Episode 18: Jeremy Harris, DPS board candidate

Transcript

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:08

Welcome back everyone. Excited to have Jeremy Harris on the podcast today. Jeremy is a mortician owner of the Harris Funeral Directors in Aurora, and is a resident of the Denver Central Park neighborhood. He is a father and a Denver public school. He's the father, excuse me, of a Denver public school student. Jeremy, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for run. And thank you for putting your name in the hat running for District four.

Jeremy Harris: 0:33

Thank you all. Thank you all for having me on the podcast today.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:37

So Jeremy, do you mind just sharing a little bit about yourself, your background and why you decided to run for the District four C?

Jeremy Harris: 0:44

Sure. Thank you. I'm Jeremy Harris, of course, I'm the candidate for District four. A little bit about the boundaries of District four. It starts in the far northeast of Denver green Valley. Montbello kinda goes down to Central Park down into Park Hill, little bit of the Whittier neighborhood Northfield, and then it ends in five points. I'm a proud husband to a former DPS teacher. I'm a DPS dad and someone who has spent my life serving families in Denver through my work as a funeral homeowner. That experience has taught me a lot about dignity and compassion and listening to people when they need it most. I also spend time volunteering with. A literacy nonprofit reading to first grade through third grade kids. Because I believe every child deserves a strong starting literacy. At my son's school, excuse me, I serve as the PTA communications chair. Working with other parents to keep families connected and informed and engaged in our school community. I am running because I want to step in and co-create solutions with communities to change a system that has been failing too many kids and family. Far too long and let's be real inequities in student achievement or disparities in discipline. These aren't accidents. I believe they are predictable outcomes of how DPS has historically operated, and if we don't, em admit that we're just going to keep cycling through failed reforms. Every year we see the same thing. If you're black or Latino. The odds are against you. Only about one in five black and Latina students are reading on grade level. And that's not because our kids can't achieve, right? It's because the system wasn't designed to serve them equally. My job is to listen to families and disrupt that design. And the way we disrupt that design is by changing what's at the center. Right now the system is built to protect bureaucracy. I feel not kids. And we've got to flip that and make student outcomes the top priority, and hold leadership accountable for results that families can actually see. For me, that starts with investing in our neighborhood school. So parents don't feel like they have to send their kids across town for a good education. It also means putting literacy and math, front and center in those early grades because that's where the gaps start. Many black and brown kids don't really start education until kindergarten. And these kids are starting school in kindergarten. They have already started behind, so we also wanna, of course, increase access to that early childhood education piece. And we also have to deal with discipline disparities directly with fair and consistent policies. And just as important, we need to bring families in as real partners, right? Not treat them like an afterthought. If we can do that, we'll stop repeating the same and equitable results, and finally build a system where every kid. No matter their zip code has the same chance of success and a school that puts academics first. Okay. Keeps them safe, supports their mental health, and prepares them for life after graduation. Not just handing out diplomas.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 4:26

Thank you so much for sharing that. Can you talked about some of the things you would want to see accomplished. I'm curious right now what, as we think about the Denver School Board and Denver specifically, we tend to be more of a left or progressive community here in Denver. And we obviously get in a lot of arguments about what what the best approach is within the Democratic Party, even though these are non-partisan races. You had talked before about like getting back to basics, academically focusing on school safety, opposing, teaching middle schoolers or elementary school students about lgbtq plus. Issues and even critical race theory. I don't think we're teaching critical race theory in schools. I didn't learn about, I didn't study critical race theory until I was in my master's program and my graduate program. But I'm curious about why not and specifically when you talk about, serving black and Latino students how do you think of serving black and Latino students in a way that's equitable?

