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The Denver school board is set to publicly discuss alleged violations of school board policy by member John Youngquist at its Jan. 9 meeting.
The announcement came at the end of a board meeting Thursday. Board members Michelle Quattlebaum, Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, and Scott Esserman requested that the Jan. 9 school board work session agenda include a discussion of the alleged policy violations, Gaytán said.
The board did not go into details about Youngquist’s alleged violations. But Quattlebaum referenced “behavior unbecoming of a board member” toward Denver Public Schools staff, and that the board had been accused by one of its members of “a lack of transparency” and of violating Colorado open meetings law.
Gaytán said the board had been “accused by one of our colleagues of violating state law,” a charge that she said was unfounded.
After Thursday’s meeting, Youngquist said that “my interest is that all conversations relating to board members in an executive session are public and transparent conversations.”
He also said he sought to ensure “that the nature of executive sessions is appropriately represented in the agenda, which would mean that the name of the individual whose situation is discussed is available to the public on the agenda.”
Youngquist was elected to the board in 2023. He is a former DPS principal and teacher.
When a board member is accused of such a violation, the board president or another board member is supposed to first have a “private conversation” with the accused board member, according to board policy. “If the alleged violation continues,” the board policy says the full board is supposed to discuss it in a public work session.
Board President Carrie Olson said Thursday she could not comment on the situation. Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble said he could not comment either.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
