The growing rift between those who expressed unmitigated support for Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero and those who had called for a performance review before extending his contract was on full display Thursday night before the school board voted 5-2 to extend his contract.

Directors John Youngquist, a former East High School principal, and Kimberlee Sia — both elected in the 2023 “flip the board” wave — voted no on the contract extension.

Marrero’s contract wasn’t slated to expire until June 2026. The board had until January to notify him whether they intended to extend or end his contract.

Otherwise, it would have automatically extended for a year.

The impetus for the early extension was a board proposal to remove the performance pay structure from his contract that gave Marrero a $17,000 bonus in October.

The district will not release the contract until Marrero has signed it, said Bill Good, a district spokesperson.

The contract changes include:

• A two-year extension until June 2028.

• The removal of the performance pay structure.

• A 5-2 supermajority vote will be required for removing the superintendent without cause. The current contract only required a simple majority vote.

• To terminate without cause, the board will be required to provide 90-day notice, up from the 60-day notice currently required.

The vote came after Director Scott Esserman spoke disapprovingly of the public ahead of the decision, saying they had “axes to grind” and safety complaints about the man who returned armed police to campus to ensure student safety and “a tremendous amount of fearmongering.”

“Wait, wait, wait is not what you do when you have an outstanding leader,” Esserman said.

Thursday’s vote followed back-and-forth public comments both in favor of supporting and pausing the contract extension.

Tensions that had eased under the current board flared up again Thursday — reminiscent of the contentious dynamic during Xóchitl Gaytán’s recent tenure as president.

Before the vote, Youngquist and Sia said they supported some, but not all of the amendments, leading Director Michelle Quattlebaum to take them to task.

“Every board member had an opportunity to add their own comments, make their own recommendations and strike any recommendations that they did not agree with,” Quattlebaum said.

Aaron Thompson, the district’s general counsel, told the board the contract could be vulnerable to legal challenge if it doesn’t reflect a clear give-and-take between both parties.

Earlier this week, two dueling letters — one supporting Marrero, the other urging a pause on renewing his contract 13 months early — underscored a community divide between those calling for a deliberate review process and others who fear his critics are escalating tensions.

Both letters highlighted a number of Marrero’s successes, including the recent hiring of Patricia Hurrieta to lead the Latine Student Success team with the goal of developing a plan to improve Latino student achievement and family engagement.

The letters were signed by a cross-section of community leaders that included DPS parents and education advocates, state and local lawmakers, school educators and former board members.

A number of these leaders also expressed concerns about Latino students lagging academically behind their White counterparts. This has been a particularly stubborn, long-standing issue for school districts across the nation that the learning losses during the COVID-19 pandemic have only accentuated.

Last month, the board faced a public backlash over extending Marrero’s contract ahead of the fall election when three seats — Gaytán, Quattlebaum and Esserman — will be up for grabs. At that meeting the school board dropped its plans for a closed-door meeting when no one made a motion to enter into executive session, effectively nixing it.

Lynn Ly, co-founder of Resign DPS, has promised to revive her group’s effort to “flip the board” — again. Resign DPS was a movement that advocated for member resignations over the board’s perceived dysfunction and concerns about student safety.

In January, the board reduced the number of goals used to evaluate Marrero from more than 200 metrics to roughly two dozen, while raising its academic expectations of him.

Two years ago, the board voted 4-3 to raise Marrero’s salary base 10% — making him at the time among the highest paid in the state — in a new contract that included up to 12.5% in performance pay, if he achieves all his goals. In October, the board approved a roughly $17,000 bonus during Marrero’s annual review.

Marrero’s base pay has grown 26% since starting with the district three years ago.

Marrero joined DPS in July 2021.

He has since had a string of questionable decisions that include his handling of the East High School shooting two years ago, school closures, a nearly $100,000 corner office upgrade and annual cost-of-living increases he received while denying it to teachers.

Before coming to Denver, Marrero served as interim superintendent for the City School District of New Rochelle, which is outside New York City and serves fewer than 10,000 students, according to the district’s website.