The Boardhawk Podcast

Episode 29: Former DPS board member, Lt. Governor Barbara O'Brien on the past, present, and future of the district

• Alan Gottlieb

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Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Hi everybody and welcome back to the Board Hawk podcast. We are so excited to welcome Barbara O'Brien today to the podcast as our guest. Barbara is the founder of the Colorado Children's Campaign, the former Lieutenant Governor and a two term DPS at large board member. She served on the board during the period when it shifted from a more reform oriented majority to a more DCTA friendly majority back in 2019. She was the lone dissenting vote in the, in 2020 against the hiring of superintendent Dr. Alex Morero. And she was also on the board during the current form of policy governance and when it was first implemented her long involvement, with DPS politics and children's issues, was making her the ideal guest for the podcast before this Tuesday's election. And before I, I welcome Barbara on, I have to just say among my friends who are in the ed reform space, we often refer to Barbara as the goat, as the og. And I have long admired you, Barbara, for just how little. Shit you take from other people and just are laser focused on students more than anybody else I've ever met. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Barbara O'Brien:

Thank you for that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

All right I'll kick it off with the first question. Can you please talk to us about what the board culture, the focus of the board and the board priorities were prior to 2019, and then what that ended up looking like after 20 nineteen's election?

Barbara O'Brien:

Before 2019, we were constantly asking ourselves how exactly is this policy going to help kids? And we didn't take it personally if other people thought it actually was a, ah, not much. Or if someone pushed back when we would have our discussions because. When you don't take it personally and you're really focused on what it means for the kids and the district and their parents, it's easy to want to hear the best ideas out there because it, it's not about you. You don't need to feel, you have to defend some turf. So it was just a very open and sharing but, competitive for ideas environment before that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

And I'd like to just point out it was an all women board then as well and I thought highly collaborative.

Barbara O'Brien:

Yes, it was.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

And then once the 2019 election happened and it shifted. And then we got at that time Scott Erman, or I'm sorry, Scott Baldman, Brad Larva and Aon Anderson on the board. What happened then? Or and Sochi, Gary.

Alan Gottlieb:

No, it was Carrie, I think.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Who was it? Oh, Carrie. Thank you, Carrie. Carrie Olson. Sorry.

Barbara O'Brien:

It's hard to explain how a culture can shift so quickly, but a couple of the new members of the board were completely focused on their own. Ideology and wanting to make their own mark on things and wanting to be seen as a like the voice for whatever district they represented. Other people didn't feel they had the backbone to stand up to this or to stand up for their own ideas. So we had some very strong personality. Ideological members of the board, and then a couple of board members who just wanted to play nice. And then a couple of us who were going, what the hell happened? So I don't wanna name names, but it was just, it was certainly not a, after 2019, not a board that was unified around trying to take big steps towards the academic improvement of kids, especially low performing kids.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah. And when you look back Barbara on, one of the kind of probably key events in that period, your last couple of years on the board which, ultimately led to. The departure of Susanna Korba, who is the superintendent after Tom Boasberg. Looking back on how the board treated Susanna is, the evaluation that was done of her, et cetera, and just how, just their, the posture of individual board members toward her compared to how the current board treats Alex Marrero. Just what are your thoughts when you look at that?

Barbara O'Brien:

It's very, and it just breaks my heart. When I think back to Susanna, you know the day she announced she was moving to a district in Texas to get away from all of us, but I know she had been micromanaged by a couple of board members in particular, and we had board members who were going into their own districts. Making promises that then Susanna couldn't keep for the whole district, and we didn't wanna treat one district better than another. So there were just all these things going on that undercut her authority and her ability to have fair and equal. Policies that affected the whole district, and they were really out just to score points with their constituents, and it just drove her crazy and I completely understand why she needed to get outta that environment. It was impossible to be a success in that.

Alan Gottlieb:

And I know you're not you're not here all the time paying, just hanging on every word of Board Hawk and what goes on in DPS and all of that. But I'm sure you have some sense of this. So what's, what's your sense of, how the current board treats Marrero compared to how Susanna was treated by that board or some board members?

