Denver school board schedules vote on whether to release video of closed-door meeting that violated law

Denver’s school board has scheduled a special meeting Friday to decide whether to release the video recording of its five-hour, closed-door meeting the day after the March shooting inside East High School.

The announcement comes nearly a month after a judge ruled the private meeting violated Colorado law and ordered Denver Public Schools to publicly release the recording. That ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by The Denver Post and other Colorado news organizations.

“Finally our community can have some closure IF the Board votes to release this footage,” board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said on Twitter on Thursday.

In an emailed statement to The Denver Post, DPS spokesman Bill Good confirmed that the topic of the special meeting set for 10 a.m. Friday “will be to release the video of the executive session from March.” A half-hour discussion is scheduled.

That board’s March 23 meeting took place the day after a student shot and wounded two administrators inside Denver’s largest high school. The board emerged from its closed-door meeting and voted unanimously to temporarily suspend its 2020 policy banning police officers inside schools.

Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen ruled the executive session violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law because the topics discussed during the meeting were not properly noticed beforehand and the law bars the creation of public policy in secret.

The deadline to release the video was extended since the original ruling, and the board missed the latest cutoff of noon July 11 without having been granted an extension or stay by the Colorado Court of Appeals.

By not releasing the video by 12:01 p.m. July 11, the school board violated the court’s order, the news organizations alleged in a motion asking the judge to hold the board in contempt.