The Denver Post and five other Colorado news organizations sued Denver Public Schools on Friday, accusing the district’s elected Board of Education of breaking the law by creating public policy in secret the day after a student shot two administrators inside East High School.
The lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, alleges the school board violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law and demands the release of the recording of its closed-door meeting on March 23.
The board members met privately for five hours that day before emerging and voting to approve, without discussion, a written memorandum directing Superintendent Alex Marrero to put armed police officers back in Denver high schools as a safety response to the East High shooting.
The lawsuit alleges the Board of Education violated state law in two ways. First, board members improperly declared the meeting an executive session because they weren’t specific enough about what they planned to discuss out of public view, the complaint says.
Colorado law requires elected boards to tell the public the “particular topic” to be discussed in executive session. The DPS board’s agenda for its March 23 executive session said the members would be discussing the following in a closed session:
Matters required to be kept confidential by law
Rules and regulations as a result of the incident on March 22, a reference to the East shooting
Specialized details of security arrangements or investigations related to the March 22 incident
Discussion of individual students in relation to the March 22 incident
But the lawsuit alleges the Board of Education needed to have alerted the public that it specifically planned to discuss its 2020 policy that removed police from schools, since the members emerged from the closed meeting with a prepared memorandum reversing that decision pending formulation of a new district safety plan.
That means, the lawsuit alleges, the board also violated the law by making policy decisions during a closed session. The policy underlying the Colorado Open Meetings Law is that “the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret,” the lawsuit notes.
“No public discussion, whatsoever, preceded the board’s historic about-face concerning its policy of preventing armed ‘school resource officers’ inside the district’s high schools. None,” attorney Rachael Johnson, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, wrote in the complaint.
“It is clear and irrefutable that the board had already decided, behind closed doors, to adopt the position or resolution in the memorandum that they then unanimously voted to approve in public without discussion — a mere ‘rubber stamping’ of their earlier decision.”
DPS spokesman Scott Pribble on Friday said the district would not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit was filed by Johnson and attorney Steven D. Zansberg on behalf of a coalition of news organizations that include The Post, Chalkbeat Colorado, Colorado Newsline, KDVR Fox 31, KUSA 9News and the Denver Gazette/Colorado Politics, all of which filed requests under the Colorado Open Records Act for the recording of the closed meeting. DPS denied each of those requests.
The news organizations are asking a judge to release the full recording of the DPS board’s five-hour closed-door meeting because that meeting “was not an executive session but an unlawfully closed public meeting,” according to the lawsuit.
DPS, in its responses denying the news organizations’ public-records requests, acknowledged that it has a recording of the closed session on March 23.
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