Barbara O'Brien:

It's shockingly passive. And, I think everyone needs to be pushed. No, no one's perfect, but there's no desire to push back on him. Certainly nothing in public where the public could know that the board is actually thinking about things that don't add up or aren't producing results. We, we were, before that, we were like fo totally focused on quarterly updates on the academic progress of kids, data based, show us some proof that went out the window. There's been almost no, the board should be embracing their role for being holding the superintendent accountable. And I know they think they do, they think they do evaluations, but I was there for the first round of that. And it was not an evaluation. It was almost nothing databased or numeric that you could quantify and look at. So they have not, I don't think done their. Part in making sure there checks and balances in the district.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Thanks, Barbara. And I appreciate your comment about pushing the superintendent and seeking that data. We talk about it on the podcast a lot. What happens to people when they push back on this superintendent in particular, or this board in particular and sort of the retaliation and we can see this and we've already talked about this on the podcast, but we saw this directly with. Board member John Youngquist who did exactly that. He ran saying he would hold the district accountable, he would hold the superintendent accountable. And when he pushed for more data, pushed for more transparency pushed back on the superintendent asked that he be censured. And that, it just, it's night and day compared to what it was like prior to 2019. My next question for you is, what are your thoughts here on actually, let me go back. You were the lone vote against the hiring of Dr. Alex Madero. Can you share whatever you're comfortable with why you were the dissenting vote?

Barbara O'Brien:

I felt he was too inexperienced because he had been the superintendent of a very small district. I think the number of students in it was 32,000, and it's just a different deal when you've got a district of 90,000. So part of it was I was looking for someone who had more of a track record in a much larger district and would know how to handle all the competing parts. In a big district. The other part was I felt the way he interacted with the board when we were interviewing him, and it was, it was closed doors. It was just the seven of us and the superintendent, I didn't feel he was really listening to the que questions we were asking. And at times he would get up and walk around. I don't know if that was just a way to work off anxiety or stress or something, or, I, a couple of us found it disrespectful. And to me that was really a bad sign for meeting with lots of members of the district. It didn't end up being that important to other board members, so they didn't put much weight on that, but I really took it as a sign of how he would handle difficult situations with parents and teachers. So that's why

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think it, it was certainly. Foreshadowing what was to come and what we have now experienced over the last several years and how he has treated again, just dissenting voices.

Alan Gottlieb:

And just a sort of second part of that question, Barbara, is looking back now and again, I know you're not day-to-day DPS at this point, but do you feel now looking back at five years later that you cast the correct vote? And if so, why? And if not, why not?

Barbara O'Brien:

Oh, I absolutely. Approve of myself for casting that vote. It was, I was surprised at how hard it was. To cast that vote. Not that I very often care about what other people think, as a good board member, I told each individual board member how I was going to vote. So the board chair could have a sense of whether it was going to go south or he would be approved. So you're coming to tell people who are very convinced that we have to take him.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I appreciate that, Barbara and you said that it was a surprisingly difficult vote at the time. I would expect that depending on what the new makeup of the board looks like, we will at least get one new board member in the, at large race. But what advice would you give to new board members coming in when they have to make difficult decisions, whether it's hiring a superintendent, possibly firing a superintendent closing a school what advice would you give them?

Barbara O'Brien:

Not to make sudden surprising votes to be in such close communication that people understand why you're gonna vote the way you do and know where you're coming from. And I, I usually have those conversations, not in an attempt to flip anyone else over to what I'm thinking, but just to make sure that. They know I respected their position and I was reaching out to them to make sure we understood each other and they knew that I was making my decision based on my own principles. So just you've gotta talk and talk and by law you can only talk to one board member at a time. So it's very hard to actually reach six other people and have in-depth conversations as votes are coming up. But you've gotta put the time in to do it.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Absolutely.

Alan Gottlieb:

Another thing that happened while you were late in your tenure on the board was that the board voted in the current. The current structure of policy governance which has definitely caused some serious issues. And I'm just wondering what you remember about why it was implemented at the time. In a way it was and what your thoughts are about the way it's now being used by the board and administration.

