Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.
A Denver Public Schools mother who does dropout prevention work for a nearby school district is running to represent northeast Denver on the school board.
Timiya Jackson is vying for the District 4 seat currently held by Michelle Quattlebaum, who is running for reelection. Jackson will face the incumbent and at least one other opponent.
Jackson, 35, said she’s running because the community is “calling for a different type of leadership.” She said the board needs to better understand how DPS is spending its money to ensure that “every dollar is getting as close to students as possible.” The board should also more regularly discuss students’ academic performance, she said.
“Equity without progress monitoring is actually not equity,” Jackson said.
Four seats on the seven-member Denver school board are up for grabs in the Nov. 4 election, which comes at a key time. Declining enrollment has led to more than a dozen school closures in the past two years, and a new policy for low-performing schools could lead to more closures.
The district’s graduation rate is up, but some students are still recovering from pandemic-era learning loss. DPS has found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration over an all-gender restroom and its support for immigrant students. And the board recently ordered an investigation of one of its members over allegations of racial discrimination.
After studying to be a teacher in college, Jackson said she worked at nonprofit organizations in Pittsburgh, including the mentoring network Big Brothers Big Sisters. She moved to Denver in 2015 and worked as the before- and after-school program coordinator and then director of student services at High Point Academy charter school in Aurora.
Jackson said she then served as the dean of students at a DPS charter school called The CUBE, which closed in 2021 due to low enrollment. After the closure, Jackson became executive director of the Heart and Hand Center, a youth-focused Denver nonprofit that provides after-school programming and other services.
Jackson is now working as a re-engagement specialist for the Douglas County School District, helping students who have dropped out or are on the verge of doing so.
“My entire career has enabled me to support young people,” Jackson said.
Jackson is the mother of one DPS student who attends a high school she declined to name to protect her child’s privacy.
If elected, Jackson said she’d want to reexamine the school board’s governance structure. She said she’d propose a “hybrid” way of governing that would give the board more insight into district data and performance metrics to make sure resources are being used wisely.
“When we are not meeting the metrics and not hitting our mission and vision, let’s make sure we’re having radical honest dialogue out there so we can monitor and adjust,” Jackson said.
She said she’d push the board to focus more on math and literacy, including by screening older students for reading difficulties such as dyslexia to help close test score gaps. DPS should also expand its partnerships with community organizations, Jackson said, both during the school day and between the hours of 2 and 6 p.m., when youth violence can spike.
Enrollment in DPS is expected to decline 8% by 2029. The current board paused enrollment-based school closures after a spate of them this spring. But Jackson said she knows future boards will likely have to vote on whether to close more schools for low enrollment.
If enrollment-based closures are necessary, Jackson said they should be conducted “with the community.” The district should also have a solid plan to support the affected families because school closures can cause trauma, she said.
When it comes to closures based on low academic performance, Jackson said she believes that “our students are more than their test scores.” As a board member, she said she would want a holistic view of a school’s performance, including how it serves students with disabilities.
Jackson said she believes in “public dollars for public schools,” which she said includes traditional district-run schools and independently run charter schools.
One of the most important jobs of the school board is to manage the superintendent. Jackson said any evaluation of the superintendent’s performance should be based on a “collective body of evidence.” She said board members should treat each other and the superintendent in a way that keeps in mind that “our students are watching.”
“It’s important to me that I have a good working relationship with the superintendent and my board colleagues,” Jackson said.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
