Episode 19: Amy Klein Molk, DPS board candidate

Transcript

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:08

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Board Hawk podcast. We are so excited to have another school board candidate joining us today. We are very happy to introduce Amy Klein Mulch, who is an education advocate, a former ed tech entrepreneur, a DPS parent. She's currently running for the at large seat that that is open on the board. She is a mom of 2D PS students. Previously had worked as a paraprofessional in DPS. Supporting students with disabilities. She is the founder of Beanstock, an ed tech company that offered interactive learning content, especially to students during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also led mentoring and advocacy programs for youth and worked in the nonprofit and entertainment sectors. Amy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Amy Klein Molk: 0:50

Thank you so much for having me. And what a warm welcome. It's great to be here.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:55

So Amy, let's just start off by you having just sharing a little bit about yourself and why you decided to run for the school board.

Amy Klein Molk: 1:01

Yeah, absolutely. You did such a great job of my background. But as as you said, Alexis, I am a mom of 2D PS students. One actually just started this week. He's four, and so it's his first week of ECE, which was very exciting. And the other one is nine. I have always been someone who cares deeply about. Public education. I studied public policy with an emphasis in education, and as you mentioned, I during that time did a lot of work in mentoring and running programs at local youth centers. From there, I went on to be an advocate mostly working in, in the private sector ish? I not really actually, when you think about it.'cause as I'm gonna tell you I did a bunch of advocacy work for Head Start and LA Public Schools, and then there was an organization that focused on the arts and making sure that schools had lost funding for the arts, that they were able to continue arts programs. I then became an entrepreneur, but I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. Being an entrepreneur is being a professional listener and a professional problem solver. And so I worked with communities during the pandemic to really think about how we build differentiated online learning. And it was an incredible experience that used technology as a conduit to get kids learning in their environment to make sure that they were work using. All of their skills, gross motor, emotional you name it. It was really about the whole child and the whole learning experience and differentiating that. And so we worked really hard on that. It was a company that started as a grassroots thing here out of Boulder, out of Techstars, and turned into a global company. And it was truly an incredible time in my life. But in that I really miss the part of being close. To those early families that helped me build Beanstalk, and they helped me build it because together we worked on solving the problems that they were facing because we are only as good as we are the people we are listening to and solving problems for. And so I wanted to get back to that and that's what led me to becoming a paraprofessional. A one-on-one special ed paraprofessional working with the district, some of the district's most vulnerable kids. And, I saw firsthand what was going on in our school district, the lack of resources, the lack of support, and I believe strongly that education is the great equalizer. And right now it feels like it might be one of the last great equalizers with this current administration. And I felt that it was time to step up to have a bigger voice and to fight for every single child, not just those that I was working with on a daily basis.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 3:48

Thank you so much, Amy. And I love to hear about your ed tech background. My day job for the last many years has been working in the ed tech space, so would love to have a whole nother conversation about yeah, your ed tech work and how that, translates to leadership and school board. But we won't do that today'cause our listeners are not necessarily interested in the ed tech piece, but they're very interested in the school board research right now. But hopefully that will change. We also forgot to mention, or I forgot to mention that you were also endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, so congratulations. Thank you. What does that endorsement mean to you? And can you talk about, that process and maybe what are the other organizations you were seeking to when an endorsement from coming up on this coming up to this November?

Amy Klein Molk: 4:30

Sure. Teachers to me, are the backbone of our education system. Without them we are nothing. They are people who worked tirelessly to ensure that our children are getting the very best education. And I have worked with some of the best teachers and I am just so inspired every day. So when I started this journey, I thought a lot about the stakeholders. That's something I always do as putting on my entrepreneur. Problem solver hat is who are the stakeholders and how do we best represent them? And so obviously the most important stakeholder are children. And there are many others. But after our students and their families and communities come, our teachers who are the ones who are actually in the classroom every day doing the hard work. And so my values are very much aligned with that of the teacher's union. And that was an endorsement that was extremely important to me. It was the the only way I was going to run is if I had the support of the teachers. And that helped me make my decision.

Alan Gottlieb: 5:31

Great. Thanks. You talked about. Having a passion for helping all kids and that's one of the reasons you ran. It's a kind of fortuitous timing, our interview with you because just this week that this year's CMAs results came out, and I haven't had a time to dive really deeply into them, but certainly I've looked at'em some and looked at'em compared to last year. The best way to describe it is I don't know exactly how the district is spinning it at this moment, but it's very flat and the achi and the gaps between low income kids of color and in particular more affluent white kids remain at about 50 percentage points. So I'm just curious. To get your take on the current state of student learning. At least it's measured by this test. But more generally as well in, in DPS and how you think that needs to be addressed by the board and by the administration.