Jeremy Harris: 5:18

Yeah. I've been clear on this. I don't believe elementary or middle school students should be taught LGBTQ plus issues and it's not. Critical race theory. That's how Chalkbeat framed it to be. Okay. But it's the framework around racism at those early ages when kids are still developing cognitively what it means to be kind what it means to respect. One another. What does it mean to just have critical thinking skills? Those are the foundations that I believe that we should instill in those early grades. I see. Okay. With literacy being the foundation of it and a curriculum that is geared around the science of reading and how we do that. Is making sure that we are training our teachers in that curriculum around the science of reading. That way we can close those literacy gaps at those early stages. Research shows that if a child is not reading on grade level by third grade. They're gonna be behind throughout their entire educational pathway. And so we have to make sure that kids are reading on grade level and make sure kids are proficient in math and understand what it means to be kind.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 6:41

Thank you so much, Jeremy. And then one, one other follow-up question to that, I'm just looking at your website here and you're obviously prioritizing academics. I think that's fantastic. I really appreciate that you can speak to the science of reading, especially me as a pa, as a fellow parent. That's a big concern that I have certainly is how. Students, especially Latino and black students are doing as far as reading on grade level. You also, within your prioritizing academics, you talk about promoting us history, encouraging civic responsibility, which I love. I'm a big proponent of civics education. But you also talk about an appreciation for American values. And your website says, by teaching the full scope of American history, it's triumph, struggles, progress. We'll instill civic responsibility, foster national pride, and cultivate a deep appreciation for the core values of define our democracy, liberty, justice, and equality. I think certainly a lot of Denver rights could get behind some of that. But in a time right now where President Trump is in office where a lot of Denver rights maybe don't feel safe a lot of Denver families don't feel safe. I would love for you to just share a little bit more what do American values mean to you and why National Pride? What does National Pride mean to you?

Jeremy Harris: 7:48

Yeah. So National Pride is knowing the history of America and being civically engaged with our democratic process As far as voting, we know that even with this upcoming election, we're gonna have low voter turnout, and that's part of the reason is that we don't instill in our high schoolers and middle schoolers the importance of civic engagement. What does that mean as far as values? Of course liberty and justice for all equality for all of our students, a pride of their country and knowing the backgrounds and the histories of their, of this country, the ugliness, slavery, all of it, the progress that we've made and the progress that we're still working to build. I believe that's important. If we can have a pride. Weak, then we should be able to have an American flag in our classrooms as well. So that is, that, that's kinda what that's talking about, is talking about having true pride in our country and accepting our country for what it is today. Thank, thanks for clarifying. I have one

Alan Gottlieb: 8:52

quick follow, clarify. I have a quick follow up to that too, Jeremy, and that's simply Sure. It would seem this is clearly your authentic beliefs and everything, so I'm not saying you're trying to position yourself, but it seem, it does seem like you are, your positions are more traditionally not maga at all, but more traditionally conservative Oh. Than the other candidates. And do you see that as something that could potentially offer voters a. More of a choice than they sometimes maybe have in Denver school board elections. Because your positions seem somewhat different than other candidates we've interviewed

Jeremy Harris: 9:24

and a lot of the people that I'm talking to in our community agree with my traditional values. I forgot to mention I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in the South. I'm sure you can hear my strong accent. And these are just some of my southern. Values. I'm a Democrat. I've been a Democrat my whole life. But families appreciate having a candidate who really touches on some of the traditional values and they have not had a candidate who calls out some of the things that we're seeing in DPS around the racism, having children to feel, oppressed or having, conversation around oppression and this group is oppressed. L-G-B-T-Q, you know that families appreciate me and what I'm saying and my messaging, I would just say that. There comes a time when we need to have talks about that because that's the world that we are living in, and we must make sure that we create an inclusive environment for everyone but to indoctrinate kids or have those conversations with them prematurely. It's not age appropriate and I'll just leave it there.

Alan Gottlieb: 10:43

Okay, thanks. That helps clarify it a bit. So Jeremy, to address the elephant in the room is Chalkbeat reported you pleaded guilty to two counts of felony theft back in 2014 in Memphis. It happened when you worked at a funeral home there in court. Records show that you used a company credit card machine to put two refunds onto your personal debit card. Totaling$18,000. You were sentenced to three years of confinement for one theft charge, and four years for the other. According to court documents, both sentences were suspended in favor of five years of supervised probation, and you paid back the$18,000. So just interested from your point of view, why is this something that is not disqualifying and why would voters, should voters trust you when you have that kind of a background and record?

