Superintendent Alex Marrero said Thursday that he and Mayor Michael Hancock did discuss the use of an executive order to put armed police back into Denver’s schools following the shooting at East High School — something the mayor’s office continues to deny.
“The mayor and I have had that conversation,” Marrero told The Denver Post.
The dispute between Denver Public Schools and the mayor’s office began earlier this week when board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson alleged Marrero had informed the Board of Education that, if the board itself didn’t act, there was a plan for Hancock to issue an executive order declaring a public health emergency in order to station police inside schools.
The DPS board voted in 2020 to remove armed school resource officers from Denver’s schools.
Mike Strott, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, on Thursday denied a conversation about executive orders took place when asked about Marrero’s comment.
“The mayor did not propose an executive order or threaten an executive order,” he said. “Again, he can’t issue an executive order in this situation.”
Marrero did not elaborate on his discussions with Hancock during a short phone call with The Post.
On Monday, both Marrero and school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán issued statements following Anderson’s allegations in which they said they couldn’t reveal what was discussed during the board’s closed executive session following the shooting at East.
But Gaytán, in a memo reprimanding Anderson for publicly disclosing information from the closed session, said the superintendent and the mayor had had a private conversation about “the creation of an executive order to address school safety.” (Anderson has said Marrero told him and Gaytán about the discussion with Hancock prior to the executive session.)
The Board of Education voted last week to put officers back in the city’s high schools after meeting for five hours in that closed session, which took place the day after two administrators were shot and wounded by a student at East. It was the second shooting at the school within about six weeks and the district had been facing calls for tighter security.
Anderson was one of the leaders of the 2020 effort to remove police from Denver’s schools and held a news conference earlier this week to answer questions about the board’s decision, which suspended school board policy barring resource officers through June.
A day before the board’s vote, Marrero said he would put armed police at East and all of the city’s comprehensive high schools, acknowledging that, at the time, doing so “likely violates” school board policy.
Gaytán sent Anderson a memo Wednesday, saying he repeatedly violated board policies by speaking to media outlets and emailing “antagonizing responses to constituents.” The Post obtained a copy of the memo on Thursday.
“…I attempted to address this privately but was unsuccessful,” Gaytán said in a statement. “My desire was not to make this public. Unfortunately, Vice President Anderson has now taken this public by sharing it with others.”
Anderson’s allegations about the mayor’s discussion of an executive order “disclosed information divulged to the board in the executive session,” she wrote in the memo.
“I can confirm this communication does confirm the existence of the executive order I mentioned on Monday,” Anderson said in a statement. “I look forward to further board action on this, but first we must prioritize the return of students and staff after spring break.”
The Post requested the meeting minutes and recording of the school board’s Thursday closed session under Colorado’s public records act, but the district denied the request.
Elected boards can only go into executive session under Colorado law to discuss certain things.
Denver’s school board cited state law that it said allowed members to hold conversations behind closed doors to discuss security arrangements, any investigations stemming from the shooting and to discuss individual students.
But when the board members emerged from the executive session, they had a one-and-a-half-page memo that detailed their changed position on police in schools. Colorado’s open meetings law prohibits the adoption of positions during executive session, said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.
“There’s a question here about their decision-making in an executive session because they came out of this executive session with something prepared,” he said. “To me, that raises questions about the compliance with the open meetings law.”
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