anything, any final words for the audience, Karen?

Caron Blanke: 34:41

Again, just to reiterate, I'm Karen Blank. I'm running for District 3D PS Board of Education. I really am so excited about this race and the relationships I've made along the way with families and teachers in our community as well as candidates and other districts and at large who are running. That's been such a pleasure to get to know those people. And as a parent who's. Got a child with definitely four more years. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and do hard work on behalf of students, teachers, and families in our community. Because the world is a place that requires strong schools to prepare children that are gonna go out there and be able to navigate what's waiting for them. And so please vote for me. Thank you so much for the opportunity to join you today and for the work that you do to inform our community about what's happening in DPS. Thanks, Karen. Okay.

Alan Gottlieb: 35:38

Thanks so much for coming on and we're planning to have all the candidates on more than once as issues unfold during the campaign. And we're hoping to have all candidates on at least once. Although some of the incumbents in particular, it appears we're gonna have to try and drag kicking and screaming to come on. But we're, we will do our best. Thank you again so much. And that will do it for this week. We'll be back soon with another candidate interview in the very near future. Thank you.