Episode 24: With Nicholas Hernandez on why 3 DPS board incumbents refuse to engage

Transcript

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 0:08

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We're so excited to have a special guest with us who I will announce in just a moment. During this episode, Alan and I will be talking about the three incumbents we have in this race. We have a board election coming up in just a few short weeks. And the three incumbents who are currently running for reelection we're all elected in 2021. And they're being asked to defend their records and prove whether or not they've been effective the last four years on the board. It is hard to defend your record though when you won't answer some of these tough questions. Each of them have declined to come on the podcast. And so let's talk about who these people are. So we're specifically talking about Scott Esserman, the current at large school board member. He is switching race as an actually running for district three, which is the east side of town. Michelle Qba, who is in District four running for reelection in her seat, which is in far northeast and near Northeast Denver. And then Sochi Gaan, who is in district two, which is south and Southwest Denver. Not only have these three refused to come on the podcast, they're, they've also refused to attend the 10 which is transformed education. Now, the candidate forums next week, or the candidate forum that took place earlier this past week. How is this really showing any public accountability? And I think they're really doing themselves a disservice by not going out in spaces where families and community are showing up. So with that being said, we are so excited to welcome my good friend Nicholas Hernandez, the executive Director of 10 and 10, collective Impact onto the podcast. Thanks for joining us, Nicholas.

Nicholas Hernandez: 1:44

What's going on y'all? Thank you all for having me back. Appreciate it. Excited to be here.

Alan Gottlieb: 1:48

You're our first repeat guest, Nicholas. You should feel deeply honored.

Nicholas Hernandez: 1:52

I just can't, I can't imagine how many people were unavailable today that you made your way all the way down on all of the lists to get to me as a repeat, but I'll take it by default.

Alan Gottlieb: 2:01

It's peak Aspen season and everybody's up and mouths ah, checking. That's fair.

Nicholas Hernandez: 2:03

That's fair.

Alan Gottlieb: 2:04

Okay. But we, we feel pretty good about having you on, I have to say. I just wanna expand a little bit on, before we get into a conversation on what Alexis said. I just to point, erba were elected in the fall of 2021 and their heralded the. Sort of the beginning of the worst dysfunctional period I've ever seen on this Denver School Board. And I've been following DPS for 30 years from the first day they were elected the new members and some of the older members stage de coup against the then President Kerry Olson, who later became president again and against Scott Baldman, who was poised to become treasurer and put. Sochi Gaan in the president's chair and Scott Erman and the treasurer's chair. This was all around who'd hadn't voted Dentsu or disapproved of Aon Anderson and some of the stuff that was going on with the investigation into him back then. So that's was the very beginning. The Heralded Union super majority came in with a bang and started infighting immediately. The other thing that's easy to forget, because so much crazy stuff has happened in DPS since these three were elected. Is that the board in one of this new group's first meetings in the, in December of 2021, voted to extend the contract of Alex Marrero, who had been in town at that point, all of three or four months. There was, people are still fuming about the recent contract extension, which was also ran through, but Ros contract with extended with for absolutely no reason by brand new board members. Without any public input right at the start of their tenure. So there's a lot to talk about and unpack here about the record of these three incumbents. And we would've loved to have them come on and talk about their record with us. But they were too scared to come into a, what they think is a hostile environment. And I guess they would probably say they're not scared. They just they view us with contempt. Sochi Gaan said that we don't align with her values and that's why she wouldn't come on. So anyway, nicholas, what's your take on the fact that they won't come to your forum? That's gonna be attended by a lot of community members next Tuesday.

