The Boardhawk Podcast

Episode 32: The Youngquist censure, Marrero Chicago flirtation and other issues

• Alan Gottlieb

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Alan Gottlieb:

Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Board Hawk podcast. I think everybody's still suffering a little bit of a post-election hangover, but we thought it would be worthwhile for just Alexis and I to come on and talk a little bit about some issues that are out there percolating and have been over the last little while. This will be a pretty short episode, I think, but there's plenty of punchy stuff to talk about. How are you feeling post-election right now, Alexis?

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I am more rested, I will say, which is good. I've taken a little bit of time off, just did like a fun weekend away in the mountains. But I think a lot of folks just thinking about what does the future of DPS look like? What does the state of engagement with, Denver rights look like with education and with this new board? And so I'm excited to dive into it today.

Alan Gottlieb:

Great. I think the first thing we should talk about, because it's last week's news, but it's gonna have repercussions that carry forward including for the three new board members that'll be coming on. And that is the board's vote last week to censure board member John Youngquist. We could see this coming. It was clear it was gonna happen. The lame duck board members, sochi Gaan who was reelected, all voted to censure him along with Marlene Delarosa. So it was a five one vote with John Abstaining and Kimberly see voting against, I'll just repeat what I've said along. I think this whole thing is a travesty. I think it's a Trumpian move by Dr. Alex Marrero, who is, appears to be chronically insecure and thinks. John is out to get him because John actually has the temerity to ask some relatively, but not even overly tough questions. And ask for information from the district, which is his, basically his fiduciary responsibility as a board member. So to me there was a great, I urge people to go back and listen to last. Yesterday's, I think it was Brother Jeff Facebook Live because he goes on a little rant about it. Actually, somebody sent it to me and it's at the one hour and 12 minute mark I think. So you don't have to go through the whole thing where he just starts talking about this and he basically says that the board is enthrall to Dr. Marrero that they just did his bidding. He said, I need you to cen this guy. So they censored him and he said, and then he broke up with y'all anyway, because he was out looking for a job in Chicago and was a finalist. It was pretty funny. So he has a very good take on it and so I urge people to go listen to that. But any other thoughts on the censure and just how that all went down? Yeah, I would

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

say, Kimberly asked a great question. She essentially said what? Policy violation took place. Did he break some sort of state statute? Did he, violate a policy And the board members couldn't answer that. It was just what did Sochi say? She said it was a general censure. What the hell does that mean a general censure? We had Aon ante, and we'll talk about that in a little bit because I know we've gotten a lot of flack for that. Because he did, wanna come on to talk since he was the only person who's been centered in DPS history before this, that we know of. And he was centered for very real things. It was he was, he had inappropriate behavior with a minor when he was an adult. He. Inappropriate actions as a board member retaliation on social media, like the investigated, pointed out very concrete things that he was censured that they found, and he was CED for those items. John, on the other hand, the best I can tell is we just spent, however much we just spent. Is it almost 200,000 when it's all said and done? No. No, we don't know

Alan Gottlieb:

yet. It was 78,000 was the last number. It'll be higher, it'll be higher than that.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say it's gonna be like a hundred thousand when it's all said and done, as my guess. What I've been saying is we paid a taxpayers just, paid a hundred thousand dollars for an investigation that basically says an old white guy has bias. Great. And he's he makes cer, he, he maybe is a little bit rude to people. I actually don't really care if our board members are rude. I care that they're. Doing what they were reluctant do to do and making sure students are doing well, asking the hard questions, digging into the data. And apparently the way he's asked that has not made people very happy.

Alan Gottlieb:

And remember, I think people need to remember this. And I, it's to me a key piece of this is that all of the witnesses unnamed in the report who said that they had experienced. Prejudicial bias behavior from John Youngquist. Yes, are all people of color, but they also are all members of the most inner, most of inner circles of Alex Marrero. They're all his senior staff. So while they may have felt this and they may have ex. Experience this. There's certainly political expediency in saying it. And it's also like Trump's cabinet doing his, sitting around and praising him during cabinet meetings. It's like everybody has to get in line and say, yeah, John was mean to me too. It's ridiculous. And if they had gone out and found a bunch of other people who felt the same way, that would be one thing. And John, again, John, they wouldn't interview his witnesses. He said he had a list of 20 or 30 people of color that he's worked with over the years and DPS who would've testified to his good behavior, his mentoring, his kindness, and all of that. So the whole thing was just bullshit to not put, to find a point on it. And it's embarrassing that these board members voted to censure him and they, their names in the soon to be forgotten history of DPS because I don't think anybody really chronicles this stuff long term. They will go down an infamy for their cowardice.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Said. I have no, nothing else to add.

