Breaking news can look effortless. What readers don’t see is the chase — the hunches, the false starts and the dots that don’t quite connect until they do.

I spoke on the Boardhawk podcast recently about what it took to break one of those stories. Here’s how it unfolded.

In May, when the Denver Public Schools Board of Education extended Superintendent Alex Marrero’s contract, something was off. The board had met only once in executive session. Yet, without public debate, the new contract language appeared and sailed through on a 5–2 vote.

Something didn’t sit right.

Here’s what it took to break the story on how the school board may have run afoul of Colorado’s open meetings law, according to legal experts, by channeling discussions about Marrero’s contract extension through the district’s attorney and a secret, two-member committee.

I started with an email received from Board President Carrie Olson — sent from her personal account — to an open records expert, asking if a two-member committee to collect input from their colleagues would break state open-meeting law.

The short answer was “yes.”

It looked like a good scoop. But there was no evidence Olson had moved forward with a committee — at first.

I hit a dead-end when Denver Public Schools Board of Education Director Michelle Quattlebaum said the proposed contract language was discussed in a March 20 executive session. Because executive sessions are secretive (for good reason) this is difficult, if not impossible, to prove or disprove.

Fast forward to June.

In a workshop meeting to discuss committee policies, Director Xóchitl Gaytán was confused about the type of committee. One in which board members sit on for other agencies? Or one created by the board, like the committee created to “move forward the superintendent’s contract extension work,” she asked.

This was the first public acknowledgment that such a committee even existed.

And there it was: the admission that revived my story.

That’s how the thread unraveled.

You can catch the full story in The Denver Gazette, but for more on the behind-the-scenes, listen to an interview I gave to Boardhawk.