Nicholas Hernandez: 4:07

Yeah. I think I got, I received a similar message that the forum was not in line with values. And that they were worried about biases. They were worried that we couldn't answer and ask fair questions because we had already, because the political arm of our organization, the 10 Collective Impact, had made some political endorsements already and endorsed frankly, their opponents. I'd hate to say I would be lying if I said I was surprised. I was definitely disappointed. One of the things we talk about on our team is the forums really do matter because it's one of the few opportunities that. It's one of the few opportunities that community gets to engage with political candidates. Not on the candidate, not on the not on the parties terms, but on their own terms. So this last week we, we fed folks. We had an open mic question answer session. We had community partners come in and ask questions. I was cognizant of we are not a neutral political actors, but ultimately we wanna have a fair conversation. We wanna have a robust conversation and the same questions that we had planned to ask everybody. And we'll ask everybody. Were the same questions we asked both Alex and Mariana. And it's important for folks to engage, right? You gotta hear you. I think it's important for community to be able to hear. What's your plan? What's your vision? Why you, but I think more importantly for incumbents what have you done for me? Like, why should we want another four more years of you? And unfortunately, unfortunately they opted out of that opportunity. And that, and I will say that like the part of that was really hard was that like they cited the endorsements as like the rationale. Both candidates, all three candidates that, that we're talking about. It did not choose to participate in the endorsement process. So chicken before the self-fulfilling prophecy, we didn't endorse you because you didn't participate and you're not coming because we didn't endorse you. Never had the opportunity to tell them we weren't gonna endorse them. They just didn't participate. Unfortunately it is what it is. And ultimately I think it's it's moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas. It's community that lose out on that conversation.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 6:05

Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that. Did any of the other candidates who are endorsed by the DCTA, for example, and not including Sochi, did they join in.

Nicholas Hernandez: 6:16

DCTA candidates did not opt in. Okay. Okay. We didn't get an explanation as to why. There's a couple folks who I think had other prior engagements and I'm a shout out Debra,'cause she was on her way. And then ultimately because some health reasons, like minutes before we were getting ready to start was like, I can't make it. And so like she was genuinely giving it a, the good old college try to be there. We really do appreciate that. And made sure to tell the audience that like she was doing everything in her power to show up. That's great. But no D CTAs current slate of candidates didn't endorse or didn't show up. And DCTs, previous slate of candidates didn't show up.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 6:50

That's not super surprising and what I've been reflecting on a lot since Sochi, Kai Tan got the endorsement of DCTA she's the only incumbent. I just wanna point out to our listeners, the only incumbent in this race who got the endorsement of the DCTA, these three incumbents are not running as a slate. What I find really interesting, and somebody pointed this out to Alan recently, and he was just sharing with me before we recorded. That Rob Gould, when he came on the podcast, he said that when we specifically asked him, why aren't you endorsing incumbents? He made some comment along the lines of, we wanna support you who are support people who are productively managing conflict with board members and with their colleagues. And yet they endorsed Sochi Gaan, who I would argue would. Led most of the dysfunction and when she was first elected, the, in those first two years, woo. It was like watching reality TV on some of those. Some of those board meetings. I just remember texting with people in real time are like, this is what world is this that we're living in now.

Nicholas Hernandez: 7:52

I think a healthy disagreement around policy is probably helpful. I think that's how we get from point A to point B in a place that's productive. That is not what we experienced. Going back to 2001 and over the last few years. Is policy conflict. I think we had just genuine interpersonal drama. Is probably the best way to, to say that. And yeah I remember seeing some of those conversations and being like, y'all can't work this out before the meeting starts. You can't have a conversation with each other it makes sense that they don't wanna have a conversation with us, right? I think, knowing the two of you and listening to this pod, y'all have always been fair. You've always been very clear on, the tough questions you want to ask. And I think what I've always committed to is school board members and superintendents and folks will never be surprised by the work that we do. I think we've stood on our values since day one has been very clear about what we care about, so it's. So

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 8:43

Thank you Nicholas. And speaking of being fair, I do want to give kudos on some of the things that this board has accomplished over the last four years. Some of them, they have taken lead on. Some of it I would say is. Continuing good work that had happened previously, but that they haven't gotten rid of it. So I'll just name some of those things really quick because I do think there, there is good that has come out of this board that, that is worth celebrating. So first they have raised the minimum wage for DPS hourly employees at$20 an hour. We all know our city is incredibly expensive especially expensive for working families, so that's a big win for our hourly workers here in Denver. They have maintained welcoming environments for diverse student populations and have actually gone far beyond what I was would've expected a school district to do, and really showed up and stood up to the Trump administration on supporting migrant students with. The incredible amount of federal immigration enforcement we're seeing in our city and in the surrounding areas. So big, kudos to the board and the superintendent for that. I can't remember who co-sponsored, I think it was. I think it was Scott and Michelle, but Nicholas, hopefully you can correct me if I'm wrong. They co-sponsored the dyslexia screening that now takes place and is mandatory in, I'm forgetting what grade, but in early grades. First grade. Second grade, sorry, y'all, somebody knows and they'll write a down and tell them what it was. They, recently, and some people will have different opinions on this, and I'm sure we'll talk about it on the podcast, but the, for the state SPF, we are now a green district in DPS, which is something to celebrate. We can talk about the inequities and the disparity, and I'm sure we'll talk about that more. But overall, we're green moving in the right direction for at least color, not other things. And I would say in the last, year or so, year and a half, we're seeing less of the. Interpersonal conflict and more productive conversations that are starting to center more on students. Not certainly where I would wanna see it. I think we could do much better as far as leading boldly and leading out front on some of these things, but I think the conversations are turning in the right directions in some ways.