Alan Gottlieb:

Good. So I'll take all the grief for that. Okay. That's great. Speaking. That leads to speaking

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

of the center. Yeah. Speaking of the censure, we did have ante on, I, I have never gotten more criticism on this podcast that I have. Based on this, on having him on. I feel like there's something to be said about you. You made it when you get both critique from the left and the right. And we've gotten criticism from certainly like the union faction of this debate and some of the strongest supporters of the teachers union. And we're getting, criticism from conservatives and Republicans for having anteon and also. The PAG group and some of the most active folks in in this space who li listen to the podcast often. So what do you think about that, Alan? And then we also got

Alan Gottlieb:

some criticism for having Kristen Fryan, not because of who she is, but because the lawyer representing her is with the independence. No, not the independence with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which is a very conservative legal group that, that does civil rights stuff, but generally with a right word slant.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I didn't even know that actually. So that's good to know.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah. Yeah. He, yeah. It was started, I think the Mountain Lake States legal Foundation might have been started by, or at least he was a founding member by James Watt, who was the extremely conservative this is'cause I'm old. I know this interior secretary for Ronald Reagan who basically wanted to raise the forests and just build everywhere and drill and everything. Yeah, so we got criticism because he's with the Mountain State's Legal Foundation. So I guess I just have a message for all our listeners, which is, if get a grip, we're gonna have people on You don't like, I don't care which side of any debate you're on, I want every, just about every voice on here. I'm not I'm not gonna have Nick Fuentes on, or we won't, we're not gonna have on hate mongers. But I think hearing different points of view, including those you vociferously disagree with is very important. And letting them have their say in a conversation that's not a 15 second soundbite, but rather, a 30 or 40 minute interview or even longer if it's worth that. So just, it's gonna happen, it's gonna continue to happen. I have no apologies about having, Kristen Fry's lawyer on along with Kristen. I have no apologies about having Anonte Anderson on. And I. It's not that our audience is that big, but if you don't like what you're hearing, just don't listen to that episode. But I think if you do that, you're holding your ears and going nah. Like a 7-year-old on a playground. It's better to listen to what people have to say. And so we're gonna continue to do that. And the more people like that we can get on. And I, I would love to have some of the board members who lost their reelection, who we've been very tough on and who've refused to speak to us. Maybe once they're done licking their wounds they'd come on and talk about their experience on the board. If they want to talk about how much Board Hawk sucks and how unfair we are. Great. But I welcome them to come on and talk about things in retrospect. And anybody else within reason?

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yeah, I think that's right. I agree with all of that. And. Some of our podcast episodes go an a full hour long. How often are you listening to debate or commentary and getting into the nuance and getting into the weeds on these political fights that we often hear just the soundbites on and we're just getting, the Facebook clip or like the Facebook fight, and when you can actually get into the nuance and learn something or hear different point of view and challenge your own perspective, there's not enough of that in the world right now where we are in community with one another, listening to alternative viewpoints in a respectful and civil manner. I would say this is a, for me, a really nice break from where I often get. Dragged, and I'm trying to be better about this, is into the Facebook comments and arguing with people on the Facebook comments. There's things I've learned being an interview on this podcast. Hearing from Kurt Dennis and some of the background on the seclusion room, I was, it was very easy for me to pass judgment right away when I heard about that. But then hearing his perspective on some of the background that had never been shared in the media was really helpful to hear directly from him. Yeah, if you don't like it, you don't have to listen, but we're not changing anything anytime soon because we got some mean comments on Facebook or some. Frustrated text messages from our friends.

Alan Gottlieb:

