The end goals for Colorado Springs D-11’s school board candidates, broadly speaking, are somewhat consistent: higher student achievement, greater transparency with the public and supporting teachers and staff. How to go about doing so is where their visions differ.

Six of the seven candidates vying for the school district’s three open board seats discussed how they would improve these areas and more during a public forum Tuesday night.

School safety, handling the district’s budget and how to improve educational performances were among the topics LeAnn Baca Bartlett, Michael Carsten, Bruce Cole, Charles Johnson, Jeremiah Johnson and Michelle Ruehl were asked by the district’s accountability committee representatives at D-11’s Tesla Professional Development Center.

Candidates largely agreed that the district’s current policies and procedures for security, which include armed school resource officers and locked exterior doors, were effective, but Ruehl added that there is room for enhanced safety.

Citing her recent work on an Academy D-20 school accountability committee, she said that pulling elements from the state’s safety and risk assessment tools and additional training for possible scenarios could be potential options going forward.

“One of those things that will help is intelligence,” she said. “There are other schools in the city that practice some heavy intelligence and work with the local military and police to capture more data and figure (that) out. And that means more ears and more feet on the ground.”

While candidates collectively agreed that public transparency was important, Charles Johnson added that more engagement and involvement throughout district developments, rather than after the fact, is possible.

“I also think we need to be with our parents when the hard conversations come up, similar to the Jenkins Middle School disaster,” he said. “Unfortunately, we were late on that conversation. I think we need to be on the front forward flip to make sure that we’re transparent.”

Johnson was referring to the emergency closure of Jenkins Middle School in January, which parents were notified of days prior, following a failed inspection from the Colorado Springs Fire Department. The building was long known to have crumbling infrastructure due largely to its proximity to Cottonwood Creek.

Where candidates distinguished themselves the most was in how they would support teachers and improve student outcomes. Carsten said he would lean heavily on the experience of the district’s current teachers and that collective bargaining would be the best way to empower and attract educators to the district.

“They deserve autonomy,” he said. “They are professionals; they deserve the agency that professionals are given to do their jobs. They deserve a seat at the table, they deserve collaboration.”

Over the past year, D-11’s board decided to end the master agreement with its teachers union, the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA), and replace the annual collective bargaining agreement with a revised handbook for all employees, in addition to teachers.

Cole, a recently retired D-11 teacher and former member of the CSEA, disagreed with the value of the master agreement, saying that, in recent years, it stopped being “a tool to increase academics” and became “a cudgel to beat the school district into compliance.”

“I want to make sure that we are having an organization that protects teachers’ rights, that enables teachers to feel supported and successful, but I think we can do it without the demands of a master agreement,” he said.

When it comes to student outcomes, Baca Bartlett said she would consult current teachers and committees to determine their best methods, while Carsten said he would focus on teacher attraction and retention. Cole and Charles Johnson suggested introducing new systems and methods for student intervention, and Ruehl proposed an incentive-based pay model to increase performance and additional training for developing trends such as the use of artificial intelligence.

Jeremiah Johnson, a husband to a current D-11 teacher, noted the student agency system that was recently implemented in the district to encourage individualized education and academic rigor.

“I think that we are certainly trying to do that now and, as we lean into that, we will improve that system so every student will get that individualized education,” he said.   

Without pointing to a specific topic or policy recently passed, candidates were also asked how they would consider passing a new policy that generates public controversy and how they would communicate this decision with the community.

Recently, D-11’s board passed multiple new policies affecting transgender students and faced criticism from the LGBTQ+ community.

Baca Bartlett echoed other candidates’ points on increasing communication through procedures and systems leading up to a board decision and added that it should come down how it will impact the majority of students, staff members and community members.

“Another consideration is resources,” she said. “We have to evaluate the implementation of policies and what resources they need.”

The coordinated election will take place on Nov. 4, and ballots will be mailed out to voters on Oct. 10.