Amy Klein Molk: 6:19

Yeah, absolutely. I saw that as well. And it. It is a place where there is a tremendous amount of opportunity for us to do some hard work and close that gap and it must be done. I think that we as a district have been working hard to take steps in the right direction, and I am really excited to get on the board and. Take that even further. It's something not only that we see through our test scores, but just something that I experienced firsthand being in the classroom, watching the way that that our school has really, our school system in so many ways has become very segregated. And it is something that I am very much going to fight to to fix. It's extremely important to me.

Alan Gottlieb: 7:03

Just I'm the issue of segregation integration in schools. That's been a big interest of mine for a really long time. Yeah. When you say segregated, are you talking about that actually when you go into a classroom, the schools in different parts of town have very different looking kinds of kids? Or do you mean segregated in some other way? Just trying to get some clarification.

Amy Klein Molk: 7:20

No that, that's what I mean. And there's a 2020 report, I don't know if you've read it from CU Denver talking about how Denver Public Schools is one of the most segregated. School districts in the country. And here we are in a, in a place where we tend to have similar political beliefs and similar values. And to me it's unacceptable. And that's what I'm talking about, Alan is really that, that the way that we've we've built out our choice system and the way that we have set up our school boundaries and lots of different things that have created segregation within our schools.

Alan Gottlieb: 7:54

Just as an aside, I'm so old that I was covering DPS for the Denver Post back in the mid nineties when the court order was lifted and the decision was made by that school board to go back to a system of neighborhood schools, which did resegregate the district pretty drastically. And it was interesting because the decision was made with a lot of community pressure, and that pressure did not only come from. People in places like Bromwell, country club neighborhood who wanted their neighborhood schools full of affluent white children back. But it was also coming from communities of color who had been ti who were tired of their kids being bused outta their neighborhoods. So there was a, maybe it's something people regret now, but it was a pretty wide, widely supported decision at that time. After 20 years of busing.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 8:35

I love when Alan talks about what he was doing in the nineties or the eighties and stuff and how, we are a diverse podcast. Two, two of us as co-host.'cause when I was, when busting ended, I actually had just started elementary school and it wasn't bused, but just a couple of years before we were getting bused all over the place from Southwest Denver. So Amy, thank you so much for raising that. And I do have a follow up question on that as well. There's two, two things I wanna ask about. One is. There's a Denver School coordinating committee with Denver City Council, members of the school board that are really trying to work together to tackle problems that are, cross city and impacting students in different places. And I believe that certainly like housing segregation, some of the issues that you raise are part of that committee. So one, my first question is, how would you think about working with the city to help solve some of that?'cause some of it is. System wide even be, yes, in my opinion, even beyond Denver public schools. And then the second question to that is, as a school board member, you would be responsible for redrawing di dis or I'm sorry, you would be, you would have the ability to redraw school boundaries. And I know that's something that current school board member Scott Erman has taken on. So we'd just love to understand how you would approach the boundaries. So first the city question, and then the second is like. How would you even start with re redrawing the boundaries when families, moved sometimes specifically to be at that school and possibly drawing them out of it?

