Denver’s school board is set to decide Thursday whether to further restrict the public’s ability to comment in front of the board by reducing the time individual speakers can address the elected directors who govern Colorado’s largest school district.
The move, however, would coincide with plans to start new community meetings hosted by each Denver Public Schools director within their individual district.
If adopted, the Board of Education’s new policy will also change when its monthly public comment session is held, allow people to weigh in virtually, and only allow speakers who are city residents or have a direct connection to DPS, according to the latest draft.
But the most significant change in the new policy would be to reduce the amount of time each speaker gets to address the board from three minutes to two minutes.
The proposed changes to how the DPS board receives direct public input come as members are preparing to launch separate listening sessions at least once a semester in their districts next year. Directors who spoke to The Denver Post said these new sessions will create an opportunity for them to talk with constituents in a way that isn’t permitted during the board’s monthly public comment meeting.
“We don’t want to restrict voices,” board President Carrie Olson said in an interview. “We just want to build a better relationship with the school board.”
The school board currently meets at least three times a month, starting with work sessions, which are typically held earlier in the month as directors prepare for their regular voting meeting. The board hosts separate meetings to take public comment on the Monday before their monthly voting meetings, which are typically held at the district’s headquarters in downtown Denver on the third Thursday.
Public comment used to be taken during the board’s regular meetings, but was moved to a separate day, in part, to give members more time to consider the community’s input ahead of any potential vote, Olson said.
Last year, public comment was restricted to a total of two hours, with speakers limited to three minutes apiece to address the board. Previously, there wasn’t a limit on the total time for public comment, but the change was made because meetings ran too long, Chalkbeat Colorado reported.
Under the proposed new policy, the board will drop the two-hour limit, but keep a rule that only allows comments on an individual topic to last 30 minutes. This means that, in theory, only 15 people will have a chance to weigh in on any individual item the board plans to vote on.
Groups will have four minutes to address the board, according to the draft policy.
The policy will also set a separate 30-minute limit for public comment on topics unrelated to an upcoming vote — a change that director Marlene De La Rosa said has been proposed to help keep speakers focused on policies the board is considering rather than operational issues that fall under the purview of Superintendent Alex Marrero.
“We really want to make sure we’re hearing from people on things that are coming up that we are working on in policy,” she said.
The proposed policy will move public comment to the board’s monthly work session. The policy will also create a new option for the community to address the board virtually, something that is not currently available.
Looking to other districts
Board members looked at public comment policies used by other governing bodies that oversee school districts in Los Angeles and Chicago and neighboring Jefferson County when drafting the new rules, De La Rosa said.
At Jeffco Public Schools meetings, individual speakers are given three minutes to address the Board of Education. Colorado’s second-largest district also splits public comment into two sections — which each last an hour each — during the board’s regular monthly meeting, according to the district’s website,
Likewise, the Douglas County School District, the state’s third largest district, has a three-minute limit per speaker during public comment, according to the board’s policy. The Douglas County school board is known for its lengthy — and sometimes heated — public comment sessions, which can last more than an hour. The board’s policy doesn’t limit the length of the total public comment session, saying it’s up to the president’s discretion to adjust the time allocated for public remarks.
The Denver board’s proposed policy also states that “every speaker must have an established relationship to Denver Public Schools,” meaning they must be a student, parent/guardian, employee, Denver resident or member of an organization that partners with DPS. The change, if approved, would be similar to rules at Jeffco Public Schools’ board meetings.
Most speakers during public comment are likely to have some connection to a school district, but people from outside the community — even someone from another state — could want to participate if it’s a topic, such as a book ban, that they are passionate about, said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.
“The (Colorado) Open Meetings Law is really silent about public comment,” he said, adding that each governing body makes its own rules about taking input from constituents.
Long school board meetings
Denver’s school board meetings can become lengthy, lasting hours, if there’s a hot topic — such as school closures — that directors are expected to vote on. In such a scenario, Olson said, the board could hold an additional special public comment session to make sure everyone has an opportunity to weigh in on the issue.
“We’ve seen over the last couple public comments, with the exception of the school closures, we haven’t had a lot of people signing up for public comment,” she told her colleagues at a meeting last week. “But if we do have something that’s big, we’ll be able to hold a special comment where we won’t have the restrictions.”
The board president encouraged her colleagues to give the new rules for public comment a chance, saying during the meeting that they can always change the policy if there’s something they want to tweak in the future.
If board members approve the policy Thursday, it will go into effect Jan. 1 — except for the virtual public comments option, which would be implemented next year by the start of the 2025-26 academic year.
Board members also plan to start hosting listening sessions in the districts they represent beginning in February, De La Rosa said.
In doing so, she said, board members will be meeting the community where they are — and more frequently — rather than expecting people to come to downtown Denver once a month.
“Our desire is to have more two-way communication and really to be out in the community listening to people,” she said, adding, “So that we can hear from people that may not want to or have the means to get downtown.”
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