It’s hard to tell the difference anymore between the children on the playground and the so-called adults elected to the Denver Public School Board to oversee the education of our youth.
In the board room, we now see bullies and brats threatening to hold their breath until they get their way.
Making matters worse, our children will be learning by their example from their newly segregated playgrounds.
DPS is a safe and welcoming school district and with that means holding safe spaces for our BIPOC families and educators. I am in full support of the school leadership and staff at Centennial Elementary for holding a families of color event to support their BIPOC families.🧵 ⬇️
— Denver School Board Vice President – Tay Anderson (@DirectorTay) December 16, 2021
Alan Gottlieb, editor of watchdog boardhawk.org., writes in a Colorado Springs Gazette column that new and old board members are deeply fractured over the vote months ago to censure Tay Anderson for his inappropriate behavior with teen age school girls on social media.
New board members are siding with Anderson against the remaining three members who voted to censure him.
While stressing that he won’t let personal resentments interfere with board work, Anderson said: “I am (still) struggling…to work with some people at this table, based off of the last year that I’ve had…we still have people at this table that do not feel safe with folks at this table, and do not feel as we have addressed devastating harm that has been caused at this table.”
Anderson surely means the harm he perceives has been done to him, his behavior to school girls on social media that prompted the censure is beside the point.
Anderson maintains his innocence in all accusations of sexual harassment, and is suing those who leveled the accusations, which were discounted in a school board investigation in which no victim ever came forward.
Newly elected Scott Esserman, an Anderson and Denver Teachers Union ally, had this to say at the board’s recent retreat:
“You can’t move forward without restoring what has been done,” Esserman said, clearly referring to the censure. “We have to have honest conversations.”
Esserman said “a lot of what happened in the last year had a lot to do with personal feelings between board members. To sit here and pretend and try to move forward and say ‘well now we’ve got three new people in the room, that changes the dynamic for the board,’ without acknowledging those individual relationships, I’m struggling with.”
Most of the retreat was held behind closed doors, where the board also discussed charter school contract renewals in secret.
At the retreat, Board President Xochitl Gaytбn said the meeting wasn’t streamed because board members needed a “safe space” to do their early work, which included discussing results of personality-type tests, and how to work together moving forward.
So far, it’s not working.