Unlike recent school board elections in Colorado, the 2025 coordinated elections sent a clear message in favor of progressive-minded candidates.

School districts as large as Denver Public Schools and as small as Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 in the Four Corners will welcome new members backed by local teachers unions to their boards of education, who will replace outgoing reform members.

Following the initial results, the Colorado Education Association (CEA), the statewide teachers’ union, announced in a news release that over 80% of its endorsed candidates were ahead in their races across Colorado.

Colorado’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools, experienced a swing towards union-endorsed candidates after no such candidates were elected in 2023.

CEA President Kevin Vick speculated the swing in candidates was partly a response to the direction the district had taken over the years concerning school choice and new charter schools.

 “I think, by and large, Denver as a whole is pretty tired of reform policies,” he said.

Other notable board flips this year occurred in the Douglas County School District, where candidates all endorsed by the county’s Democratic Party were elected to four open seats. The same held in Aurora, Durango, Pueblo’s two public school districts, Cherry Creek and Grand Junction.

As of Friday, updated results in the historically conservative El Paso County project two progressive candidates winning seats on the Colorado Springs D-11 board of education and one projected to replace a conservative incumbent in D-49.

El Paso County Deputy Chief Elections Clerk Kristi Ridlen told The Gazette that the county and state will begin completing the risk-limiting audit on Tuesday before certifying the election. This is expected to be finished on or before Nov. 26. 

Once the election is finalized, any potential mandatory recount will be announced, if applicable. Colorado law requires a recount when the margin of victory is within 0.5% of the winning vote.

With the D-49 seat and one D-11 seat meeting this criteria at the time of publication, the remarkably close races have some believing that a shift in priorities in education’s local leaders could be coming.

“I think that’s kind of emblematic, even in El Paso County, that there is a pull back from the time two or three years ago when school boards and school board meetings were upheavals,” said Vick, a former D-11 teacher. “So, I think people are just wanting calmness in their schools.”

Over the past year, both D-11 and D-49’s boards have received criticism from some community members over decisions affecting transgender students and filing a lawsuit against the state over student athletes’ rights based on their biological sex.

Last December, D-11’s board voted to let the collective bargaining agreement that had been in place since 1968 with the Colorado Springs Education Association expire. Last month, in part to respond to this and to advocate for their endorsed school board candidates, the teachers’ union staged a one-day strike throughout the school district.

In Teller County, a slate of three CEA-backed candidates for Woodland Park RE-2’s board of education won by decidedly larger margins, ranging from 15-20% of total votes ahead.  

Board member-elect Kassidi Gilgenast, a district parent and volunteer, said that she decided to run after becoming frustrated with decisions by the current board and previous superintendent that had manifested into anxiety in the district’s schools and their seeming lack of care or engagement with the community.  

She added that the elections that voted in that current board were likely reflective of “larger societal factors” in public education coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, including greater focus on parental rights and addressing liberal or progressive ideas being introduced in schools.

“But I think that that was really overstated to a certain extent and that there was this huge backlash over what people perceived was happening in the district,” she said.

In recent years, the district has endured administrative turnover, inconsistent financial reporting, school consolidation and the loss of a local sales tax for revenue. This all transpired while facing public criticism over adopting a social studies curriculum preferred by conservative groups and making decisions for its local charter school with little public transparency or input.

Gilgenast added that the three victories this year seem like “a very significant shift” that brings “a much more hopeful outlook for the future.”

“I really feel like that shift is broadly across the community,” she said. “And certainly not everyone is happy with the results, because not everyone in town voted for me, but I think that this is marking a really significant shift, and I hope it’s a positive one that people will get behind.”

More dollars in school board campaigns

This year, nearly $2 million in campaign contributions were reported for the Denver Public School board elections alone. Multiple committees, both pro- and anti-union, continued to invest heavily in El Paso County school board races.

In the Denver Metropolitan area, smaller districts like Cherry Creek D-5 also saw highly competitive races between financially backed candidates.

