Colorado State Board of Education: Candidates discuss parental rights, student independence

Colorado State Board of Education: Candidates on the cell phone debate in schools

Colorado State Board of Education: 4 seats open, 1 incumbent seeks reelection

Colorado State Board of Education: Candidates agree state falls short in education funding, teacher pay

(Editor’s Note: This is a part of a series of stories where Colorado Politics interviewed the candidates of the State Board of Education regarding public education funding, policies and other issues.)

While the seven candidates running for four open seats on the State Board of Education agreed that behavioral issues exist in Colorado classrooms, they differed on why and what needs to be done.

The candidates focused on whether behavioral health issues exhibited by some students are affecting other pupils’ ability to learn and how to help teachers deal with disruptive students.

District 2 Democratic candidate Kathy Gebhardt said she can relate to the issue, noting that two of her daughters are teachers in Colorado.

“I hear about this not daily, but probably weekly,” she said. “I think we need additional support for teachers to help with behavioral health issues. We need additional support to help our teachers work with families and with kids that are struggling being back in the classroom. This can’t all fall on the classroom teacher. I don’t think that’s reasonable.”

As a military family member, Republican District 8 candidate Yazmin Navarro said her daughter has been in classrooms in Italy, El Salvador, and now the U.S. When it comes to the quality of education and discipline in classrooms, Navarro said the U.S. is falling behind.

Due to disruptions and a lack of focus, Navarro said her daughter got a better education in other countries. She noted that in the U.S., teachers are not supported and expected to do much more than they should, noting that many do not even get a break during the day.

Navarro said she sees education from outside the U.S. and also works directly in classrooms to see firsthand how disruptive students can take over a classroom.

Navarro said class sizes are a problem in Colorado, noting that she has supported elementary school teachers with 33 students in class. She said that with a few disruptive students, productivity can slip quickly in a large classroom.

Rhonda Solis, the incumbent District 8 Democratic candidate, said that, since COVID, school boards at the local and state levels have seen a change in how adults in society behave, which is what children see and mimic.

“This is not a simple topic,” Solis said. “I hate that we are blaming kids for this.”

Solis said the general public, including students, has gone through something traumatic since 2020.

“I don’t even know if we’ve unpacked what we all went through. And, you know, even now, parenting is different. Teaching is different. Being a student is different,” she said. 

Solis said she believes students are coming back from the trauma that she said the COVID-19 pandemic created, and a natural reaction is to act out.

“I just think it’s a lot to ask from little humans when we, as big humans, did not handle it very well,” Solis said. “We just need to give them some grace.”

Still, Solis said she deeply respects what teachers have gone through since the pandemic, noting that they have adjusted and evolved to many changes in the teaching environment.

District 3 Republican candidate Sherri Wright said behavioral issues and a lack of discipline in classrooms have resulted in students losing out on quality education, good teachers leaving the profession, and a growing crisis that should be addressed.

Wright said elementary students have put teachers in hospitals, and young, new teachers at the high school level get so stressed out that they are “begging the administration for help.”

“It is a concern, and I don’t know if I could teach full-time again,” Wright said.

Wright pointed to the failure of school administrators to be authoritative when needed. Wright said parents are taking a role in the growing problem, saying that frequently, they do not want to hear that their child is creating an issue and do not want the school to discipline them.

District 8 Democrat Ellen Angeles said she has seen it through teaching in Colorado districts, noting that it started during and after COVID-19 in 2020. However, she said the problem is that it “does not seem to be tapering off.”

“I think with each year, it’s gotten a little worse,” she said.

While districts are investing more in counselors and in-classroom paraprofessionals to help teachers, Angeles said she believes the primary solution is addressing class sizes.

“When you have smaller class sizes, your teachers can spend more time with each kid individually,” Angeles said.

Angeles said that when teachers have nearly 30 elementary school students, they struggle to keep all students focused, much less on task, when a handful of disruptive students take over.

District 4 Democrat Krista Holtzmann said the solution may be for the state board to communicate more with teachers and administrators who are implementing policies that are starting to work and creating better learning environments.

“Really, the school leaders and teachers, they’re the professionals that are there every day, and they have a lot of creative solutions,” she said.

Holtzmann said addressing the statewide issue means educational leaders must listen to the directly affected teachers. Ultimately, that will likely mean giving teachers in struggling classrooms more support and paraprofessionals to manage it, she added.

District 4 Republican Kristi Burton Brown said she has heard the problem exists and continues to be an issue for school districts. Even when students are placed on Individualized Education Plans, Brown said it is not necessarily improving the learning environment in classrooms. 

“Even the fixes aren’t working for them and the other kids,” she said. “The problem really comes down the ratio of adults to students in classrooms. It isn’t allowing good teachers to provide quality education to students.”

Brown said it is impossible to be a solo teacher and meet every single child’s needs because they are all different.