Alan Gottlieb: 10:45

Yeah. Telling that to John Youngst.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 10:48

Say that again, Alan. I

Alan Gottlieb: 10:49

said try telling that to John Youngquist. Oh. Who's been a punching bag for Sochi in particular, and the superintendent. So I wouldn't agree that's completely the case. It maybe a little better than it was. The the the dysfunction twins were Sochi and Anonte Anderson and with ante off the board. I think that's helped a little bit, but I still feel like that underlying tension is there. I'm sorry, Nicholas, I cut you off.

Nicholas Hernandez: 11:11

No, I was gonna say, I think we no longer have the highest rated reality TV in Denver. At school board. But, that's a, to me, that's a relatively low bar of excellence, but I think you're right. Like they stood, they've stood up for a diverse set of students. And I do gotta give, the district as a whole, maybe Marrero, certainly teachers, certainly school leaders, really mobilizing and welcoming and putting in a ton of work around our migrant students and newcomers. That was rough on a lot of schools. They had to absorb a lot of students very quickly and provide a lot of wraparound services. And I know that there was a ton of conversations about how to best support them. I would be careful and, offering too much praise to folks who, who thought about it versus the folks who actually rolled up their sleeves. But yeah, I think it's, we're making some progress, not for kids, but like some progress.

Alan Gottlieb: 11:58

And since Alexis is being nice. Let me just balance the ledger here by talking about some of the reasons, some of the reasons I think that despite those positives, there are some things to be concerned about. I already mentioned the dysfunction from day one. And they hate it when we use the term dysfunction, but it's like. Poster children for dysfunctional behavior on a school board. We could go down these very quickly. I don't want to go into'em in great detail, but there was the absolutely unfair railroading of Kurt Dennis, the principal of McAuliffe International School for using a I'm trying to remember the proper term for it. The, a room for a deescalation room, that's what it is for kids who are having big emotional outbursts and making the, putting a lock on the door on from the, on the outside, which was a mistake. But other than, done for very justifiable reasons, as he said on this podcast earlier this year. Just and some of these. Incumbents led the I can't help but use the term witch hunt, even though I hate it because Donald Trump uses it. And I don't wanna say anything Donald Trump says, but they really went after Kurt in a very unfair way and convicted him before any kind of any kind of investigation had happened. And really besmirched his name and he's gonna be a rich man someday because. He hired a very sharp lawyer who is now suing the district, and it's gonna take a while to work its way through. But so there's that there. Don't forget your

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 13:16

friends. Don't forget your friends Kurt,

Alan Gottlieb: 13:19

when become a witch guy.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 13:20

That's right.

Alan Gottlieb: 13:21

That's right. Br they ban, they banned another one of our recent guest, Brenda Pryor, because he's very outspoken and said some very out things in a very aggressive manner. And so they just decided to tell him he couldn't go to DPS school, that he couldn't be in. Had to go to board meetings or speak at board meetings. The courts threw that out. Slapped DPS maybe more across the face than on the wrist on that one. There's the, kristen Fry, who's a parent who is suing the district and certain board members because she leaned over and said something to, was it Hashem and Hashem Coates? And he claimed that she used a racial slur, which she claimed she didn't, and no one else has said that they actually heard her use. Then these board members came out and, made very strong statements against her without, again, weighing any evidence. There's the East High School and in

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 14:08

that one, sorry, Alan and that one specifically, in addition to the racial slur, Hasheem claimed that I believe she, she assaulted him by like grabbing him on the shoulder. But then a couple of weeks later, video came out that basically refuted that, and you could see she never touched him. She just leaned over, made a quick comment. And no, no such thing existed. But even before they actually did an investigation before the video came out. They very quickly had the board, some of the board members basically stand up in support of hashem and drag this woman's name through the mud. Only to find out actually it was unsubstantiated.

