Campaigns and electionsColorado Votes 2023Jeffco Public Schools

Voter guide: Jeffco school board candidates answer 7 questions about the issues

By 
Yesenia Robles
 | October 13, 2023, 10:36pm UTC
A close up of ballots in a person’s hands
All Jeffco voters will get to select one candidate for the District 3 and District 4 school board race in the Nov. 7 election.  (Jason Connolly /AFP/ via Getty Images)

Leer en español.

In Jefferson Public Schools, voters are selecting two new school board members this year.

There are five candidates running in total. Two, Michelle Applegate and Thomas Wicke, are running for a seat representing Jeffco’s District 3. Three candidates, Amara Hildebrand, Joel Newton, and Erin Kenworthy, are running to represent District 4. 

All Jeffco voters will get to select one candidate for each race in the Nov. 7 election. 

Applegate and Kenworthy have the endorsement of the Jefferson County Educators Association, the teachers union. 

Since this election will only bring two new members to the five-member school board, the current union-led majority of the board will not change, but could still add new perspectives.

To help readers learn more about the candidates, we asked them each the same set of questions. Read their answers below. Responses may have been edited for formatting, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

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