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The principal of Goldrick Elementary had a question for the “super, super smart third graders” lined up on the playground on the first day of school Monday.
“Raise your hand if you remember one of the rules about being on the swings at Goldrick,” Principal Taryn Rawson said. “Bella, loud and proud. What’s one of our rules?”
“No swinging side to side,” the girl said. A classmate offered another rule: No twisting.
Two grown men — one in cowboy boots, the other in dress shoes — hopped on the swings. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston twirled around until the metal chains of his swing were knotted up. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero did the same.
“Noooooo!” the third graders cried in unison.
The playground rules demonstration was one of the most lighthearted moments on Marrero’s back-to-school tour as he visited classrooms and spoke with students at the start of the 2026-27 school year. Colorado’s largest school district faces several changes and challenges this year, including a new bell-to-bell cellphone ban, the potential for more school closures, a pair of fights with the Trump administration, and whether Denver voters will approve a $44 million tax increase for public schools in November.
There is also simmering tension between Marrero and the school board, which is responsible for hiring and firing him. Only board President Xóchitl Gaytán and member Marlene De La Rosa accompanied Marrero as he visited CMS Community School, Goldrick Elementary, Rocky Mountain Prep Westwood, DSST College View, and Denison Montessori in southwest Denver.
At Goldrick, Marrero listened as fifth grade teacher Craig Sellers went over his classroom rules. Rule number one? No touching. Rule number two? Stay in your seat. Rule number three? No cussing.
“I’ll try,” a boy sitting in the front row said quietly.
Marrero said he wanted to visit Sellers’ classroom because his students had shown tremendous growth on the state standardized math and literacy tests last spring. Johnston, a former teacher, called Sellers “the LeBron James of reading instruction.”
“You all drew the lucky class,” Marrero told the students.
Marrero also visited two charter schools, which are authorized by the district but overseen by independent nonprofit organizations. The stops were part showcase, part information sharing, as Marrero asked charter leaders about their start dates and student-to-staff ratios. Marrero has at times taken a hard line with charter schools, pushing low-performing ones to close.
Rocky Mountain Prep Westwood offered Marrero and the board members fruit smoothies, breakfast burritos, and branded T-shirts and frisbees. The school put a children’s book that Marrero wrote, called “Ask My Amigos,” in its book vending machine by the front door.
Charter schools create their own calendars, and Rocky Mountain Prep Westwood had already been in session for a week. Marrero watched as sixth graders defined the word “authoritarian” and seventh graders wrote about how China portrayed the Cultural Revolution in propaganda. The teacher awarded them an extra point if they used the word “pernicious” in their answer.
At DSST College View, Marrero and the board members met with a roundtable of eighth graders before a trio of seniors led them through the charter school.
De La Rosa asked one of the seniors how he felt about the new cellphone ban. She said she’d gotten several emails from upset parents in the past week.
“I think it’s helped me a lot because I’m focusing,” said the senior, Angel. “I don’t have my phone in my pocket. Nothing is going to distract me.”
One of the eighth graders had a question for Marrero: “What’s your favorite DPS school?”
“What I’m supposed to say is that I don’t have a favorite, just like when they ask you who is your favorite child,” said Marrero, who was wearing a jersey with the logos of district-run high schools — but not charters — on the back. “But I answer the question. … It is Northfield.”
He ticked off several reasons, including that Northfield High, a district-run school that opened in 2015 in northeast Denver, “puts colleges to shame.” Marrero also said that he lives near Northfield and sometimes walks the grounds, and that the school had recently been ranked the best high school in Colorado by U.S. News and World Report.
The DSST principal handed Marrero a gift: a DSST College View baseball jersey.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