Alan Gottlieb: 14:41

During a televised board meeting.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 14:42

Yeah. Oh, yes, that's right.

Alan Gottlieb: 14:44

That's right. Go back and look at it on it used to be board docs. It's something else now. And then of course there's the East High School shooting, the removal of these school resource officers, the subsequent East high school shooting, and then the secret executive session, which was found to be illegal, and the district was forced to release the tape of that. So there's just so many and there's a, this. We could go on and on about the lack of transparency and the absolute lack of apology for that lack of transparency, including, but not limited to really curtailing public comments. So the public really doesn't have much chance anymore to speak. Its mind to the board. It's so curtailed now that it's almost meaningless. So those are just a few of the things that this. This group of incumbents has been at the center of in the last four years, just in case people needed a reminder. And I'm sure that list is far from complete.

Nicholas Hernandez: 15:36

Yeah. I think when I, when you running down some of that, I had forgotten some of those things. I think what I see is like that through line is folks don't take any action unless they absolutely have to. Nobody's being proactive. Nobody's addressing the needs of kids. Nobody's addressing the concerns of parents. The stuff around on McAuliffe, like that wasn't the first time a parent had said something of the sort. It wasn't until it reached this fever pitch and they were forced one way or another to make a decision. I think about y'all mentioned that, like the school performance stuff, right? Like folks have been sharing concerns, folks have been talking about some of the problems happening in Denver. Nothing gets done and there is no willingness to take action unless they absolutely get to a last resort. And like to me that's a failure of leadership. And that kind of is the through line to everything you just shared. Brandon Pryor was talking about the academic treatment, about the treatment, about the social emotional wellness and about the academic outcomes of black kids in the far northeast and across Denver for years and. And got tired of it. And then when he started calling him out by name, folks said you can't come anymore. They didn't actually solve the root problem, right? They, at no point have they tried, taken the steps to address the concerns and the root causes of what families and communities continue to tell them about the problem, the safety stuff, right? I think families have been saying for a number of years and I have my own personal, I have organizational feelings about these, the SROs and I think it was ultimately probably a good move, right? I don't believe more cops in schools is the right move, but there was also supposed to have been a comprehensive working group to create a safety plan for the entire district. And that never happened because of the lack of leadership at the board level. And that is just a small example. Of how our elected leaders and folks who are looking to do it to run it back, to be elected leaders again, have demonstrated they're not up to the job.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 17:31

I wanna talk a little bit more about the safety thing, Nicholas. After the e, the Evergreen shooting that took place a couple of weeks ago, my oldest is in 11th grade, or I'm sorry, 11th. He is 11 in sixth grade. Excuse me. And. It was the first time we've actually spoken about school shootings, and I was not prepared to have that conversation. But I think we were listening to, CPR on the way to school and he overheard, something about it. And so we talked about it and he was, he had a lot of hard questions. And as 11 year olds do went a little, off, off on some of these questions where I was like, oh shit. Like he's, he is getting really deep. And I just was reflecting after the fact and I came home and there's really no resource for parents to go on to the DPS website or DPS resources on like how to talk to your kids about school shooting. How to give parents assurance like, here's what. What the plan is if, somebody comes onto the school campus, like I'm talking about, like obviously physical violence or harm with a shooting. But even beyond that, like I, I actually couldn't tell you right now, and maybe it does exist. I assume it does, but. I couldn't tell you like what the whole child plan is for the district, what the social emotional plan is, the mental health and wellbeing. And I huge shout to the individual teachers who are figuring this out on their own. My youngest, who's in second grade his teacher is so good about posting, on class Dojo, which is the app they use, which that's a tan, a tangent. I have five different apps for different communications. Gotta solve that. But she does, if not daily, like several times a week meditation with the kids. And I'm like, I don't think the district is telling her to do that. She is just like showing the value of meditation, having the kids do self-reflection, like have quiet time and like kudos to her not having the researchers from the district. She's figuring out on her own.