Amy Klein Molk: 9:59

Yeah. To quickly answer your first question about working with with the city, I really believe as going back to my values, we have to really talk about all the stakeholders and all the issues at hand, right? When we look at big problems, normally there's many different factors that are playing into those big problems, and there's not one fix. We all have to come together and can we influence each other and support each other and work hard together? Yes, all those things are true, and that's what I love to do is tackle big problems by coming together and looking at how we need to think about it on the big, broad level because. These are not bandaid solutions. These are problems that we really need to look at holistically. And so I really welcome that opportunity to ju jump in and dive in with multiple stakeholders to see how we work. And to answer your question about oh my gosh. Boundary line school boundaries. Yes. Thank you. School boundaries and director Esther's kind of backing, I don't know if you wanna say backing, but diving into that piece a bit more. Yeah. It is really tricky and we ha it is again, something, not to be a broken record, but I just so believe in bringing community together and allowing community to talk and voice their concerns. And it's something that really I deal with. I live in the Park Hill neighborhood and if you look at the Park Hill neighborhood, we are. Very much the problem. We, you've got one school that is busting at the seams that is absolutely, doing a fantastic job in terms of numbers and all the things that we might measure a school against. And then you have other schools that are really struggling with enrollment that are right down the street. And then another one that literally just. Closed. And to me that is really frustrating. And I think there are some things at play that have created that. Like you said, people moving to places because of boundary lines. But when we look at a vibrant neighborhood like Park Hill or we look at a vibrant neighborhood like Central Park, or we look at a vibrant neighborhood, anywhere really in the district, because you think about the communities, right? We're talking about the Southwest and the Northwest, and and. Every direction. We have vibrant communities and within those communities we need to have amazing schools that support. All of the community so that we have great new neighborhood schools. So coming back to Park Hill, which I know you know deeply because it's my area we have to look at that. We have to look at how we change people's perception of what it means to send their kids to a quote unquote good school. And how do we. How do we staff our schools in a way where our leaders feel safe, our teachers feel safe. They feel like they are, they're taken care of by the district, and they have the resources they need to succeed. And that is just something that we're gonna have to do. And I'm not willing. I am, I'm not afraid to have that conversation, but we need to bring in all the stakeholders and we need to be really smart about it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 12:57

Thanks so much Jamie. Yeah. And then one last follow up on that and then I'll turn it over to Alan.'Cause we're already out of order, so apologies for that. You had mentioned enrollment and obviously as the at large member, if you were elected, there are pockets of our city that are having significant declining enrollment, other pockets that are growing. So as that large member, you're going to have to represent all of those constituents, not just constituents in one region. There are different schools of thought as to why we have declining enrollment, why we need to close schools. I would just love to hear your perspective about why are we in this problem to begin with the declining enrollment and potentially needing to close schools? And how would you approach that if you were, if the superintendent came to you and said, we have a list of schools recommending to close.

Amy Klein Molk: 13:38

Yeah, so I think it's really important that we look at all of Denver. I've been out in the community pretty much everywhere. I can share my personal experiences and what I see around me, but really at the end of the day, like you said, I'm representing. All of Denver, and I can't obviously live in all of Denver, but I will be in all of Denver, which I am. And so when I am in different neighborhoods talking to different people, I, the same thing keeps coming back is that people want great neighborhood district run schools and that they really want to be able to lean in and trust their teachers. To represent their community and to have teachers that reflect the values of their community and who can help guide their children. It's what all of us want as parents. It's not, specific to any given neighborhood. So that's what I'm hearing while I'm out all over Denver. And so that's really what I am turning towards and I'm looking at is I'm, as I'm hearing what people think the solution might be for them. Then I'm diving deeper into that to look at, okay, why do they feel that way? What schools are options for them? There are some neighborhoods where there really isn't a district run school right now. And so I'm trying to figure that out. That's part of this listening tour that I am on as a candidate, and I'm really excited to dive into that. I think there's some incredible opportunity to move us forward.

Alan Gottlieb: 15:03

Great. I'm actually gonna ask a different question than when I planned'cause it follows really well on what you were just saying, which was you emphasize very strongly district run neighborhood schools. What's your view on charter schools as part of the overall educational ecosystem and, being perhaps in some ways the defacto neighborhood schools in places where there isn't much else offered? Are you a supporter of charters? Are you agnostic about charters? Just and innovation, school innovation zones as well. Just interested in where you come down on that.

Amy Klein Molk: 15:31

Absolutely. I was just talking to a parent whose child goes to the Denver Language School and that is their neighborhood school and Absolutely. I think and same with, when I'm over in central Park that, that community loves their innovation zone. It's thriving, they're doing amazing work. And for me, at the end of the day, it's about transparency and accountability. And so as long as we are holding our schools to the same. Set of values, transparency, making sure that they're held accountable, making sure that they are, doing what we expect of them. Then I think we really just have to look at it at at an individual level of if that school is serving its community, and if it's delivering on the promises that it has set out to deliver.

Alan Gottlieb: 16:15

Do you think that charter schools are somehow less accountable than district run schools? Or do you see them just as having different kinds of accountability?

