“When you’re living in a glass schoolhouse,” I wrote in February, “you probably shouldn’t throw stones.” Sometimes, though, the stone-throwing temptation is simply irresistible.

“I believe this is our opportunity to turn the page,” Denver Public Schools school board member Tay Anderson told Westword last week, “because our students deserve a school board that doesn’t look like Douglas County’s.”

Talk about irony. Anderson and his DPS colleagues have been subsumed in utter turmoil for well more than a year — and largely because of Anderson’s own antics. Though the vice president may eagerly try to pawn off DPS’s “dysfunction” as superior to the DougCo School Board, there is no comparison.

Frankly, the Denver school board is on its own plane of dysfunctional existence. If anything, this should make Denverites feel even more embarrassed.

As I explored in The Gazette last week, Anderson and his fellow at-large board member, Scott Esserman, have flagrantly violated board code and openly involved themselves in “operational decisions” contra their policy governance approach.

They did so in a meeting of students and parents at Manual High School in May, when they publicly blamed and shamed a JROTC instructor — who was in the room — for supposedly causing Manual’s JROTC program to leave (it was false).

“By fabricating a villain – Lt. Col. Gordon Crawford, who is white, alongside ‘institutional racism’ – (Anderson and Esserman) created an opportunity to play heroes.”

Of course, this is just one example of the chaos enveloping DPS’s board, which has been mired in personal squabbles and such performative displays. After multiple board mediation meetings that seem more like therapy sessions than school board meetings, Anderson, for example, now espouses a commitment to discard “adult politics” and refocus on “student outcomes.”

Keep in mind, the current DPS board took office in November, elevating Anderson to vice president. That was after Anderson himself was censured by the previous board last September for “unbecoming” conduct after a serious investigation consumed the board for months. Go figure.

When critics speak of DougCo’s supposed dysfunction, they generally point to the firing of Corey Wise, the district’s former superintendent, in a 4-3 vote. That February board meeting was astonishingly melodramatic following a last-minute decision by Wise to request that the board discuss his contract publicly. Soon after, Erin Kane was voted in as superintendent.

The board’s public squabbles continued for a few months, but by April, the internal discord seemed to largely settle down — enabling the board to pull together at least the appearance of cooperation.

Notably, members found common ground in advancing a bond and mill levy override (tax increase) to finance desperately-needed new school construction and longer-term pay increases for teachers and staff. The initial proposal was formally presented in April. The board voted — unanimously — on Tuesday night to propose the measure to the November ballot.

Keep in mind that, from the very start, the conservative members — who generally oppose tax increases — campaigned on putting into place the step-and-lane system teachers have long advocated. Now they are pushing to pay for it with a tax increase.

While anyone can fairly criticize DougCo’s board majority over policy disagreements, the least you can say is that they’re actually pursuing the agenda they were elected to achieve. If their unifying bond/MLO mission is any indication, their key agenda items are ones that everyone can rally behind.

That doesn’t sound like DPS dysfunction.

DougCo’s teacher pay lags behind its competitors, which is saying something since a brand-new report from the Economic Policy Institute found that Colorado teachers on average earn 35.9% less than their non-teacher college-educated counterparts. That’s the worst gap in the country. As DPS negotiates pay increases with its union, DougCo’s unanimous board — without any union bargaining — is boosting teacher pay and inviting taxpayers to help.

Meanwhile, while the DPS board’s strife is internal and interpersonal, DougCo’s board is encumbered mostly by outsiders sowing seeds of division.

When Wise was terminated, it was preceded by a union-staged teacher sickout — which was unpopular among parents, whose kids were missing yet another day of school post-pandemic. Most teachers didn’t even participate, yet the district shut down anyway.

Multiple lawsuits have been brought against DougCo, as State House candidate Robert Marshall tries to bog down the board in what some call “lawfare.” Marshall went so far as spark a police investigation into whether school board leaders Mike Peterson and Christy Williams committed perjury. Douglas County Sheriff’s investigators dismissed Marshall’s claim as “unfounded.”

Just two weeks ago, union allies at brand-new organizations DougCo Collective and DougCo’s Future abandoned their planned recall of the board majority. Why? Supposedly, they didn’t want to “interfere with” the unifying bond/mill vote. In truth, after months of building up to a recall, there wasn’t some last-minute revelation that a recall would inhibit paying teachers more. Rather, DougCo residents have made clear they don’t want it.

Meanwhile, CMAS scores released last week revealed just 28% of DPS students met or exceeded expectations in mathematics, while 49% of DougCo students did. For language arts, it’s 39.4% in Denver versus 59.7% for DougCo. Additionally, 2021 graduation rates differed starkly: 74% in DPS compared to 90.7% in DougCo.

Let’s be real: Denver’s perpetually floundering school board is well beyond dysfunctional. It’s an embarrassment. Truthfully, they should strive to emulate their DougCo counterparts.

Jimmy Sengenberger is host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts “Jimmy at the Crossroads,” a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.