Nicholas Hernandez: 19:25

I think safety is something that the district has a responsibility to take the lead on. And I think we've heard the board, we've heard the superintendent talk about Hey here's our game. Here's a framework, and then it's gonna be up to schools. I think at this point, like it's too important. To leave that in the unknown. I think the reason that school boards exist to a certain extent, is there's a single point of contact for community members. That's the job of the superintendent to be the face of this district, and it's his board's responsibility to back them up and support that. And so if you're gonna say safety's gonna be up to the individual school, like that's not good enough. And I think whole child includes that. I can't imagine what it's like to see the amount of school shootings that happen on social media on TV to be a young person and go through, not even a school shooting, but just a lockdown drill, let alone a real one. I can't imagine the level of anxiety and fear that causes and the ripple effect. And you know what, that we pulled school resource officers out of schools in 2020. Or 2021. Does anybody remember? 2020, I think it was 20, 20. 25 years later, we have still not had a comprehensive plan to keep kids safe as a result of that. In full transparency, like me and my team worked on that. We worked with community partners who had been leading that work for years and supported that, and there was a commitment made to have a comprehensive game plan. When we bypass that timeline with this current, with our, with members of our current board. We should have said, Nope. We're going back to the beginning. We're gonna put SROs back in school until we have a plan. If this is the policy, if this is the direction we're moving, we have to have a game plan before we just make a change. And we made the change without a game plan. And I think that has fundamentally made our schools less safe.

Alan Gottlieb: 21:13

Alexis, I know you wanted to, and I'd like you to get into this if you would, wanted to talk about how we've gotten to the place where the board speaks with one voice and doesn't Yep. And doesn't and dissenting voices are not welcome at all. And how we got there and how these incumbents own some of that and should be held accountable for it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 21:32

Yeah. So I hear oftentimes this critique that the board, they're just like reading the company line. I certainly feel that way sometimes and disappointed in Marlene, I see her doing that quite a bit. Where she's, it feels like she's just reading off the talking points of the district and isn't like coming up with her own views on things. And I'm sorry, Marlene, I love you. But that just, it, this what it feels like, and so there's this critique that, the board is standing behind policy or hiding behind policy governance, that they're just, do everything they can to support Morero. But they also, even when they try to stand up against the district, which they are the elected officials, remember these are the people we, the people voted in. We did not vote in Morero. We voted in our elected officials. So when they do stand up. To their direct report, to their subordinate, they are shut down. And Alex Madero, our superintendent, is one of the most politically savvy superintendents. The country, I would argue. And so when John Youngquist started, going out here and disagreeing, he was asked to be censured. Now there's an investigation.

Alan Gottlieb: 22:42

Marrero asked him to be censured,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 22:44

correct? Just to be clear. Yes. Thank you. So the superintendent asked that his bosses censure, one of his, one of his bosses which is wild. I've never heard that before. Then Kimberly, SIA, I think the critique of her also, adore Kimberly, she's my elected and have a lot of respect for her is that she's too quiet on the board. But I think, if I'm Kimberly, I can't speak for her, but if I'm Kimberly, I would look at what's happening to John, look at, where Marlene's falling, and it's like what's the value of me speaking out if I'm just gonna get shut down by my colleagues or. Don't have the power to actually put anything on the agenda, but to have the power to call for these things. And so I think Kimberly's doing her best with what resources she, the few resources she has available to her. And so that, that's where we are now. But I wanna talk about it wasn't always like that. So if people have been paying attention for the last four or five years, when we were talking at the beginning about the incredibly dysfunctional board four years ago. When you still had Anonte Anderson and Sochi together on the board and you had Balder or Yeah. Baldman and Brad Larva. What was happening is the board member, some of them were really frustrated that director Anderson Anonte was out there, speaking out publicly and to, to his credit. People will be surprised that, I'm gonna give him a shout out. To his credit, he was his own person. He al always did like unapologetically te and he was like, he was out there doing his own thing. I would disagree with it. Board members would disagree with it, but he wasn't beholden to anyone else. He wasn't reading the district line. So what was happening behind the scenes then and sometimes publicly was Scott Baldman, not Esman, Scott Baldman was really the one crafting policy governance. So that the board would be having a more structurally of what the roles and responsibilities of the board are and. Some would argue, myself included, like it's become so bureaucratic that you're almost like stripping the ability for the board to lead as an elected offic, as elected officials because they're so restricted in what they can and cannot do. And I think that was largely because Baldman wanted to silence AE and and what's funny to me is like Erman at the time, he, I think was pushing back a lot on Baldman. And so to now see Erman. Really lean into policy governance as now a weapon and a tool for his objectives is just really interesting. And, inter that's also interesting.