And as a matter of fact, we act would love all of, and any of you who have ideas about people we should have on the podcast to, to let us know who those would be. You can email you can email me at just Alan a n at Board Hawk. Org with suggestions about people we should have on. We welcome that too. So we're certainly open to suggestions. A couple of other issues just to touch on in terms of DPS beyond the center, and that is. So the new we've got three new board members, Monica Hunter, DJ Torres and Amy Klein Molt coming on, getting sworn in either at the end of this month or very beginning of December. I can't remember the exact date. And they come into this situation where the outgoing board, but there's some holdovers that'll still be on the board, just voted to censure one of, one of the board members, John Youngquist. And John has made it pretty clear that he's at least seriously pondering. A defamation lawsuit as a result of this. So walking into that dynamic is interesting for the three new board members and seeing how they navigate that, whether they're going to shun John, reach out to him and try and understand his perspective, work closely with him is gonna be really interesting, as will be. The fact that they were endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is a no black mark against them, in my opinion. That's just the way this whole thing works. They seem I have, we didn't get a chance to interview Monica, but certainly DJ and Amy seem like well-meaning and intelligent people and committed caring people about public education. So I'm gonna be really interested to see how they stake out their independence rather than certainly some board members at times have seemed to be just extensions of the people who fund them, but the, but I'm hoping these candidates aren't that way. Just what are your thoughts about like, how they should position themselves as they come into this kind of interesting. Time and a board that has been so dysfunctional for so long.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I think especially for DJ and Monica being able to position themselves as teachers and teacher leaders on this board, we're going to have a board that has had more educators, like real classroom educators in the recent past or more, more now than we ever had in the recent past. So we'll have. John and Kimberly as existing board members continuing. They've both been classroom teachers, they've been union members themselves and have served as school leaders in, in case of Kimberly a network leader. And then you have Monica and DJ who have both been classroom teachers for a long time, very active union members. So it'll be really interesting to see. With a board majority that are or almost a board majority that are educators, how they position themselves that way. And especially given that, two of the four were supported by the union and the other two, Kimberly and John were not what that looks like. I think for Amy having the experience as a paraprofessional certainly is some lived experience in the DPS classroom. Given her experience as an entrepreneur and that professional background where you've, you have to make difficult decisions in tough budget environments, especially with in the startup world. Denver Public Schools is going to likely be facing additional budget crisis. And that's something I'm surprised we haven't heard more about in the news actually. So that's one. And I think the biggest test will come in two ways. One, what do we do with chronically low performing schools? They've all on the campaign trail, ev every single candidate, I don't think anybody, any candidates said no to this. They all said that they wouldn't use test scores as an indicator for closing schools. Now one could say you wouldn't use test scores alone, but you have declining enrollment. You will likely be, my guess is if the superintendent stays, he will continue recommending school closures. That'll, I think will be a big test for them. And then two we, if charter renewals and charter expansions, what's gonna happen? When when they have a new charter coming up for either a new school or more likely or a reauthorization, I don't foresee a ton of new charter schools coming up. I know that Mon Monarch is one that they're looking to expand. So I think seeing how they show up in, in those situations, if it's just, Nope, we are not gonna close any schools and continue to like, go into a budget crisis is one way of doing it. But I think if they're willing to. See through the nuance here and not just commit to what they said on the trail of we're not closing any schools. I think that'll be a big way to, to see how they show up as leaders. And then finally I'll just say, and then I'll stop my rant is. How are they going to ask questions of the superintendent and his staff? It's one thing, when you're doing it behind closed doors and having a discussion, but as elected officials and in the public light when you're having difficult conversations in the board meeting itself, I'll be curious to see what kind of things that they hold the superintendent and the district accountable to if any.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah I would hope that they're not quite as enthralled of the superintendent as the outgoing board members were. And I would hope also that they don't just come in and after they get their feet away, it's gonna take'em a while to figure out what the heck is going on. Talk about the old cliche, drinking from a fire hose. This is definitely it. But I think they need to really look at policy governance and how policy governance is used. By this board and by this administration to basically cut the board out of more than more decision making than it should be cut out of, in my opinion, without, again, getting, I think when Ante was on the board, he, until they put policy governance in, he was like proposing resolutions, like multiple resolutions every meeting to, to make, put his stamp on the district. And that I think was. Part of the impetus for implementing the policy governance the way they did it. But I think it, it went too far the other way. It was an overreaction. So I'd love to see these board members push back and also, and show some independence from the superintendent. Show some ability to be critical. Ask tough questions and see if they get called racist too, for asking tough questions. I hope that doesn't happen, but I wouldn't put it past this administration.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yep. Then, I think it'll also be really telling right after they're sworn in, they have their their vote on who is going to be president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. So I really appreciated the comment that Vernon Dr. Pastor Vernon Jones had on the podcast a couple of weeks back when he said, it takes at least a year. That's what he heard from board members. It takes at least a year to really start feeling comfortable. We either will have, my guess is somebody who's brand new coming in and trying to be board president or vice president, or we will have either Marlene or Sochi. I, there's no world where John or Kimberly would have, in my view any leadership position. I don't foresee them being in any of the positions. So we have those three new folks, the two existing board members. My hope is that it's either Marlene or Sochi. And I know we agree, we disagree, Alan, on, on what socis capabilities are as president, but I truly do think she, hopefully what was learned from her mistakes. But Marlene also, I think would be good and fine, and I think may, maybe she's a unifier of the, sort of the factions. So we'll see.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah, I would, I would actually dispute my, what you, how you characterize my view of Sochi. I think she, she was put into an impossible situation when she became president because it was weird circumstances having to do with just nasty, backstabbing internal politics. And she ended up being board president when nobody expected that. It was supposed to be Carrie Olson again. But she wound up with no experience on the board at all and suddenly being board president and she. Was totally over her head. And, arguably grew into the job over the two years of being president as she gained some more experience. So that's how I would describe that. My problem with her is she's a hardcore ideologue and I don't like her positions on almost any issues, so it just bothers me to, and she's way too close to the superintendent, so she's gonna protect him, which I, those are the reasons I wouldn't like to see her. But if I had to bet, I think she's gonna be the next president with Marlene as a sort of long shot second possibility.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yeah. Right now if I had to bet, I would say it would be one of the new ones.