Jeremy Harris: 11:25

'Cause it has nothing to do with student outcomes. It has nothing to do with holding the superintendent accountable. It has nothing to do with rallying community and co-creating solutions to help our black and Latina students has nothing to do with it. So it doesn't disqualify me as you just said I did. In fact take$18,000 and I also paid that money back and the charges were suspended for probation. I made a mistake, I took responsibility for them. And I've worked hard every day since then to rebuild my life and to serve my community with integrity. What I want people to know is that I didn't let those mistakes define me. I built a business that serves families in their most difficult moments. I volunteered in schools. I've been raising my son to understand the importance of honesty and accountability. We tell our students all the time that failure is not final, right? That you can learn, you can grow, you can come back stronger. I'm gonna live in proof of that. I believe my experiences gives me a deeper understanding of redemption resilience and the importance of second chances. That's what I want to bring to the board because our kids deserve leaders who know what it means to overcome challenges and still move forward. That's authentic leadership.

Alan Gottlieb: 12:47

Okay. Thanks for answering that question. Appreciate it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 12:49

Thank you Jeremy. Sure. I was going to, I have two questions I wanna ask you and one of them, I actually wanna go back to something you had said earlier when you were talking about neighborhood schools. When you mentioned specifically that you wanna make sure you have student outcomes, you believe in neighborhood schools you don't want kids to feel like they have to go across town. What does that mean in the context of school choice? We, in Denver Public schools, we have something that's called school choice. That means parents are able to select what a school model their child can go to. They can at least select a preference that doesn't necessarily mean they're guaranteed those positions. So as a school board member you obviously would have a lot of say in modifications to school choice as it stands now, what would you change about it and what do you not agree with right now as far as school choice goes?

Jeremy Harris: 13:33

So I agree with school choice but the issue school choice can sometimes cause inequities. Because families may have barriers as far as transportation to get their child to a school that they deem is high quality. So I, I'm not against school choice, but with the same token, I believe that we have to invest in our neighborhood schools so families don't even have to look at choicing out of their neighborhood to find high quality education. Even with charter schools, right? I see charter schools as part of the DPS family, but I also believe our first responsibility is to make sure every neighborhood school is strong. Families, shouldn't feel like they have to leave their community to get a quality education. That said, I know some charter schools are, doing innovative work and serving kids well, if a charter is delivering strong outcomes for students, I support that. But if a charter isn't meeting the bar, if kids aren't learning and families aren't being served, it shouldn't be allowed to continue just for the sake of choice. For me, it's not about traditional versus charter. It's about. Equity and excellence. Every school charter innovation or district run to be held to the same high standards with transparency accountability for student outcomes. And no matter what, we need to make sure charter growth doesn't come at the expense of our neighborhood schools. That's what I'm saying, because those schools are the backbones of our communities.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 15:12

Thanks for clarifying that. Sure. And then, you, you support school choice, which thank you for clarifying that part as well. And where you fall within this view of charter schools, what to you is the limit of where school choice should end? So in some places, certainly not in Colorado, but in other states, for example school vouchers, education savings accounts are part of a school choice model. Do you support school vouchers or education savings accounts?

Jeremy Harris: 15:37

No public dollars to go to public schools, not vouchers for private schools. Thank you so much. And just to add, Alexis talking to families in the community this particular family their kid goes to East High School. With choice. The school is at over capacity. No one's talking about that. And so with school choice, I would look to setting enrollment caps on some of these schools because some of the parents don't like the fact that the school is overcrowded, which leads into our classrooms being overcrowded because kids are coming to East High School that lives 25, 30 minutes away from the school. So we have to make sure that. It's equitable for everybody, even the kids that lives in the neighborhood that attends East. So I definitely will look to adding an enrollment cap around school choice as well.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 16:32

And just so I'm clear, actually I'm not clear Jeremy, because right now there are caps to how many students can enroll once you're allowing people in from outside of the boundary. So for example, my understanding of how this works is if you have number, a number of students who are choicing in from outside of East into the East boundary, they wanna go to East High School, there is a limit to how many students can be accepted at East or any school in the district that, that, that it takes students from choicing in up until a point. So once you hit that number that is at capacity for the school, you can't accept any more students unless those students live in the boundary and enroll once the school year starts. Are you describing enrollment caps for students who would normally live in the neighborhood, or are you describing enrollment caps for choice, which are, which my understanding already exists. We're icing in