Nicholas Hernandez: 25:09

I remember when you were saying that I remember I think one of the catalysts to where we're at now was director Anderson. And I really appreciated him for doing this. Was leading his own community engagement sessions, right? Like he wanted to do a schools tour. That's right. I remember him saying, I want to hit every school in DPS, not just some schools. Not just the schools. Was he. Was he at large? Yeah, he was at large at that time. So he, he was like, I have the right to go to every school. And I think, I remember some of the flare up particularly be him and Sochi about him be leading some community engagement, some community outreach, some town halls in Southwest. So yeah, maybe don't agree with him on all of the decisions that were made, but at least he showed up, right? Like at least nobody could ever say Tay didn't come around that a Deonte didn't come around and he wasn't talking to folks. At least he tried that.

Alan Gottlieb: 25:57

There's a joke in Washington DC that the most dangerous place in Washington DC is being somewhere between Chuck Schumer and a television camera. And it was like that with Aon. Yeah. So I think the impulse terrain him in a little bit because he was at the same time that you I agree with you that some of what he was doing was productive and engaging the community. He, it really was also. Trying to manage the district as a board member in ways that were inappropriate. So the impulse to try and reign that in and have some guardrails for board members was not wrong. But yeah, the way it's now being used by these incumbents to to basically make it impossible. For anything to happen or especially for descending board members to speak their mind without getting more than slapped on the wrist being, now threatened with center and being investigated for all sorts of things that seem like they're unfounded.

Nicholas Hernandez: 26:47

I can't remember who I was talking to recently, but they explained to me that policy governance can exist on a spectrum. And that we have made a deliberate decision to to govern with policy governance on one end of the spectrum that has resulted in right. A structural barrier to dissent, to, to productive conversations. I've had individual conversation with board, meeting with board members who seem frustrated by the lack of progress, by the lack of communication. And it's systemic, right? This is how it's designed, and yet it doesn't have to be. I do also say I have seen policy governance on the other side where there is like no policy governance and we see school board members getting involved in things that they have no business getting involved in. So there's gotta be a better version of this, but it certainly isn't this right. It certainly isn't the stifling of good questions and good conversation at the board level. If you're not going to facilitate and frankly welcome. Dissent and policy examination and debate on a school board. Like what's the point at that point, right? Like why do we have this? I think if we're gonna talk about like the foundations of democracy being good governance and PR and conversation reaching across lines, that's not happening and they have set up rules intentionally to stop that from happening. And I think what I hear is like community are. Community is frustrated with the lack of progress for kids. Yes. And then when you hear them dive into. The why behind that, and it goes to policy governance and it goes to these art arbitrary rules that we have created. It is incredibly frustrating for your average mom and dad who just want their kids to, to grow who, they just want their kids to make academic progress. They want their kids to be safe, and they wanna have some like basic. Core tenets of a quality life for their children for the eight hours a day they're at school. And they don't understand why we're talking about nonsense instead of talking about the root issues here. And I think that is truly the problem here,

Alan Gottlieb: 28:44

unless we forget, thank you for bringing up, our students learning or not, because the thing that ultimately. Board incumbents that are running for reelection should be held accountable for, is the progress or lack there of the school district in helping educate the students who need it the most. And I don't give a flying, I'm not gonna use the word because I would just probably bleep it out anyway, about DPS being a green school and all these board members running around in green outfits and all this stuff. It's just a bunch of, and I will say this word bullshit because the bottom line is the kids who most. Need help are not getting the help they need from the schools. And you can't hold the schools totally accountable for everything that's going wrong, but they certainly should not be acting like they've done something tremendous in terms of student learning. We've gone over this again and again on this podcast, but. Low income kids and kids of color are not getting the education they need to succeed in life from Denver public schools. And the fact that the district is green is when you re-aggregate the data. When you've got a growing number of more affluent and mostly white students in the district is gonna look better as a whole and, but the gaps remain gigantic in any. Incremental progress being made by kids of color is not enough for them ever to catch up and get out of school. Vast majority of them prepared for college and career, and so that's the bottom line of what these board incumbents should be held accountable for. Everything else in some ways is secondary

