Welcome to the latest installment of our new series, “Other Hats,” where we explore what Colorado’s state lawmakers do for a living when the legislature is not in session. 

Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, is a Steamboat native and educator. A graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Colorado Denver, she began her teaching career in Pristina, Kosovo, teaching high school social studies. She then moved back to Colorado and taught high school social studies, AP US Government and Politics, and Economics at Steamboat Springs High School. 

After being elected to the Colorado House in 2022, Lukens became a part-time civics teacher at Steamboat Mountain School. She currently serves as Chair of the House Education Committee, as well as a member of the Agricultural, Natural Resources and Water Committee. 

Note: some responses have been edited for clarity

Colorado Politics: How did you get into education?

Meghan Lukens: When I was an undergrad, I majored in history and secondary social studies education and was a teacher all the way before getting elected, and now during the fall semester, I teach one high school civics class to all twelfth graders at Steamboat Mountain School.

CP: What did your coworkers and students think when you decided to run for office?

Lukens: When I was first running for office, I knew it was absolutely crucial to be professional, and especially with social studies. I teach in a nonpartisan way, so my rule when I was first running in 2022 was that I will answer students’ questions in a professional way if they have questions about my campaign, but otherwise, I wouldn’t offer up information unless they ask, because I wanted to be as professional as possible and keep that separate. Now that I’m an elected official, I can pull from real-world experiences when I’m teaching my students civics. For example, one of my favorite lessons is when we do a mock Education Committee hearing. Instead of just teaching about the legislative process, we actually do the mock Education Committee hearing with a bill that we actually passed at the Colorado State Legislature, but when the students read the bill, I don’t tell them whether or not we passed it, I wait until the very end and ask them how they would vote on the bill and have them guess how the adults legislators actually voted. It’s a fun way for them to learn about the committee process and for me to show them real-world experiences that I have in my job as a legislator. 

We also do a field trip in February or March to the State Capitol where I reserve seats on the House Floor and they get to watch the legislative process in action, and they usually go watch a committee hearing and then have lunch with either myself or their State Senator Dylan Roberts, and then they’ll do a full tour of the Capitol, so it’s cool because we talk about government and politics, but then they get to see it all in action. The students know that it’s really special, and I think it creates more buy-in and excitement from the students. My year-long essential question for my students is always, as a student how can you be politically engaged and how does understanding our political systems help you be engaged? So I support them, regardless of political party, in being politically and civically engaged.

As far as my coworkers, when I was first running, I communicated to my principal and my administrators that I was going to run for office, and they were like, ‘do what you want outside of school and be professional inside of school, and if it becomes an issue we’ll handle it.’ It was a very professional process. When I was running in 2022 I was a teacher at Steamboat Springs High School, but then I didn’t get my job the next yaer because they needed a year-round teacher, so now I teach at the private school, Steamboat Mountain School, because they were able to have a teacher just for the fall semester for the one civics class, so when they hired me, they knew I was a State Representative.

CP: What skills have you gained from your job that you’ve been able to bring with you to the Capitol?

Lukens: I am proud to now be the chair of the House Education Committee, so my background as a teacher lends to that. In that committee we have students come testify quite often, and we love it when that happens because we love having student engagement. A lot of times the students that come to the House Education Committee will start their testimony by saying, ‘I’m the student president of XX high school,’ and since I’m the one that gets to respond, I’ll always say, ‘thank you, Mr. President,’ or something like that, because it’s intimidating and I want to make sure that students feel as comfortable as possible.  

With bills, I think having an educator’s perspective and thinking about how they’ll impact teachers or students is always the lens that I’m thinking through: how do we maximize student learning while ensuring that we are retaining and respecting our educators — that’s certainly the lens that I bring with my capacity of being a current educator as well as a legislator. 

CP: How does your job impact the legislation you introduce and your positions on certain issues?

Lukens: I certainly have a perspective of what the current state of education is in Colorado, so I always bring that educator perspective. Working with a variety of education stakeholders is very important, because they represent crucial aspects across the entire state.

CP: How do you balance your job with your legislative duties?

Lukens: It helps that I love being a teacher, and I also love being a legislator. I think the value that I get from spending time with students really inspires the work that I do at the Capitol. Even though they’re under the age of 18, the students are still my constituents, so teaching is a great way to still be a part of the community and still participate in the two professions I love: the legislature and education, so that helps, but also, during the interim, legislators are taking meetings, doing tours, getting our bills ready for the next year and running a campaign, so there’s still a lot of legislative work that we’re doing, but I enjoy being in the classroom as well.