Alan Gottlieb:

Really.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I would say probably,

Alan Gottlieb:

I think that's a huge mistake. I would kill,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I agree. I do not advise peop I do not advise they do that. But I think that the union behind the scenes, if I'm Rob Gould and I'm think I'm puppet master right now and again, I hope all of these folks have. Their own independent viewpoints and are truly acting in their, in, in the interest of their constituents Who elected them. If I'm Rob Gould, I would wanna position somebody who I've had I've had the ability to get elected and then have the ear of more. And, with Sochi, yes, he, the DCTA supported her, but it wasn't until the very end that she even jumped in. And even then, after she jumped in, like it was a while before they supported her. So I don't know. I think it's gonna be one of the new ones who more would more easily be molded.

Alan Gottlieb:

I'd be surprised, but we'll see. We'll find out.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I hope not. I hope I'm wrong.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yeah. We'll see. Finally, the last thing I think I wanted to touch on, and you may have other things, but is just to, it appears that the Chicago chapter is closed, that Alex Morero was apparently one of two finalists for the job that in Chicago as superintendent. I'm from Chicago originally. I know how Chicago politics works. So we published in Board Hawk and Article by Maureen Inger, or Maureen, what was her name? Kelleher. Maureen Kher. I'm sorry. A very. Experienced Chicago education reporter about what was going on behind the scenes, but it was just a lot of dirty politics, which is just the norm for Chicago. I think that there was a fact the board actually wanted either this woman from New York City or Alex Marrero to be the next superintendent, but that the the mayor Brandon Johnson wanted and the Chicago Teachers Union, which is extremely powerful, wanted, mayor Johnson's chief of staff, who's very close to the union, as is Mayor Johnson to be the next superintendent. And so the names of the finalists were leaked which caused the whole thing to fall apart. And Alex Marrero to withdraw his name. Not a good idea to a as Maureen told us when we were speaking to or to if you're a search firm and you've recruited these candidates. There's a leak from the board about or from somewhere about who you're one of the finalists. Run away as fast as you can. Yep. That's not an environment you want to go into. I harbor few doubts that Alex Marrow's looking for his next big gig and failing upwards is a thing. The Peter principle, whatever you wanna call it. And so I'm sure he will find his next dream job at some point, barring all these gigantic, really serious lawsuits that he's facing. Through the ineptitude of his own administration, which if anybody did any due diligence, they'd run away from him. But I still think he'll wind up with another job within a year or two. I think so. But we'll see.

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

Yep, I think that's right. The Chicago thing is wild and we could probably spend an entire episode on that, but this is Denver and if you wanna listen to or wanna read about Chicago politics, highly recommend board rule, which, is is the editor of, and it's actually quite similar to Board Hawk where you have two long stand, long standing veteran journalist Alan in the case of Chicago, Maureen. Who do more commentary now, which is really cool. Hopefully we'll see more of that in, in other major school districts.

Alan Gottlieb:

Yep, I agree. Anything else we should touch on before we sign off?

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

I just hope everyone has a good fall break. You got kids, you got, this is a, is an easy break and, we'll be back in touch soon. Oh and remember, if you have folks you would like us to invite on if you yourself are interested in coming on, do email Alan at Board Hawk, is that right? Alan?

Alan Gottlieb:

At alan@boardhawk.org or there's a Contact us thing on the website too, but yeah we are very open to suggestions and we do have a list of a bunch of really interesting guests that I think we're gonna be having on shortly after Thanksgiving. We've been talking to a bunch of people, so it's just aligning schedules more than anything else. Yeah,

Alexis Menocal Harrigan:

absolutely. All right. Thanks everyone for listening.

Alan Gottlieb:

Okay, thanks. We'll talk to you next time.