Nicholas Hernandez: 30:19

and even. Go ahead. No, anybody that's talked to me in the last few years knows that, like how strongly I feel about the decision. A couple of decisions. One, when we took away the equity bonus in the 2018, oh, contract negotiation. God. And we said, talk about that a little.'cause I

Alan Gottlieb: 30:35

don't think a lot of people

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 30:36

know that. Oh, I'm so mad about that.

Nicholas Hernandez: 30:38

It's one of those things that I will never forget. Same prior to prior to 2018, we had a bonus and incentive structure to pay teachers to teach in Title one schools and to do a really good job. So if you showed up at a Title one school to teach, you got a bonus. And then if you did really well, if your students made extraordinary growth or made above average academic progress, you pay, got paid more with the idea being that like. We are going to incentivize our best teachers to go to the places that they're gonna have the greatest impact. 2018 strike rolls around. That's one of the things we lost. And then I think 2019 rolls through and we got rid of the school performance framework and I was on the task force to evaluate that. And there was like three of us. There was like maybe four of us on that task force who said. If you don't have to like this system, but if you repeal this and we go to a state system, we will lose all insight into what is happening in our schools from an objective measure to, to how kids are performing. We will lose the insight, we will lose the data and it will be able to what? Paint all of this green. Families will lose out. Fast forward, what, five years, six years later? That's exactly what's happened. We're a green school district where the vast majority of the population, the vast majority of students of color are not meeting grade level goals. That'd be close. We have the largest, we have the largest equity gaps in the history of the district, yet we have the highest graduation rate that we've ever had. Like those two things. If the majority of your students are behind grade level, how are they graduating? If the majority of your students are far beyond behind their white peers in academic progress, how are you saying that this is a school district founded on values of equity? It's not. It can't be, by definition it cannot be. And to watch folks go out, yes. Incredible things happening in classroom. This is not about individual schools or individual teachers to watch the system go out and pat itself on the back for leaving behind the vast majority of kids across the city of Denver. Yep. Is a slap in all of our faces.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 32:49

And I Please note

Nicholas Hernandez: 32:50

that

Alan Gottlieb: 32:50

the, go ahead,

Nicholas Hernandez: 32:51

Alexis.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 32:52

Go ahead. The one thing I would disagree with, Nicholas I agree with everything except it's not about individual schools. The symptom ends up being individual schools. Yeah. Have now you have educators and I've spoken about this anecdotally when I was talking about my kids going through the school, or my oldest going through the school choice process and touring all the middle schools, but. When I was touring schools like Slavens and schools with a much higher income population in the surrounding neighborhood, the tenure at those schools is incredible. There's like very low teacher turnover. But then when we went to other schools that had a more diverse and economically diverse, racially diverse student population it was. Far higher the turnover rates of those educators. So it, I'm with you Nicholas. That was one of the things I has made me probably in, in the last 10, 15 years. The most mad is getting rid of that equity bonus to incentivize educators to work in higher need, higher poverty. Schools and get paid well to do it, especially if they're able to show outcomes. Like the idea of outcomes based accountability. I don't like crazy idea. We're not, we're not doing it with the superintendent, so we're certainly not gonna be doing it with these teachers, but oh my God, it made me so mad. And sorry

Alan Gottlieb: 34:13

to my new Cal Rob, go. But that's on the DCTA, right? That's all on the DCTA. Yeah. No, because it's also

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 34:19

the, but the district conceded.

