After Tuesday’s election for the State Board of Education, one seat has been filled for lack of an opponent, another was probably filled in a race that appeared to be over and a third seat remained up for grabs.
The incumbent for District 1, Elaine Gantz Berman, had no challenger, but the other two seats in contention were not so easy to call Tuesday evening.
The seat for District 7, which represents mostly Jefferson County, appeared to be leaning toward incumbent Democrat Jane Goff.
But District 3, which represents more than two dozen counties in mostly rural parts of the state, was a tossup, with Republican Marcia Neal of Grand Junction leading handily in Mesa County and Democrat Jill Brake from Pueblo leading in her home county.
The rest of the counties is where the battle will be, Neal said late Tuesday. “Who knows? It looks like it will be close,” Neal said.
Neal taught for 21 years in Mesa County and served on the District 51 school board for eight years. Neal said she is focused on postsecondary education and improving children’s workforce development.
Brake is a longtime education official who has national board experience. She runs the on-site Thatcher Learning Center day care at Parkview Medical Center and has had a career in education governorship.
Brake said she wants to increase the amount of money going to Colorado for education.
In District 7, which represents the suburbs around Denver, Goff, of Arvada, appeared to be headed to a win with 59 percent of the vote compared with 40 percent of the vote for Republican challenger Chenoa Jensen of Lakewood.
Goff, who was appointed to the board in March, taught for three decades in Jefferson County and served as the teachers union president.
Jensen has never held public office and is a mother of four who home-schools her 11-year-old.
District 1’s Berman received her experience as president of the Denver school board and now will represent District 1 on the seven-member state board.
Her priorities are to continue working on the alignment of the state’s three accountability systems, minimize regulations on teachers and create a seamless system of education starting with prekindergarten.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
