The Colorado State Board of Education is the elected oversight board for the Colorado Department of (K-12) Education, and fuller descriptions of the many educational and budgetary responsibilities the Board actually has will be listed in the next section. This year’s election will feature a statewide, at-large race for the first time in decades, and the at-large race is the only State Board of Education race Boulder voters will see on this year’s ballot.

Until last year’s redistricting, the Board had seven members, one from each Congressional district in Colorado. But after the 2020 Census, Colorado gained an 8th Congressional District, and there will be an election this year for a State Board member from the 8th District. Normally, it’s best to have governing bodies be odd-numbered in membership to minimize the likelihood of tied votes. So, in 2022, State of Colorado voters will choose a statewide (at-large) Board member, which would make the Board nine members beginning in 2023.

The at-large Board member would not have veto power or any additional voting power, but they will be able to say they were elected in a statewide vote, which is a factor that might carry some weight during Board discussions. There are four candidates in this race, so the candidate with the most votes will win, and it’s not necessary for the winner to reach 50% of the vote or more. State Board of Education members are elected to four-year terms, and members are term-limited after two terms.

What Does The State Board of Education Do?

Readers might have time to visit the State Board’s website to pore through tons of information about what the Board does, or maybe not. But for starters, the Board oversees the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), which is one of the largest departments in State of Colorado government if only in terms of sheer, staggering numbers. In a nutshell, CDE’s budget for 2022 was about $7.2 billion, and the current statewide system includes 178 school districts, 1,888 schools, 53,000 teachers, 3,200 administrators, and 905,000 public school students.

For a really abbreviated CliffsNotes version of the State Board’s responsibilities:

  • Approves the Department of Education budget
  • Makes rules, regulations, and policies that govern the Colorado Department of Education, public education including pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, adult education, and public libraries
  • Appoints the Commissioner of Education (the head of CDE) and the Director of State Board Relations
  • Employs personnel of the Department of Education
  • Accredits public school districts
  • Distributes federal and state funds
  • Regulates educator licensing
  • Appoints advisory committees
  • Submits recommendations for educational improvements to the General Assembly and Governor

But the description and bullet points above are pretty dry, no?

State Board of Education races are partisan, and issues the Board addresses sometimes wind up being debated along partisan lines. For one example, the Board has been involved for years in discussions around how to implement a state law passed in 2019. Part of this law requires social studies classes to include information about the contributions and experiences of LGBTQ Americans and those from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups, according to Chalkbeat Colorado.

In short, the Chalkbeat story linked above illustrates how Democrats on the State Board fought against removing references to LGBTQ people from educational material presented to students in fourth grade or younger, while at least one Republican was quoted saying LGBTQ discussions were more appropriate for older students.

This is just one example of the type of issue that might wind up in Board discussions, and I highly recommend more research for those who are interested. For a couple other recent issues that made the news:

So, maybe voters shouldn’t sleep on the State Board of Education race! But for now, on to the candidates for the Board’s at-large seat.

Kathy Plomer, Democratic

Kathy Plomer

Kathy Plomer is making her third run for elected office in 2022. She won four-year terms on the Adams 12 Five Star Schools Board of Education in both 2013 and 2017, winning her District 3 election narrowly in 2013 but winning re-election in 2017 by about 67%-33%. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science with a public service concentration, then earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan.

Professionally, she worked in the public health field for about 30 years, including working for the Tri-County Health Department, and said through her website that she worked in a variety of roles. This has included work as an HIV/AIDS educator in the earlier days of this health crisis, working for early detection of breast cancer, working to keep “big tobacco (her words)” off of school grounds, and most recently assisting COVID-impacted people with access to food, health care and housing.

In education, she served as President of the Adams 12 Board, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), as president of her local Parent Teacher Organization, and as a member of the local District Accountability Committee. In 2022, Adams 12 reports having 36,000 students and over 4,400 staff members, just for illustration about the size of the district.

In the 2022 race for State Board of Education, Plomer’s policy positions include:

  • Ensuring that the K-12 system provides “pathways to prepare students for college, or to enter the workforce with a good-paying job straight out of high school.”
  • Retaining high-quality professional educators by paying them what they’re worth and respecting the work they do every day in the classroom.
  • Supporting public communications about school achievement, goals, budget priorities, and statistics, along with parent and community involvement in educational issues.

Campaign Website: https://plomerforcolorado.com/

Dan Maloit, Republican

Dan Maloit

Dan Maloit of Erie, Colorado, works in the medical device industry. According to his website, he attended the University of Colorado and enlisted while in college in the Colorado National Guard and joined the Army ROTC. After graduating and commissioning as an officer, he served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He earned a Green Beret and served in the 5th Special Forces Group. While in the Army, he deployed to Iraq twice, then to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Afghanistan.

He does not appear to have run for elected office before this year’s campaign for the State Board of Education. He founded Colorado’s Moms and Dads in the spring of 2021 to organize support for “kid-focused parent candidates” for school boards across Colorado. The Colorado’s Moms and Dads platform includes:

  • School Boards must prioritize the right of all American Children to an exceptional, free, and non-partisan public education.
  • Teachers must be professional, well-compensated, and in the classroom – a lesson we all learned from the disaster of “remote learning.”
  • Schools must be safe, respectful, and calm environments for our children to learn how to explore the world and solve problems.
  • Literacy, the scientific method, math, and history must be prioritized in our public schools, with dogmas left at the front-door.