Nicholas Hernandez: 34:20

District conceded they allowed that to go. That's on everybody.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 34:23

And I can see why the DCTA argued for that. Like they they're not Okay. Unpopular opinions for getting way off topic. And I'll just say really quick, the DCTA is not responsible for making sure student outcomes are not responsible for student outcomes. They're responsible for their membership. And that their educators are treated respected, paid well. Like they, they are, their beneficiary is the educator, not the students. But we are way off topic. You're right. But No, but I

Nicholas Hernandez: 34:51

grew up in a union household, right? Everybody in my family union, members in various trades. And the role of a union is to protect the interests, the working conditions and the pay make to fight for better livable wages for all of its member. And that's what the DCTA does, and I respect'em for it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 35:05

Yes,

Nicholas Hernandez: 35:06

The equity bonus. Yeah. Some people may argue it didn't work. It's yeah. And in its absence, you don't have the best teachers going to the places with the highest need. It's not anti teacher to say that it's human nature. If I can. Can, you're gonna vote with your feet. You're gonna vote with your feet. But also as a former teacher, like it's really hard to lesson plan for students who are reading at a college level and kids who are still learning sight words in one classroom. That's really hard work. If you can go to a place where everybody's just on grade level and everybody has all of the resources they need and that everybody had breakfast when they showed up. That's a different working condition and you get to focus on something different as a teacher rather than somebody who has to come in and deal with the full spectrum. Absolutely. And support every one of those kids. I believe our teachers want to serve all of their kids, but your working conditions influence how you make some of those decisions. And at one point in time we said it was important enough that we were going to incentivize our best teachers to, to work with our schools that have the highest

Alan Gottlieb: 36:04

need. I guess we're getting close to time here. Is there anything we haven't hit on yet, or are, do anyone, does anyone have any last words about the three incumbents that we're here to talk about? Because they wouldn't come on the podcast, so we have to do one a podcast about them without them. Any last words?

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 36:24

Look, I could say a lot more, but we do wanna time limit these podcasts. So the last thing I will say is I think our listeners are a bunch of ed policy wonky nerds, and I love that. And so for those of you who want to get into the details a little bit more, I was actually Googling when we were talking because I was like, oh, there was this poll that I forgot about earlier this year. So Denver Families Action did a poll and we can try to link it to the website and it's public and everybody can see it. But it was performed by Keating Research and I'm just gonna read a couple of the quick, like bullet points that, that I'm reading off of the website here. But it revealed a deep data dissatisfaction among a, among light. Likely Denver voters ahead of this fall school board election with less than one in four of the polling people who participated in the poll viewing the current board as favorable. And then 89% of them were expressing concerns about access to quality public schools in the city. And then what, going a little bit further, the board had a two to one UNFAVORABILITY ratio. With with 45% of the respondents holding an unfavorable view and just 22% holding a favorable view of the board. And then nearly nine in 10 of the respondents expressed concerns about every student in DPS receiving a quality education with many viewing poor leadership and politics as the obstacles to the board's effectiveness. So we just had the whole conversation about the the incumbents who have been on the board the last four years. It is not surprising that this is what the polling is showing, and I'm actually surprised. It is as high as it is because, I think the average person isn't paying super super close attention to what's happening to the board. But there have been, I think, many more headlines about negative things that were on the board over the last four years, and I would say especially the first two of the four. But none of this is surprising and it shouldn't be surprising to anybody who's paying any little bit of attention.

Nicholas Hernandez: 38:18

And I think, for me, a lot of this falls under the kind of the banners of transparency and high expectations, right? Any teacher worth their salt knows that you set high expectations for kids for a classroom. Kids will rise to that occasion. I think we should have higher expectations for. For our elected leaders and we should demand transparency around budgets, around hiring decisions, around contract renewals, around school performance. We shouldn't just be saying schools are green'cause that's what the color we rate, but what does that actually mean? How many of the non ed policy nerds that listen to this, how many other, how many of your friends know what a green school actually means in the data? And the lack of transparency and the lack of high expectations, I think is the hallmark of some of our current elected leaders in DPS. And I think we owe it to kids, we owe it to our city to have higher expectations and more information coming out of the system.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan: 39:10

That's right. And I would've say, I don't even think my husband knows what a green school or a green district is. So I, I don't think the average person does know.

Alan Gottlieb: 39:17

Okay, listen, this has been a great conversation. Ballots are going out in the next couple of weeks now. And election day is on November 4th. So thank you everybody. We will be back with another episode soon. Nicholas, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. And thank you

Nicholas Hernandez: 39:35

all for Thank you all for having me and folks listening. Go check your voter registration.

Alan Gottlieb: 39:39

All right. Take care everybody. Bye.