The only word to describe an article in the Denver Post pointing out the rampant hypocrisy of the newish Jeffco School Board is delicious. The current school board ousted pro-reform members in 2015, in part, claiming that the reform board majority lacked transparency, particularly in selecting a sole finalist for its superintendent. That’s why the current board’s selection of Jason Glass as a sole finalist for the position is stunningly hypocritical.
Here is an email that current board member Ali Lasell wrote in 2014, as an “activist,” to the board about its selection of Dan McMinimee as its sole finalist:
“I am very concerned about your ‘solo finalist’ (is there such a thing, one finalist?) for the position of our Superintendent,” Lasell wrote in a May 12, 2014, email. “… we were all led to believe that you would select, at the very least, two to six finalists.”
Current board member Amanda Stevens also sent an email criticizing the former board’s move:
“Stevens, in an email sent a couple of weeks later, wrote ‘in Jeffco, transparency matters.’ She lambasted the board for ‘choosing one finalist for superintendent, blocking the community from the normal process of familiarizing ourselves with multiple finalists.'”
Here’s what a community member told the Denver Post about Lasell and Stevens’ hypocrisy:
“‘I would tell them they are the biggest hypocrites ever,’ Leonor Lucero, a mother of two middle school students in the Ken Caryl neighborhood, said of the school board. ‘I would have loved that opportunity to ask questions.'”
In response, Lasell ties herself into knots trying to back out of her blatant hypocrisy. Here are the reasons she offered for what she did:
- McMinimee was picked by a controversial board majority (only controversial because they were not union-backed, btw)
- People were worried that McMinimee would bring “controversial” reform to Jefferson County (he didn’t)
- The board vote was unanimous (because all members were union backed)
- “Naming any more would have been disingenuous, not authentic and against the Board’s commitment to conduct all business in an open and transparent manner.” (most hilarious of all – being transparent would have not been transparent)
The new board should just stop trying to ‘splain itself – they are just embarrassing themselves and nobody is falling for it.