Amy Klein Molk: 16:23

Sure. I think you can argue that both ways, and I think that's something that's really exciting about coming onto the board is being somebody who can listen and hear both sides. I think anytime you're waiving you're waiving something we get into a place of, I want to ask why is that necessary? I understand. Charter schools that deliver on promises that. Our neighborhood schools can't. I wish that wasn't the way, that's something that I really want to fight for. But like you said, there are neighborhoods that are really using some charter schools as their neighborhood schools and really excelling at that. We look at something like. Denver School of the Arts and having opportunity for kids to really explore that side of them. And that's really important. But I really do worry when we get into a situation where we are making any type of waivers. And so I'd wanna look at that and obviously, as and as we touched on it's broader. There's only, so much you can do at the school board level. Some of that is state decisions and I think we just need to really sit down and work together on that piece.

Alan Gottlieb: 17:25

Okay, thanks. We could talk about this issue all day. It's interesting and complex, but it's I wanna I want to backtrack a little and ask the question I was gonna ask before, which kind of goes back to the student achievement and the CMAs results, which is they haven't, I haven't heard any official response yet to the current CMS. Results. But the district has, in my mind, been very spin. Happy in terms of talking about student achievement as measured by standardized tests. And I'm and. Certain board members and the administration seem to try and spin it in as positive a way as possible, rather than looking at the cold hard facts and saying here's what we need to do. We, we have a long way to go. Now, obviously you don't wanna demoralize teachers, you don't wanna demoralize educators, and in fact, DPS is going out today to a couple of schools. I think it was Columbine enforce. I got a media release to celebrate incredible growth. Among a, in a few classrooms in these schools, which is great. Teachers should be celebrated for doing that. But is it the school board's job and is it the administration's job to put a happy face on something that isn't that happy? Or is it more important that they tell the hard truths and then and then present solutions? Because I see them doing the former, not the latter.

Amy Klein Molk: 18:33

We need to be talking about hard truths and we need to be talking about solutions to those hard truths, to your point a hundred percent. When we see something, positive and moving forward and there is a lot of positivity, I don't want to just, be a downer here in any way, shape or form. But yeah, our community deserves hard truths and our community deserves solutions and so that's, I agree with you.

Alan Gottlieb: 18:58

Okay, thanks.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 19:00

So much so Amy, speaking of the hard truths and maybe what I would say, is sometimes the DPS spin machine right now a lot of the DPS leadership, a lot of the incumbents are looking at the district and really touting like the success that this district's moving in the right direction, that we're doing great with student achievement, highest graduation rate, from your position where you sit, and I especially love talking to moms and parents, like, how do you see student learning? Do you agree? We're heading in the right direction. Do you think we're heading in the wrong direction? Just what's your perspective?

Amy Klein Molk: 19:37

I think there have been some steps to move in the right direction for sure. I think, coming out of the Bailey report the Raza report and what we've done to build programs and coalitions and all the different things that we've been doing that, that's all positive to me. And I really, in that sense I am pleased with some of the ways we've been moving. I think as a mom and especially yes, as a mom, a hundred percent, because I think you become a mom, and especially in my case, I feel like the day I put on my mom hat I became like a mom to all, it's that's just who I am. And so as a mom, but also as a special ed para the way we are evaluating schools and success is not looking at the whole picture, and we've got to look at that. We need to take a deep, hard look of that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 20:27

And what would add and what would that look like? Oh, there you go, Alan. We ask the same question.

Amy Klein Molk: 20:31

Again, this is one person's opinion. I'm joining a board of six others and I'm really excited to, to dive in and and work collectively as the at collectively at this. But. I, you can't, we can't just look at test scores. And when we think about reviews, we ha, one thing that comes and this is really where, having experience as a mom, having experience in a classroom and having experience as an ed tech, entrepreneur and CEOI. I see things in lots of different ways and I can really put my like corporate hat on. I know schools are not corporate. Please don't think that in any way I'm saying that, but in some ways when we're spinning things and trying to make things look good and we're, we're, it gets that vibe right, which we shouldn't have in a school district. A school district is a nonprofit organization that is. Here to make sure that every child has the best education possible. I think looking at it is saying, how do we actually evaluate the work that our teachers are doing? It can't just be based on test scores because that doesn't deliver the best outcomes ultimately for our children's success in whatever it is they're going to do in their lives. And so I really think we have to get creative on how we're reviewing. The success and what that looks like, and it, and again, it goes into that differentiated learning piece and really making sure that everything is equitable. Because what is working at one school in terms of evaluation might not work at another because we need to look at the unique needs of the community. And so that's something that's extremely important to me and that I will I will champion on the board.