Maloit also founded the Colorado Alliance for In-Person Learning during the earlier part of the COVID pandemic, an organization that he said in this linked letter represented about 6,000 families. As the title suggests, the organization supported a return to in-person learning as opposed to remote learning, and Maloit said in his letter that online learning wasn’t effective for all students and might have even had impacts on emotional or mental health.

Today, Maloit’s policy positions listed on his website seem consistent with his involvement in both Colorado’s Moms and Dads and Colorado Alliance for In-Person Learning:

  • Maloit said pandemic decisions around public schools have resulted in “serious academic and physiological damage” to students, and he supports a return to regular in-person schooling.
  • He believes there are other forms of virus mitigation beside remote learning, including what he called a “robust vaccination program.”
  • Maloit supports teaching students academics, not spending time on “political indoctrination or social engineering,” saying “curriculum should avoid political dogmas that threaten our unity as Americans–no matter what side of the political aisle they stem from.”

Campaign Website: https://www.danmaloitforcolorado.com/

Ryan Van Gundy, Libertarian

Ryan Van Gundy is making his second run for elected office, having run unsuccessfully for the Colorado House of Representatives in House District 29 in 2020. He did an interview with the Denver Post for his HD 29 campaign, and in it listed education reform as a top priority.

According to the Ballotpedia website, Van Gundy is a U.S. Navy veteran, and he moved to Colorado after six years in the service. He then attended Red Rocks Community College and started working toward a degree in education, but he instead took a job in the information technology field.

His priorities for this race include:

  • Providing an “efficient robust education” that fits all citizens.
  • Allowing for school of choice, as well a STEAM oriented curriculum.
  • Educator hiring and retention.
  • Safer schools, and making Colorado the number 1 state for education

Eric Bodenstab, Unity Party

Eric Bodenstab ran for Vice President of the U.S. in 2020 as the running mate of Bill Hammons, founder of the Unity Party, and Bodenstab was the running mate for Hammons’ 2018 Governor of Colorado campaign. He also ran for Boulder City Council in around 2005. None of these campaigns were successful.

As of early October 2022, neither the website listed below nor a separate website seemed to have any information about his run for State Board of Education.

Campaign Website: https://unityparty.us/candidates/eric-bodenstab/

Richard’s Take

Vote Plomer. I think she’s very clearly the best candidate in this race, plus she has eight years in actually overseeing a fairly large school district, so she should be well-versed in many key educational issues before taking office. To me, it’s admirable that Maloit got involved with educational activist organizations, even if I wouldn’t support the aims of these organizations. However, activism is just not the same as extended service in school board governance when it comes to gaining relevant direct experience for a State Board that’s in charge of matters including hiring, budgets, and curriculum.

There’s also the factor of which political party will hold the Board majority beginning in 2023. Currently, the Board is made up of four Democrats and three Republicans. Between the at-large race and 2022 races in Congressional Districts – notably an expected competitive race in the new 8th District – the future Board majority is uncertain.

In my opinion, this race is one of the most important on this year’s ballot, and I’m not yet convinced a lot of people outside of education specialists know this. I don’t think I have to spend a lot of time discussing the differences between Democrats and some modern Republicans when it comes to public education policy, but here are a few top-level concerns, hopefully plainly stated.

  • Public Education Funding: Democrats tend to support robust public education funding, while Republicans have fought against recent statewide ballot measures that would have provided better K-12 funding (examples: Prop 103 and Prop CC).
  • Charters and Vouchers: Republicans often support “school choice,” which in a nutshell might mean choices like home-schooling, charter schools, or vouchers for private schooling. Democrats typically oppose using public funding for home-schooling or vouchers, while opinions on funding charter schools might be mixed because they are technically public schools with some differing standards.
  • Race Education: If you see a political candidate criticizing Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, it’s a safe bet to guess they’re Republican or right-leaning. While CRT is rarely if ever actually taught in Colorado K-12 schools, many Democrats support teaching about racial issues such as slavery or civil rights in a way that at least includes additional viewpoints from those who suffered disadvantages (or worse) because of their race.

Majority control of a board or City Council or branch of Congress can at times matter more than the individual personalities. That’s because majorities understand they can set an agenda and they’ll generally have the votes to get their proposals passed or defeat ideas coming from the “other side.”

Readers might not need to go any further on this concept than to consider what happened to the University of Colorado Board of Regents when the majority flipped from Republican to Democratic in 2020. The new majority severed ties with a Republican CU President (Mark Kennedy) brought to Colorado via the University of North Dakota by the former Republican majority, and today there’s a Democratic President in place (Todd Saliman) who came to the job with extensive experience within the CU system.

Flipping control of the State Board of Education could bring about a situation similar to how CU wound up with Kennedy, and I don’t think I’m fear-mongering here. The Board has the completely legal power to hire a new Commissioner of Education and Department of Education personnel. Change within a huge organization is typically slow, but people in leadership roles can accelerate change, for better or for worse. Hopefully the Boulder-area voters likely to read this piece will remember the importance of preventing a conservative takeover of the State Board of Education and vote for Kathy Plomer.