From illegally holding meetings behind closed doors to deflecting from their culpability in school safety failures, Denver’s school board keeps hiding from the public. Unfortunately for the dysfunctional seven-member board, the public isn’t having it any longer — and the board’s breaches of transparency and trust are ever more apparent.

On Monday evening, the Denver Public Schools board rejected an effort by President Sochi Gaytán to discipline Tay Anderson, the board’s vice president, for what would have been his second censure. In part, Gaytán accused Anderson of publicly revealing contents of a confidential March 23 executive session that never should have been held privately in the first place.

When the item was removed from the agenda in a 6-1 vote, it was ostensibly because the internal squabble threatened to distract from the priority of school safety — a subject now front and center following school shootings at East High School and violence plaguing the district. “Anything happening amongst us is not even secondary,” Quattlebaum stated. “It shouldn’t even make the top 10. It shouldn’t matter at all. Because our babies don’t feel safe.”

Fair enough. But then, why did Quattlebaum and her colleagues spend just 20 minutes out of nearly three hours on school safety, including an impromptu 4-minute presentation by Superintendent Alex Marrero? Why wasn’t the issue important enough to get on the agenda? Any member could have requested it in advance. Why aren’t they openly discussing their ideas on school safety and hearing from experts?

Let’s be clear: When DPS removed school resources officers from schools in 2020, the board voted to do it. When DPS revamped its discipline matrix, limiting the circumstances in which schools may expel students or contact police concerning disruptive student conduct, the board voted to do it. Both decisions tied the hands of the superintendent, DPS Safety, school staff, and administrators. Only the current school board has the power to permanently undo such reckless decisions.

Yet, under the guise of something called “policy governance” — a widely used approach by school districts that delegates operational decisions to the district administration and lets a school board shape policy — the board members have absolved themselves of even taking public positions on school safety changes until Marrero offers his plan on June 30.

That’s a cop-out: Nothing prevents the board from, in the meantime, hearing testimony from safety and law enforcement experts, asking rigorous questions, and taking individual positions on big-picture policy matters that they have direct control over. After all, Denver voters elected the school board; they didn’t vote for Marrero.

After the board met behind closed doors in a marathon five-hour executive session on March 23, they unveiled a memorandum temporarily lifting the ban on SROs. Then, without any public discussion, they voted unanimously to approve the measure. If the board can develop a school safety policy change behind closed doors, why can’t they do so in public?

Moreover, had the effort to censure Anderson for breaking confidentiality moved forward, it would have deflected from the fact that the entire board met behind closed doors — illegally. “It is a clear-cut violation of the open meetings law,” Steve Zansberg, a First Amendment attorney in Denver and president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, told The Gazette. “They clearly adopted a position by agreeing in advance of a full public vote. They’re not allowed to make a decision behind closed doors.”

Why didn’t the board allow the public to see this debate? The answer may lie in the DPS board’s recent history of holding long executive sessions for dubious reasons.

For example, on Nov. 28, Anderson, Quattlebaum and Scott Esserman pushed for an executive session explicitly because they wanted to prevent the board’s well-earned reputation for dysfunction from getting even worse. They didn’t try to hide it: Quattlebaum argued public discussion would “create a narrative out there that doesn’t need to be created.” Anderson echoed her sentiments and asserted, “(W)e need to have the conversation privately, regardless of whatever the content is.” Except state law sets the standards for what justifies executive session — not the whims of the board.

They ultimately held off on going private until their subsequent Dec. 15 meeting. By then, the board finally generated their public reasons for the executive session, vaguely referencing the superintendent’s contract and legal questions regarding pending litigation. They met privately for four hours, wrapping at 11:30 p.m.

Let’s be real: The March 23 executive session was business as usual for the DPS board — the latest instance of a marathon meeting held behind closed doors to avoid public scrutiny. This time, unlike in December, they left the March meeting with a new policy — making it a flagrant breach of the law.

Denver’s school board exemplifies a persistent pattern of non-transparency and unaccountability. Board members claim to care about school safety, but when push comes to shove, they simply speak platitudes or take it private. In truth, the DPS board appears more interested in disposing of their own accountability than in proactively and openly addressing the grave crises before them.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on News/Talk 710 KNUS. Reach Jimmy online at JimmySengenberger.com or on Twitter @SengCenter.