Alan Gottlieb: 22:14

Okay, thanks. So obviously you have an opponent in this phrase, Amy Alex Magana who's a longtime DPS educator, principal school leader, innovation zone leader. How would you differentiate your proposed policies and your approach to being a board member from what you know of Alex, and why do you think you'd be the better choice for voters as the at large representative?

Amy Klein Molk: 22:36

Yeah, and I honestly, I have not had the pleasure of being in a formal en environment with my opponents to hear their policies. So I certainly don't want to make any assumptions about what they would be proposing. I think for me. I'm really looking at this as an opportunity to bring people together to make sure that we are working with every single stakeholder. And that goes, that is our communities, that is our kids, that is our teachers, our leaders. And like you said, even looking at our, our state leaders and our city leaders. There are so many stakeholders in this process, but for me. This is the grad great equalizer. This is us holding on to the fundamentals of a traditional public school system that our current administration is fighting so hard to break down, and we have got to fight to make sure we have an equitable experience for everyone and we cannot be. Intimidated by the Trump administration and the idea of reforming education, we must fight for equity. And I will do that. So old heartedly.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 23:54

Thanks Amy. I gosh, some of the things you're saying, I just wanna dive deeper into those, but I know we have our questions so Alan, please forgive me. I'm gonna take us on a sidetrack again here, and we're probably gonna go longer on this interview. When I hear you talk about the Trump administration and some of the things that so many people in Denver I would argue it's like a more progressive city that cares deeply about equity. We're pushing back on. It's hard for me, where I sit ideologically to see us fighting against each other, right? Like I, I would be considered more of an educational reformer. I support charter schools. I support choice. I see colleagues who are very much like pro labor unions that are maybe a little bit more concerned about choice in charter schools. And we're, we spend so much time fighting each other when, we probably agree on 95% of the things, 90% of the things. It's just we're disagreeing on a couple of these governance st styles and yeah. School models. But, I just wanna get your perspective.'cause a lot of what you're saying, I actually fully agree with how do we as a Denver community, a Denver education community, work together to fight back against. The tyranny that we're seeing the takeover the, in what I would argue right. You might disagree, like the true privatization of schools, like trying to get more vouchers, more get, getting money outta the public school system altogether. Like how would you approach that? It's something that, that I'm really disheartened that we haven't done a better job of coming together.

Amy Klein Molk: 25:20

Yeah, I am. So you're asking specifically how we I would bring people together? Yeah. Or,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 25:26

Or is that the right thing? Is it like, ev we all should just dig our heels in and fight our own battles? Or is it and may maybe there's a place for that. I don't know. Yeah. Or do we think that there's co more collective power? And this is a leading question obviously. Is it reflective power in coming together to fight against a bigger problem?

Amy Klein Molk: 25:42

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Now more than ever, we need to come together. That's just the bottom line. We are all in this together and we might not agree on everything, but that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm saying about joining a group of six other people, and that is what is so beautiful about this, is that we can come together to really make change. I think when we hold on so hard to a belief system and we're not able to listen. To the counter argument, that's when we get into trouble. And I think so often in general, this is not necessarily about the school board, but so often we really have to think about, and we have to look at who is trying to get in the race across the board, whether it be school board, whether it be at a city level, a state level, a federal level. What is their intention? Is it about them? Is there some type of personal, thing that they're trying to combat. Is there one person, is there one party? Is there one philosophy that they're trying to fight against? Or are they coming at this for the greater good? And I think that would be one of the most important messages that I would wanna send out. Being a person who now. Has a voice to whatever extent I have a voice is think about that. Think about how you want to bring people together. Think about how you ask your children to be good listeners, to be good friends, to be good citizens. You don't have to agree with everyone. You don't have to be friends with everyone, but you need to be kind and you need to be respectful, and you need to really consider other people's perspectives. That's, the definition of empathy. Yeah I, it doesn't answer your question of exactly what we do to combat things that we need to be fighting against, but I think the overall message is we need to come together and I believe in that wholeheartedly. Thanks.