Jeremy Harris: 17:32

enrollment caps for choice. So whatever, I'm not clear to what that number is per school, but as far as East High School, talking from parents from that particular school, that cap number needs to we need to decrease that cap number to make sure that the kids in that district of East. Their classrooms are not overcrowded by kids choicing into the district. Yes, we wanna welcome those kids in, but we need to put a cap on the number of kids that we are accepting from outside of the boundary zones.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 18:02

Okay. And just so we're clear that is currently the state of house school choice works. So I have a lot of families in Southeast Denver that I know that tried to get their kids into, to slave ends. The majority of them. Actually, I don't know, a single one that tried to choice into slaves that got into Slavens.

Jeremy Harris: 18:19

Sure.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 18:20

So just so we're clear, caps do exist. But thank you so much for saying that you would like CAPS at East and I'm sure there's parents out there who would probably agree with you. There, there are some really great schools out there that we're having to turn away students because they're at capacity.

Alan Gottlieb: 18:40

Alexis, did you want to ask your timely question? Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 18:43

As I have my children over here that are distracting me a little bit from the podcast. So I got a text message a little while ago from my kid's school, Jeremy. That we do not have school tomorrow. At my child's elementary school because of a heat day. You gotta love Colorado. For some parents, you get heat days and you get snow days. I'm feeling some kind of way about that. I have to figure out childcare, which probably means my kids at home'cause I have a lot of privilege of working from home. But now there's families at my kids' school that, they have to go into an office or they have service work, like they're having to scramble for childcare or they're gonna have to miss a day of work, miss a day of wages. My, my understanding right now of how Denver Public Schools handles the remaining few schools that don't have air conditioning is it's based on an equity rubric, right? Based on an equity rubric. Certain schools based on the student demographics, based on maybe like certain status, the type of students they serve they get priority for air conditioning. My child school, we probably have a little bit of a higher or a lower number of free and reduced lunch students, probably lower number of students who need additional supports. And that's why we don't have air conditioning yet. We are on the list and I cannot wait until we get air conditioning. Hopefully it's when my kid is still there. But I'm gonna step off my little rant here and ask you what what do you think about this equity approach to the bond the bond funds, especially with the air conditioning, and then as a school board member? The second part of that question is how would you talk to families about this, who are reaching out as a constituent and frustrated that their kid is sitting in a hot classroom and then may maybe missing school because of how hot the classroom is?

Jeremy Harris: 20:18

Thank you for that. So if it was my child, and if I'm on the board representing other families, we need to get air in that classroom immediately. And if that means if we have to go out and get a temporary air conditioning unit to put in these classrooms until the major HVAC unit is repaired, then that's what we have to do. I've actually talked to principals who said, sometimes they would have to do early dismissals or go get popsicles for the kids. Yep. But yep, we need to get air in those classrooms. That's period. And we can't wait until we get the hvac, Hey, let's go out, let's get a temporary unit to put in these classrooms. To make sure students are comfortable, because you can't learn in a classroom if it's 85 degrees, right? It's uncomfortable. So yes, we will have to go out immediately and address those problems. It's that simple. We have emergency funds within BPS, let's go out, let's get temporary HVAC units and let's put'em in these classrooms.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 21:14

Thanks, Jeremy. I, yes, I completely agree with you. And have, having been an employee of the district and working with a lot of the folks in operations. Mean it, it's not that easy. Like my kids will, we do, they, there are these giant machines that they have in the hallways that are so loud. There's no way you could put them in the classroom because you wouldn't be able to hear your teacher because of how loud it is. And then

Jeremy Harris: 21:38

go ahead.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 21:39

Let's so there's certainly some that are quieter. I get that. We could think about maybe like the swamp coolers, but from a financial standpoint, like we're also talking about. I'm assuming, like an incredible amount of money to do that as well. Is that, I'm just,

Jeremy Harris: 21:56

yeah go ahead. Yeah. DPS has reserves and emergency funds that we can go out and rent units to put in these classrooms.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 22:04

