A mostly cordial forum Saturday for the Denver school board election intensified when one candidate suggested the district was working behind the scenes to close a northwest middle school.
“Parents of Lake (Middle School) are going out of their minds this weekend thinking their school is going to close on Monday,” said Christopher Scott, a candidate for the citywide, at-large position. ” But the board is meeting in executive session on Monday, and there has been no real public involvement in that decision.”
Scott’s statement is “categorically false,” said Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg.
“The spreading of these kinds of rumors in a partisan political environment is very harmful and unfortunate,” Boasberg, who was not at the forum, said later.
No plans have been made to close Lake, Boasberg said, but the district is looking at turnaround strategies for its lowest-performing schools.
Community meetings about DPS’s next steps are scheduled throughout Denver during the next week to explain the data and talk about solutions.
Recommendations will be made in early November, with the school board’s final decisions at the end of November.
Board president Theresa Peña, who was not at the forum, said Monday’s executive session meeting is about Boasberg’s evaluation.
“Shame on (Scott) for using such a critical and emotional issue . . . inciting parents, teachers and students without facts or data,” Peña said.
Scott’s comments were the fieriest in an otherwise genial forum among nine candidates vying for four contested seats.
School financing, increasing parental involvement and improving teacher evaluations were key topics in the event taped by Denver Channel 8, a government-access cable TV station that will show the program on Tuesday.
Scott and Mary Seawell have been waging an intense battle for the at-large position, with Scott refusing to participate in forums he said were sponsored by charter-school supporters.
At Saturday’s event, Seawell asked Scott to halt negative campaigning, which she said included “robo-calls” that allege she would close neighborhood schools and replace them with charters.
Another all-candidate forum is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Lincoln Elementary School, 710 S. Pennsylvania St.
Ballots arrive this week
Denver voters have two issues to decide in the Nov. 3 mail-in election: Whether to amend an ordinance governing when Denver police tow the cars of drivers who do not have licenses, and the makeup of the Denver School Board.
Ballots should begin to land in mailboxes this week.
To find out how candidates for the four seats up for grabs on DPS’s seven-member board stack up, see profiles on