Alan Gottlieb: 27:42

And, good luck if you get on the board because it's not been easy with the current cast of characters on there. Although I think there's gonna be wholesale change one way or another, there's gonna be enough change that, that, that could change. And that kinda leads into the next question logically, which is the current board majority voted recently to extend superintendent Alex Me's contract before he'd undergone a really thorough evaluation. Curious what you thought of that decision and then I'm just gonna piggyback the sort of follow up question on it now, which is. Marrero has also asked the board to center John Youngquist, partly because he thinks Youngquist is after his job, partly because he says that Youngquist has said things that are racially insensitive. And I'm just curious, first of all, what what did you think about the evaluation decision and then did that. Action on the part of the superintendent seemed like an appropriate thing to do on from your perspective.

Amy Klein Molk: 28:31

So I believe in a thorough review process as I was suggesting. I also think we should really think about a 360 review process that involves. All stakeholders. There would be a community component, there would be a teacher component, there would be a board component there. That, that, that's how we truly evaluate people. Now, of course, like you're not gonna please every stakeholder that has a, a say in it, but that's something I believe in and I'd really love to bring that to the board. I personally, if I were on the board and I were making the decision to to. Extend anyone's contract, I would want a thorough review done before I would be able to make that decision. That's me personally and how I lead. So that would be my ask of my fellow board members. Can we do a thorough review before we make any type of extensions? I believe that is just best practices in general. That's the answer to that question. And in terms of the ask to sensor director Youngquist that's under, independent invest review, whatever you call it. And I believe it's in, in independent review right now. And I'm not gonna comment on that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 29:42

Okay. Thanks. Of course. Thanks so much, Amy. So the board operates under, I think what Alan and I agree, is a very stringent version of policy governance. How would you propose revising the current policy governance model to maybe give more authority to the board without, getting overly involved and in the weeds, still staying at that governing level without getting into like personnel or, do you agree that it's fine as it is.

Amy Klein Molk: 30:10

I have worked with boards my entire career as an advocate as answering to a board. I've had, I've worn that CEO hat and so I know how incredible boards can be in the success of an organization. So I do believe that there needs to be a very clear I believe in policy governance in this particular, or type of organization. And I also have begun to really dig into policy governance. I've I studied policy governance when I was studying public policy. I've read books on it. And I also want to dive really deeply into where the creativity can lie within it, because within any type of governance on a board, there is always room to think about how we want to utilize it to. Serve the needs of our of our board and our organization. And so I would really want to dive in with my fellow board members to see what is working, what they think is working and what's not working. And I am uniquely positioned with so much experience around boards to help think about how we can push the limit. I believe that a board can be very effective when a board has a little bit of, i'm be a board can be a little bit malleable within the organization. I, boards to me are groups of people who are experts in different ways. They represent their constituents. They're experts in what the need that we hope they're experts in what the needs and problems are that their communities are facing. And so they really need to be able to. To affect change in a respectful way that never feels like it is at all damaging to the morale of our leaders. And so it. It's a tall order, but it absolutely can be done, and I believe it can be done within the policy governance confines. We just really need to dig in and look at it and see where we want to be more malleable. And so I'm really excited about that because I have seen such successful boards and I, you guys alluded to some of the trouble that we've seen on our board. I also think we've seen a lot of great things happen on our board. But how can we use our governance to make it as strong as humanly possible so that we go back to Alexis, what we were saying, working together and really making this amazing. We don't need conflict. We don't need divide. We need to be working together. And I think for the most part that's what everybody wants.

Alan Gottlieb: 32:52

Just to get a little specific with what you just said or ask you a more specific question. For instance, under the current structure, I think it hits three board members have to request data. If or the district doesn't provide it. Talking to board members earlier this week, they hadn't seen even though. I had'em because I'm a member of the media, the CMAS scores until the district, they didn't give'em to him in advance. So I'm just curious do you think that some of this pol policy governance, the way it's currently enacted, is a little extreme in that regard and there, there should be some perhaps loosening of it so that the board can do its job effectively?

Amy Klein Molk: 33:27

I would want to ask the question of why. I don't know the why behind that. Do you know the why behind it?

Alan Gottlieb: 33:34

Yeah, I think they just don't want the I, based on my many years of watching DPS, I think there have been board members over the years who are overly demanding of staff and take up a lot of staff time asking for this, that, and the other thing. And now it's like with everything else, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme and it's like we aren't gonna give you anything unless three if you want it.'cause our staff is busy doing other stuff. That's my assessment of

Amy Klein Molk: 33:56

That's your assessment of the why. I think

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 33:57

that's fair. And by the way, I think there's, that's valid. That's like a valid reason to do that. Like you, you shouldn't overly burden the staff who have other work to do. To be honest point, it's a pendulum. And we're, we, I think we're, we do have, we happen to be on one side of that pendulum right now.