Okay. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Harris: 22:05

Yeah. The money is there. The money is there.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 22:08

I appreciate that. And that actually leads me to another question I wanted to ask later in the interview. A couple weeks ago. School districts were really scrambling to figure out what they were going to do with budget shortfalls that were going to be coming because the Trump administration put a hold on a lot of the like, title II and Title IV funding that, that a lot of school districts rely on. And there's still an incredible amount of uncertainty going into 2026 on how school districts are going to be able to budget and most likely, cut cut their budgets due to federal cuts that are likely going to take place. So you have a responsibility to you have a responsibility as a board member to make sure that that DPS is stewarding those dollars well as budgeting. And keeping the superintendent accountable to that. How would you go about working with your colleagues and the superintendent in the face of what is likely a budget shortfall and having to cut to make major cuts to the district budget?

Jeremy Harris: 23:03

So DPS of course has one of the largest budgets in the state, over a billion dollars. But families don't feel like the money is reaching the classroom. As we just talked about it. HVAC units are out. Too much of it gets lost in bureaucracy and administrative and programs that don't move the needle on student learning. My view is simple. The budget should reflect our priorities. That means putting more dollars directly into classrooms, into literacy and math instructions into teacher pay and support, and into mental health resources. And into keeping school safe, right? We also need transparency. Families deserve to see where every dollar goes. And right now DPS has not been transparent as far as of the budget. The budget is too hard to understand and it feels disconnected from results. If we're going to rebuild trust, we have to show clearly how our spending ties back to student outcomes. My commitment is this. DPS, it may sound crazy, but DPS doesn't just need more money. It needs to spend the money. It already. Has better families deserve to see impact and not waste.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 24:17

Thanks so much.

Alan Gottlieb: 24:21

Okay. I had my microphone on mute'cause my dog was going crazy upstairs, but I think I'm, I think I'm back on now. Obviously one of the major jobs of, or the major job in some ways of the members of the board is, supervising the superintendent, your one employee. I'm interested in what your first of all, the board majority extended the contract of superintendent Alex Marrero before he had undergone a thorough evaluation. Curious what you thought of that decision and also what you think of what's your EV evaluation from the outside at this point of his performance as superintendent over the last few years?

Jeremy Harris: 24:56

I disagree with the decision to extend superintendent Ros contract. When the board voted to extend the contract, it undermined the community's trust. I even gave public comment asking them to show US performance data, and the board moved ahead anyways without transparency. Excuse my French, but what really pissed me off. More than anything is when Director Ezman said the superintendent contract is a board decision, not a community decision. That kind of statement tells the families that their voices don't matter, but in reality, the superintendent works for the board and the board works for the community. Before extending any contract, we should have had clear performance metrics. Are kids reading on grade level? Our discipline disparities closing our neighborhood, schools getting better without those benchmarks. You're just handing out extensions based on hope instead of results and honestly, that's when I lost trust.

Alan Gottlieb: 26:00

Okay. Do you, just for the second part of that question what's your sense from, again, I understand that you, are seeing this from the outside. You're not on the board at this point. But what's your view of how the superintendent has performed in his job over the past several years?

Jeremy Harris: 26:15

His performance is really. In so many ways behind policy governance. And the problem with that is that we have to look at those ends policy and rewriting those ends policies to hold him accountable. He has been able to just kinda run free and to his defense is kinda because of the policy governance in so many ways.

Alan Gottlieb: 26:40

That was the next question I was gonna ask you, so I'll just ask it. You partially answered it, but it's how, the policy governance is a pretty broad thing, but the board operates under a very stringent, super strict version of policy governance. How would you like to revise how policy governance is implemented to give the board maybe a bit more authority without getting all in the district's business and operations at the same time?