Barbara O'Brien:

I had experienced policy governance at my. Long-term nonprofit job, the Colorado Children's campaign, and it worked like a dream. It gave me the latitude I needed as the president to make things happen. But the board I think, always felt like they knew where I was going and why, and I would circle back to them. So again, it's a lot of communication and when we fell on this for a possible way to structure the board and superintendent relationship, it was, I was for it because there were so many individual board members either trying to micromanage Sana or cutting deals in the DIS district around transportation or. After school programs or whatever, making it, cutting deals to look like they're the big savior on a horse coming in to fix the problems, which again, undercut Susanna. And so I was for trying it out as a way to cut back on the micromanaging that was going on and. I, looking back, that's not a solution when you have, don't have people of goodwill working together. I think it just I am, I'm sorry that I voted to adopt it and I'm sorry about that vote. Mainly because it just let everyone off the hook of trying to be of. Figuring out how to have a better relationship and push pushing back on the, having board members push back on other board members who were being extremely inappropriate about the provinces they were making in their districts. So I was hoping it would be a solution to the micromanagement problem. It was not. And we ended up with a superintendent who is a very. Lone Ranger kind of decision maker and is very happy just to go off on his own. And the board seems willing to be focused on lots of community things and ideological things and just let him do what he wants to do and occasionally report back. And that's just not healthy. You're not getting a check and balance. With that kind of relationship.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yep. That's, I think a pretty astute way of looking at it, the way things are right now,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I So I recently watched a recording of Barack Obama. Saying that mo most of the world's problems stem from old white men, or old men, excuse me, who clinging to power out of ego or fear of insignificance. He's made these comments before in 2019 and 2015, and he talks about they wanna build pyramids, they wanna add their names to everything. Basically critiquing this idea of like ego-driven leadership. My, my strong bias here, I'll just name it, is I think women make better leaders than men. Not always, but oftentimes I would just love to hear your perspective on, on leadership. You've been a leader of the children's campaign, you've been the lieutenant governor, you've been a leader on the school board. And maybe talk a little bit about what does it look like to be a female leader in this city? And what are your hopes for leadership in the city moving forward?

Alan Gottlieb:

And maybe even what it was like to be on an all woman school board compared to one that wasn't?

Barbara O'Brien:

Yes. Oh man, I could write a whole treatise on this.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I

Barbara O'Brien:

love it. So I came from the era, I'm quite a bit older than you are, Alexis. I came from the era where you figured out how to massage men's egos to get them, in line to corral'em into doing what we're supposed to be doing. So I'm from the. You don't need to butt heads, but you need to make them trust your judgment and feel comfortable with you talking to them a lot. Was collaborating with women and managing the egos of men for 40 years.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

And what was it like being on All Women's Board when

Barbara O'Brien:

it was an all I'm sorry, when Go ahead.

Alan Gottlieb:

He was asking the question. You were just about to answer, Barbara, about what it was like to be on an all woman board.

Barbara O'Brien:

It wa it was one of the most satisfying and fulfilling things I've ever done. And I think part of it was that we all had held public positions before. We all knew, like city council or state government or the state legislature, we all knew the role of policy and our role and how to when to push and when to pull back. So it was a very experienced group of women that were on that board. And I think the experience is just as important as the fact we were female and. Ego got inserted when a couple of men were elected who just wanted to see their names in the paper.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

That's what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

Alan Gottlieb:

I've got four older sisters, so I feel like I had my ego beaten out of me at a young age. How would you dis that? It makes

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

a lot of sense, Alan. It's all coming together now.

Alan Gottlieb:

So I just took it outta my one younger brother. And then just to steer back a little bit to DPS and wrap up, how would you describe from, what you know of at the current state of the district compared to when you left the board and assuming that you think it's probably not in as good a place, what will it take to turn things around?

Barbara O'Brien:

I think we have to elect. Some good new board members who will know how to work with seven other people and know how to keep focused on the policy level of the district and not get into managing operations. And then who will have the guts to take the role of holding the superintendent? Accountability seriously. You have to say some unpleasant things from time to the superintendent and you gotta have the, fire in your belly to do that.'cause it's for a greater cause more kids doing well in school.

