Denver Public Schools’ officials entered 2025 promising greater transparency and left the year defending how often they broke it.

Board members on two-member committees — which must hold public meetings — met without notice to renegotiate the superintendent’s contract, and revise policy language.

The Denver school board has long faced criticism for operating behind closed doors and board members continued to brush this aside, insisting they operate in a transparent manner.

“We are transparent,” former Director Michelle Quattlebaum had said. “This has been one of the most transparent boards that I can think of.”

In fact, the public got outcomes, not the deliberations.

Because these committees are considered public bodies under Colorado law, they are required to notice meetings and allow the public to observe, raising concerns about violating the open meetings law.

“This is not an isolated incident,” Steve Zansberg, a First Amendment attorney who represents The Denver Gazette and other media companies, has said about the board’s actions.

“I think it’s irrefutable that there is a pattern of conduct that the district has not abided by the state’s transparency laws.”

And that was the smaller story.

The big story was financial.

An audit revealed what had been hiding in plain sight: DPS owes more than it owns. The imbalance stems from years of aggressive borrowing — both through lease-financing schemes, such as a deal that handed over to a separate entity about two dozen schools for $10 and through the district’s steady drumbeat of major bond requests every four years.

The district’s use of Certificates of Participation (COPs) — a financial tool being challenged in court — has allowed DPS to take on long-term debt without voter approval, raising questions about compliance with state law.

Lisi Owen, a civil rights attorney and founder of Vanguard Justice LLC — a firm focused on exposing public corruption — is representing the parent advocacy group Mamás de DPS in a lawsuit challenging the district’s lease-financing strategy. Owen, who made a failed bid for Denver district attorney in 2023, argued the leasing arrangements violate the state constitution.

“The DPS leasing scheme is the most nefarious, underhanded thing that I’ve seen in my career,” Owen has said.

COPs — Owen insisted — creates a “system of siphoning resources from children to profiteers.”

District officials rejected this characterization, downplaying the risks.

“The property could, theoretically, become collateral,” DPS Chief Financial Officer Chuck Carpenter has said.

Carpenter doesn’t believe the district is in danger of losing any of the public’s buildings under the COP structure.

“This never happens,” Carpenter said. “It’s not something that is practically possible.”

Together, the governance lapses and the financial strain point to a district making some of its most significant decisions out of public view, while confronting a structural debt load that could shape its future for decades.

Heading into 2026, the district faces declining enrollment, aging buildings, a heavy debt service obligation and a community demanding clearer governance. Whether the board can restore public trust will depend on how it addresses both its transparency lapses and its long-term financial liabilities.