The Denver school board is seeking to meet again next week to discuss and potentially take action on Superintendent Alex Marrero’s employment, according to emails obtained by The Denver Post on Friday.
The special meeting, if held, would mark the second time in two weeks that the Board of Education convened to talk about Marrero’s employment as tensions rise between superintendent and the district’s elected school board.
Director Monica Hunter, in an email Friday to school board Secretary Marlene De La Rosa, requested that directors meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday to discuss Marrero’s employment and “potential future district leadership planning and possible board action.” She copied the other five board members on the email.
In an earlier email, Hunter had tried to schedule the meeting for Friday morning. She accused board President Xóchitl Gaytán of not publicly noticing the meeting — as required under the state’s Open Meetings Law — despite a majority of board members wanting to convene, according to the email.
“To date, the president has not acted upon the written request of a majority of the board, and the special meeting has not been publicly noticed and has refused to fulfill her duties as board president,” Hunter wrote in her email.
Now, she wrote, it is up to De La Rosa to publicly notice the meeting for next week so that directors can gather to discuss the superintendent’s employment and DPS’s leadership.
The special meeting, if held, would mark the second time in two weeks that the school board held a special meeting to talk about Marrero’s employment.
Directors met for nearly four hours Monday to discuss the superintendent’s contract and performance, but announced no changes in Marrero’s employment at the end of the meeting.
Directors called Monday’s meeting — which mostly took place behind closed doors — after Marrero sent a letter to Gaytán, complaining that directors are overstepping their authority when it comes to DPS’s day-to-day operations.
Board members and Marrero are struggling to work together because of their different views on how to operate under the districtap governance model.
Some board members have also said they question Marrero’s commitment to DPS after he applied for a job in Miami this summer and was a finalist for a separate position in Chicago last year. Marrero did not get either of the jobs.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