Alan Gottlieb:

And again, I know that you aren't day to day like reading DPS news as soon as you wake up, but there is this whole thing that's just happened in the last couple of days where Marrero. Basically commissioned what's gonna wind up being$80,000 plus report because he. John Youngquist, a board member was, overstepping his bounds and treating staff of color badly and all this, and the report just came out. And basically, I think the consensus among people who actually pay attention to this stuff is that this is a straw man in a lot of ways and. And that Marrero just doesn't like to be questioned and that John was really the only board member as gentle as he is in most ways who was pushing it all for accountability and data. I guess what advice would you give board members, new board members to do what you just said, walking into an environment where questioning, Kim Jong-un even a little bit is gonna get you really in the firing line in a very unpleasant way.

Barbara O'Brien:

That is such a toxic environment. It's basically just intimidating intimidating a board member that's showing a little too much independence from the superintendent's perspective. Did the board approve spending$80,000 on this report?

Alan Gottlieb:

They basically approved a blank check.

Barbara O'Brien:

They commissioned the report. Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Gottlieb:

And 80,000 isn't the final number. It's just what the last time, people could core the receipts is what it was. It's gonna be more than that.

Barbara O'Brien:

I think the board should have done everything. It could not to tear itself apart. They really need to be able to work together. And there are times when board members get out of line, but I would wanna know that they really did everything they could to find out if this was really serious stuff and so serious that they would try and divide the board around whatever was being investigated. I'm it's just like, how do you go back to working? Together and trusting each other when your fellow board members will approve something that I don't, it, it sounded to me that it was not on really sturdy ground to do this investigation from the people I've talked to.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yeah, I think that's right. And it'll be really interesting to see if tonight, some of the board members who may choose to censure John Youngquist, if they get reelected, what that dynamic looks like for the next couple of years.

Alan Gottlieb:

They're actually not gonna vote on the censure tonight for maybe that reason. After all, they're just gonna discuss the report, but they're, I just heard that right before we got on. No. And Barbara, were you not on, I think you were on the board that when Anonte got, Anderson got censured. Is that right?

Barbara O'Brien:

Yes. Yes.

Alan Gottlieb:

Very different. Kind of allegations, some of which turned out to be totally bogus, but some of which were pretty serious and were found to be valid. Although Anonte is trying to rewrite history now and say that every, he was totally exonerated. But I guess the question is, you just said how do you put back together a board and rebuild relationships? What was your experience after that vote with how that affected the board?

Barbara O'Brien:

The fact that it involved a couple of students with Tay and there were complaints from the students themselves to the superintendent and the legal counsel of the board about their experiences. To us, that changed the whole importance of looking into it because you can't have. Board members who can walk into any school they want, be anywhere as they should be. But then have students say that there were, some, any inappropriate contacts coming out of that. So to us it was just vital to make sure that the students were safe. And to do that we had to get, some independent investigation going partly because we just didn't trust TA's version of things. And maybe it's the same with John, but

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

yeah, I think you're pointing out. You're pointing out a good contrast. Barbara one, one is from the students and the other is directly from the superintendent.

Alan Gottlieb:

The other question was like how you talked about how you put a board back together and the relationships back together after something like that. What was your experience after the center vote? About how the board functioned and in particular the relationships between board members who voted for the censure and te Anonte Anderson.

Barbara O'Brien:

We never put that back together. And he was very angry and felt mistreated and we didn't really have confidence that he would. Give us a heads up if something was happening that might not be good. So that relationship was completely gone, but we had four good solid votes on most of the important things. So we didn't need to really bring him along, and I don't think any of us felt we could have a good relationship with him. And at least in my experience, that's what turned out to be like, there was just no. Finding of common ground.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah. Let's hope that doesn't happen again. Yes. Very different personalities. Aon Anderson and Johnny Unquist. I will say that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Anything else Alexis? No, this was fantastic Barbara. So grateful for you to give us time today to chat and really always appreciate your insights and you're always welcome back on the podcast.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah. It's been great reconnecting with you and talking to you and I'm sure we will find a cause to have you on again at some point. Thank you so much. Good. Really appreciate it. And

Barbara O'Brien:

my therapy is free if anyone needs it. Okay.

Alan Gottlieb:

Bye-bye.

Barbara O'Brien:

Bye-bye.