Jeremy Harris: 27:06

Great question. So to me, the issue isn't the model itself, it's how it's being used. Right now, the ELs and the ends policies are written in vague language that doesn't really hold anybody accountable. For an example, an ends policy may say, students will be prepared for success, but it doesn't define what that actually looks like. And executive limitation might say the superintendent, will not allow unsafe conditions, but it doesn't spell out how safety is measured. In my view, we need to rewrite those policies so they're clear and measurable. And Ian's policies should say something like, by third grade X percent of students will read on grade level and el on safety. Should, require real time reporting on discipline disparities or responses time to incidents in a school. So if I were rewriting it. I'll make it measurable. So for an example, the superintendent must ensure every school reports, discipline, incidents, response times, and disparities by race and gender on a quarterly basis. And then those numbers have to improve year over year. That's how we measure his performance that way. Safety isn't just a promise on paper, it's something the board and the community can actually track. The model also leads community out of the process. Policy governance should include families and community in policymaking from the start. I also think we need to update our governance policies so that directors can get access to data directly, right? Without needing another board member to sign off. If we're serious about accountability, then. Board members should be able to see the information we need, work alongside staff and, work alongside the staff and teachers and other people of the district. Not in a punitive way right, but in a collaborative way. So we can actually co-design solutions instead of just reacting after the fact. That's how you make governance real and hold the superintendent accountable. So my opinion is that policy governance can work, but only if we modernize it and make it about results. Not just words on paper.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 29:33

Thanks so much, Jeremy. Thanks. I completely agree with you on that one. So thank you. As a fellow parent, you probably see this just as much as I do, especially more so as a candidate. You're talking to a lot of families, a lot of trust has been eroded. With the school district, with the superintendent, with our elected board members. If you were elected, how would you go about building back trust with families, with community members?

Jeremy Harris: 29:59

Yeah. What I keep hearing from families. Is, they don't feel the board is transparent. Decisions get made behind closed doors. Data gets presented in half truth, and people feel like their, voices don't really count. When that happens, trust breaks down and once trust is gone, it's hard to get that back. My approach, is the opposite. Half the truth is still a whole lie, and we've got to be fully honest about the data, good and bad, and the challenges our schools face. I believe board businesses or business should be. Accessible and clear if you would not buried in jargon or hidden, excuse me, behind procedures. For me, transparency means reporting students outcomes in a way families can actually understand. It means creating space for public comment that's meaningful and it means, board members being visible and accountable. In the community, not just at, meetings. That's how you rebuild trust, and you keep it. Right here in District four, folks in district four don't feel represented and, we don't really see our board member in our community. The incumbent has been caught up in politics and infighting while our kids fall behind. And honestly, that's one of the reasons I decided to run as well. I know what public service means. It's about showing up and listening and being present. Families deserve someone they can actually see and count on. Not nobody who disappears once the elections is over, right? My approach is about listening, being accountable and keeping families at the center of every decision. That's how we bring trust back.

Alan Gottlieb: 31:51

Okay, thanks Jeremy. And just as a heads up to listeners who may not know it, tomorrow's the day that 2025 CMASS results get released. And so this is another opportunity for the district to either spin or present a whole and complete picture of what they show. As a member of the media, I've had a. Ability to take a glance at them today. And I can't say anything about'em, but I will just be interested to see how the district presents that information. Jeremy, we're about out of time, but just we always want to give our guests a chance to sit, have the final word and say anything you might want to before we close. So the floor is yours, if you have any last. Remarks you'd like to make?

Jeremy Harris: 32:30

Yeah, sure. I just wanna say thank you, Alexis and Alan for having me on. At the end of the day, this race isn't about politics or endorsements or headlines, it's about our kids. Too many families in Denver feel like the system has left them behind and, I'm running to change that. We've had enough of failed reforms and broken promises. It is time as I call it, for a new era in education and together. With community, I feel like I know we can disrupt this broken system. We can restore trust and we can deliver the schools our families deserves. I'm ready to bring honesty, accountability, and a heart back to our schools and. I ask for your trust I ask for your support and of course for your vote to make that happen. So this fall please vote Harris. And for the listeners, you can visit my website at Harris, the number four dps.org. Thank you all again.

Alan Gottlieb: 33:27

Okay. Thank you so much Jeremy. It was good having you on and getting to talk to you for a bit, and we will be back with another interview of a candidate next week. There seem to be quite a few of them, so we have a few more to go. Thanks again and goodbye everybody.