Amy Klein Molk: 34:14

Yeah, we definitely need to come back to the center. There's no question about that. Just to answer the question, we always start with the why. We always start with the why and the problem, which you both beautifully brought up. And so we start there and then we go from there. And so yeah, data's really important. Data is king. It's everything. And it goes back to also. Data is only as strong as how you're evaluating what the actual data is. But we, assuming we all are in agreement in that, then it is very important. That specific one, I wanna dive into the why. I wanna dive into the problem and then let's come up with the creative solution that works so that we can make sure that we get the access to things we need without burdening anyone. There's definitely a way I'm sure of it and I will uncover it when I am on the board. Do not worry about that.

Alan Gottlieb: 35:04

Okay, thanks. Last question, I think from us, now Amy, it's just one about building or rebuilding community trust. I think. I think for instance, the superintendent contract extension, which Scott Erman, director Scott Erman said, it does not involve, does not require community input. I think that damaged community trust, I think the curtailing of public comment severely over the last year or two, so that now it's so short, it's. The number of people who can speak on an issue and how long they can speak for has all been shortened has hurt community trust. So first of all, what do you think of those specific examples I gave and whether that's something that should change, especially the public comment. And what would you do to try and start to rebuild community trust in the board and the district?

Amy Klein Molk: 35:46

First of all, it all starts with transparency. We have to be transparent. It goes back to what you asked me earlier, do we have to sometimes just say the hard truth and have be solutions oriented? And the answer is yes to that. That's how you build trust. People don't always want to be told that everything's fine. They know when things are not fine. They know when we need to be working harder and we need to be making change. So if things are not fine, we just need to be honest about it. And that's really, a lot of times that, that can be, you could spin that in so many different ways. To some people it may be fine, to others it may not. And so it's really bringing the stakeholders together and saying like, how do we want to present this? And how are we being fair and accurate and transparent with our communities? And that is what I will do on the board. I will hold everybody accountable to being transparent. And so there will be a lot of listening as to what people think and how they are affected. But the transparency is the key.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 36:47

Thanks so much, Amy.

Alan Gottlieb: 36:48

Where would that come down? Like on, in terms of doing away with the limits on public comment or loosening those up?'Cause I think that's something that actually really irked a lot of people who felt like they could no longer express their sentiments to the board about it. Particular issues.

Amy Klein Molk: 37:02

Yeah. The. We have to listen to our community. Our community has to have a voice and they have to be able to utilize that, right? In whatever capacity. So again, going back to the why did we do this? And if it is something that it was just, I think there are situations where, public comment is. Extremely important. And also we need to be able to understand that there are other ways that we might be able to gather information and give people platforms. I think technology can be really helpful in these things. I think that, but. In a meeting, of course we have to, there's only a finite amount of time, and so we have to be, we have to be conscientious of that. But I think that there are many ways that we can give people a voice and that every every parent, every community member. Has the right to to have a voice. And so we'll work really hard to figure out how we do that in a way that that makes our community feel like they're getting what they need. And if they're not getting what they need, then we need to figure out what we do to make sure they do. And we'll work together as a board to figure that out.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 38:12

Okay. Thanks. Thanks Amy. Those are all of the questions we have, but we always want to give a chance for the candidates to give closing remarks to our listeners. So the floor is yours.

Amy Klein Molk: 38:22

Thanks so much for this opportunity. It's been really fun chatting with you guys and I know we'll have many conversations and maybe get into the weeds a little bit more. I am a DPS mom who cares very deeply about education and fighting for equity in our public school system. We have to fight against what's going on at a federal level and what is at stake right now, and I will work. Tirelessly to protect our our public school system, to work with our community, to work with our teachers, and to make sure that our children have the very best outcomes possible. Thanks and gotta plug my website. Of course. Sorry guys. You can learn more about Amy four, number four denver dot com. Thanks, Amy four denver.com. Thank it. Thank you so much, Amy.

Alan Gottlieb: 39:14

Thank you so much and that will do it for this episode of the podcast. We have some really interesting guests coming up. We still have a couple of incumbent board members who we have not gotten on yet that we're still trying to convince to come on. I dunno if they will. But that's it for this episode and we'll be back in the next week to 10 days. Take care everybody. Bye.