Get a load of this: The head of Denver Public Schools is alarmed at a spate of gun-related incidents among students on district campuses this year – and he wants candidates in the upcoming mayoral race to do something about it. The legislature, too. Maybe the state’s lawmakers should pass some more gun-control laws, he says.

Superintendent Alex Marrero made the remarks about guns in school to 9News after raising the issue at a DPS school board meeting the other night. How ironic.

Sitting right there in front of him, of course, were the seven elected board members who actually have the power and responsibility to improve school safety in Denver – and who have blown it. Yet, Marrero didn’t so much as wag a finger at them.

Maybe he let his bosses off the hook as a courtesy, considering they had extended his $260,000-a-year contract last year for another two years – after he had been on the job only six months. Or, maybe it was because he hasn’t been in town long enough to know everything the board has been up to.

It was before Marrero’s arrival that the Denver school board voted in 2020 to kick 18 Denver police officers off campuses where they had been serving as school resource officers. They had policed the halls but also did much more. The officers built bonds of trust with some of the most at-risk kids at some of the district’s most problematic schools. And those bonds extended out into the community.

Among the board’s incoherent excuses for dismissing the Denver police was the claim that too many kids of color were being fed into a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Presumably, by cops too eager to arrest. Never mind that a lot of the police themselves were people of color.

Now, the district has to rely on its own security guards. No wonder there have been 35 incidents involving guns on campus so far this school year.

It’s time for the DPS board to bring back the police. But we won’t hold our breath waiting for Marrero to bring it up.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board