Author: Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado

Following an election that “flipped” the Denver school board, giving control to members backed by the teachers union, the board on Wednesday elected a new president: Carrie Olson, who left a decades-long teaching career two years ago to serve on the board. Jennifer Bacon, another former teacher, was elected vice president. The votes to elect Olson…

Until very recently, Denver’s eighth-grade social studies curriculum asked students to identify the challenges faced by settlers as they moved West in the 1800s – but not those faced by the Native Americans whose land they took. Denver Public Schools officials are now revising that curriculum. Tamara Acevedo, deputy superintendent of academics, said in a…

Denver campus safety officers handcuffed only three students in the first three months of school, an 87% reduction from last year, when officers used handcuffs 23 times in the first trimester. That data is from the district’s first-ever “trimester transparency report,” an accounting of how many times campus safety officers used handcuffs and on whom…

Carried by momentum from February’s teachers strike and a broader backlash against the status quo, candidates opposed to the policies that made Denver Public Schools a national exemplar for education reform now control the school board for the first time. Instead of five members backed by pro-reform organizations and two backed by the teachers union,…

In a part of Denver that has experienced rapid changes, voters face a choice that could shift long-standing education policies and practices in the state’s largest district and shape how schools respond to changing demographics. Two parents and one former teacher are running to represent northwest Denver’s District 5 on the school board. The District…

Denver voters face a choice this November that could change longstanding education policies and practices in the state’s largest district. Three Denver parents are running to represent southeast Denver’s District 1 on the school board. The District 1 seat is one of three board seats up for grabs Nov. 5. Scott Baldermann is the father…

Three former Denver students are running for an at-large seat on a school board that will help shape how the Denver school district approaches improving education for all students. Alexis Menocal Harrigan attended elementary school in Denver before moving to the northern suburbs in search of schools that her parents, immigrants from Mexico, thought would…

Several negative mailers sent by a teachers union-funded political committee mischaracterize Chalkbeat reporting. Here’s what’s wrong and what’s right about the claims in the mailers. The mailers target three candidates – Alexis Menocal Harrigan, Diana Romero Campbell, and Tony Curcio – who were endorsed by advocacy groups that generally favor the education reform policies adopted…

A political committee funded by the Denver teachers union apologized Thursday night for an attack ad decried as racist by the school board candidates it targeted. The mailer was sent by an independent expenditure committee called Students Deserve Better. It identified candidates Alexis Menocal Harrigan and Diana Romero Campbell as “Alexis Harrigan” and “Diana Campbell,”…