Union-supported candidates Mike Hamrick and Terry Bates garnered more votes over Tatyana Sturm and Amanda Thayer for the board’s two open seats. Chalkbeat Colorado reported that the latter two received donations from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright while the Sentinel Colorado reported that they had received endorsements from the Colorado GOP.

Hamrick, the husband of a former teacher and father of a current teacher, said they tried to use his union endorsement against him throughout their campaigns, while he took it as an honor.

“I don’t even know if I would have ran without thinking I would have that endorsement or having the opportunity for that endorsement,” he said.

In El Paso County, committees such as The Springs Opportunity Fund, Students Deserve Better and D-11 Parents and Teachers were among the biggest spenders, both supporting and opposing the union’s preferred candidates.

This recent trend in funding has also led to greater participation in campaigning. El Paso County Democrats Chair John Jarrell said this was the first time in at least his decade with the party that they got involved in school board elections.

He said it was mostly a response to the dark money-funded campaigns in 2021 and 2023.

“If we stood around doing nothing, then the dark money was going to be able to essentially appoint people to school boards across the county and undermine the will of the community,” Jarrell said. “So we as the Democratic Party needed to step in and keep filling the void in this fight.”

He said the results in last week’s elections were better than he expected. Even in school districts like Lewis-Palmer D-38, the left-leaning candidates performed much better than in previous years, and holding that shift would mean huge things for 2026

The other point he emphasized was that a lot of younger school-board candidates were winning and wanted to run for seats.

“We were caught in a cycle of choosing between the same 70-year-olds in this country. It seems like it was finally time to step up and not let that cycle continue.”

Shades of red in a blue wave

Although this increased support from progressives may have swayed some school board seats, it wasn’t a complete sweep. U.S. Rep Jeff Crank endorsed three candidates in D-11 and Academy D-20 each. While only Michelle Ruehl, who received the Crank endorsement, is currently projected to win a seat in D-11. All three won their races in D-20 by slightly larger margins of about 2 or 3% of votes over three union-backed candidates.  

In a statement provided to the Gazette, D-20’s only returning incumbent Susan Payne said she was “honored” to be given the trust of its community.

“My commitment is to put children first, strengthen academic achievement, and ensure our students and educators feel safe and supported,” she said. “I look forward to partnering with parents, teachers, and our entire community to keep D-20 a District of Distinction.”


In addition to Crank, the three D-20 candidates were among a select few to receive the endorsement of the Colorado Parental Advocacy Network. Founded in 2022, the nonprofit works to bolster parental rights in public education, healthcare and childcare, and other areas impacted by state legislation.

Founder Lori Gimelshteyn said the organization only endorsed a select few candidates this year because it only does so when individual candidates seek them out and successfully pass an interview process. Among these requirements is that the candidate is not endorsed by any state or local teachers’ unions, since the network believes that they use taxpayer dollars to fund campaigns.

Upon endorsing candidates, she added that they provide training to them on current practices in their local school district. Topics mentioned include diversity, equity and inclusion practices that seek to change students’ values and morals and sexually explicit materials currently available in school libraries.

The organization is among a group of plaintiffs named in a lawsuit filed this year against Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who alleges that House Bill 1312, also known as the Kelly Loving Act, compels individuals to speak in favor of views they do not support in violation of their First Amendment rights.

In addition to D-20, the network also endorsed a slate of candidates in the Elizabeth School District, Nino Pepper in Aurora Public Schools and Jeremy Harris for Denver Public Schools. While their three preferred candidates in Elizabeth emerged victorious, Gimelshteyn admitted that they anticipated losses in the other two races and believes that their movement is gaining momentum.

“We’re seeing a shifting the culture here in Colorado,” she said. “We’re finding that people are unaware about what’s happening in the legislature that impacts the education that their kids are receiving.”

Gazette reporter Brennen Kauffman contributed to this story.