In Aurora, voters will select three new board members to lead the city’s school district this November.
Five candidates are running to fill three seats on the seven-member school board.
There are no incumbents running this election, but two of the candidates, Amber Drevon and Barbara Yamrick, have previously served on the school board.
To help voters learn more about the Aurora candidates before voting, Chalkbeat sent them each the same questions. Below are their responses, which have been lightly edited for clarity.
In their responses, candidates referred to Blueprint APS. That’s the name of the district’s facilities education plan currently being created. The district needs to address the challenge of declining enrollment in some areas, making it more expensive to operate small schools, while also dealing with a planned surge in housing development in other areas that will create a need for new schools.
The district has mapped out geographical regions and is recruiting design committee members for each region. By spring, the district could use the plan to produce recommendations for schools that should be “repurposed.” The three new board members will join the four veterans elected in 2017 in voting on those recommendations. You can read more about the plan here.
To use our survey, readers can select specific races, then click on candidates’ names to show or hide their responses.
For more information about this year’s election, click here for our previous coverage.