A dispute among Denver school board members that’s set to be aired publicly Thursday night follows a year-long attempt by one elected director to receive full compensation for his official duties and incidents he had with at least two senior Denver Public Schools staffers.
Three school board members — Michelle Quattlebaum, Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and Scott Esserman — publicly accused John Youngquist, who joined the board in late 2023, of “behavior unbecoming of a board member toward DPS staff” last month.
Youngquist, they noted, had levied his own allegations, accusing his colleagues of violating Colorado’s open-meeting law after he was excluded from an executive session in December.
“His subsequent threats, accusations of legal violations and overall unprofessional behavior towards his fellow board colleagues are not in alignment with the respectful and collaborative tone that we are all expected to uphold,” Quattlebaum, Gaytán and Esserman wrote in Dec. 17 letter to board President Carrie Olson.
But the three board members stopped short of specifically detailing how their colleague violated board policies when it came to district employees.
Youngquist, who has expressed surprise at the allegations, told The Denver Post that he is aware of two instances when he offended senior district staff members. The first occurred in February, when he was told he had offended DPS Chief of Staff Deborah Staten, but Youngquist said he was unclear how he did so.
A month later, tensions flared between Youngquist and Aaron Thompson, the district’s general counsel, during an email exchange in which Thompson noted the school board member had repeatedly challenged the attorney’s legal advice, and suggested Youngquist’s pushback stemmed from racial biases, according to emails obtained by The Post.
Youngquist, in an interview Wednesday, said once he realized he had offended Thompson, he asked the attorney to get coffee so he could learn more and understand his concerns.
“I did not know him well at that point,” Youngquist said. “I was just working with the information I was receiving and the information I felt I wasn’t receiving.”
Olson added a public discussion of the dispute to Thursday’s board agenda. She declined to say what exactly will be discussed during the meeting, but acknowledged she is aware of the two incidents involving Youngquist and senior DPS staff and that they could “possibly” come up during the meeting.
“I do have some inkling (of what will be discussed), but we will let this process play out,” Olson said
It’s rare for directors to formally air their grievances in a public meeting as board policy states that any violations must first be addressed privately, although the DPS board has been known for infighting in recent years.
The school board’s move to publicly discuss the allegations against Youngquist are a second step in the process of censuring a board member. Olson said there won’t be a vote to censure Youngquist during Thursday’s meeting.
“My hope is that this is where it ends and that we work on building a better working relationship between all of us,” she said, adding, “My vision is that we’ll have this discussion and we’ll get right back to work.”
Quattlebaum, Gaytán and Esserman either declined to comment for this story or did not respond to requests for comment.
A closed session and pay issues
In an email sent by Youngquist to Olson on Dec. 17, the director accused the board of violating state statute by not properly stating the subject of a Dec. 12 executive session that dealt with his board compensation and how it relates to rules set by the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, or PERA.
Youngquist said he was told to leave the meeting and that he could not participate in the closed session.
A previous DPS board voted in 2021 to pay members for their official duties, and, two years later, directors increased the compensation to as much as $33,000 a year per person. Board members aren’t automatically paid, but are able to request compensation based on the hours they’ve worked.
But two board members — Olson and Youngquist — face a problem in getting fully paid. Both are retired educators and receive pensions from PERA, which limits the hours that retirees can work to up to 110 days or 720 hours per year.
PERA penalizes anyone who exceeds that threshold by cutting their pension by 5% in a future month for each day they work over the limit.
Olson hasn’t requested compensation for her board duties because she didn’t want that to affect her retirement benefits. But Youngquist, who has received more than $20,000 in compensation since joining the board, wasn’t able to request the full $33,000 he’s allowed without it impacting his pension.
“Both Carrie and I have been, over the course of the year, really working to try to solve how compensation can be provided,” Youngquist said. “We, along with others, just didn’t find a solution there.”
Olson said the board has met with PERA officials and state legislators about the issue affecting directors’ pay.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for a really long time,” she said. “It doesn’t appear to be something the district can solve through policy.”
During the Dec. 12 meeting at which Youngquist alleged his colleagues violated state statute, Olson asked board members whether anyone wanted to make a motion to vote on whether to reimburse Youngquist $21,291 for PERA penalties he would incur for working more than 140 days.
No one made the motion.
Allegation of racial biases
In his Dec. 17 email, Youngquist told Olson that if he did not receive a “reasonable response” to his concerns about open-meeting violations by 4 p.m. Dec. 18, then “the letter will be provided more broadly for external review,” according to emails reviewed by The Post.
Olson responded by forwarding the correspondence to the rest of the board, noting that Thompson advised it should also be sent to outside counsel. Hours later, in their own letter, Quattlebaum, Gaytán and Esserman called the allegations of open-meeting violations “unfounded and without merit” and accused Youngquist of violating board policies.
Two days later, an attorney with the firm Caplan and Earnest, representing DPS, sent Youngquist a response.
The attorney told Youngquist that the meeting was not improperly noticed and noted that Youngquist’s absence from the closed session was required because the meeting was in response to his request for reimbursement of PERA penalties and costs associated with his board service.
“Your desire to be reimbursed for the penalties and costs you incur as a PERA retiree for Board service exceeding 140 days per calendar year is a financial interest personal to you,” wrote Kristin Edgar of Caplan and Earnest.
She added that, under state law and board policy, Youngquist “may not vote on or attempt to influence the decision of others in voting on the matter.”
“The district may have from (the attorney) a legal perspective that is different from others,” Youngquist said in an interview.
While December might have been a turning point in board members’ relations, Youngquist acknowledged he offended at least two senior staffers earlier in the year.
Emails from March show Youngquist did not feel Thompson adequately answered questions he asked during an earlier executive session, with the board member saying the attorney’s response “represents as a manipulation in regard to information shared and not shared and information that has been represented as provided, but not provided, to me as a board member.”
In his reply, Thompson noted that, “Historically, stereotypes of deceitfulness and manipulation have been unjustly and harmfully applied to Black individuals and communities.” He also noted that the district staff members Youngquist interacts with most — including Staten and Superintendent Alex Marrero — are people of color.
“I feel I must respond on their behalf to avoid any additional discomfort that may be unnecessarily imparted to district staff,” Thompson wrote to Youngquist. “That said, I invite you to explore any unexamined biases you may have concerning interacting with district staff, who also happen to be people of color.”
Thompson declined to comment for this story.
Youngquist did not provide details about the incident with Staten, the district’s chief of staff. Staten did not directly address the incident in a statement to The Post.
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